You don't write as Destriarch though, do you? You write as Ashok Desai. Someone reading the forums has no way to connect you the poster to your game, Fearmonger, do they? If we're going to get past standard internet anonymity and start discussing things like adults, it helps to have a "proper" name to call people, even if it is their pen name.

No, but the meaning of the rule could be misconstrued. Also, does this mean I need to have my forum handle changed? I don't mind changing it to Ashok Desai, but I don't know how.

Ash

Its worth pointing out that the word 'Dick' is regarded with different levels of severity in different countries. In some parts of the US it seems to be quite a serious swear word, in some parts of the UK not a swear word at all, which is something I've run afoul of previously.

As to what impression it gives of the discourse on this site I have to say it's pretty accurate, there is a fair deal of (unnecessary?) swearing on these forums! Or has been in the past. If we want people to behave in a more suitable way for the public (I won't say mature, because I don't think there is much of a link between swearing and maturity) then we should probably change the rules text as well.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/ - http://cubicle-7.com/starblazer/

Ash, the rules reflect the forum. If people are unhappy with swearing, then the general site tone will not work for them. They can continue on their merry way. They'll hear a whole lot worse at the average con, likely about themselves and their product.

Real names is essential. Basically it stops people behaving like anonymous trolls and gets them to own their words. It stops people bringing Internet forum baggage here and gets others to treat them as real people.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

What, everyone on the forum? I don't think I swear all that much myself and there are plenty of other people who I've not seen a bad word pass their keyboards. Now people who hang around are going to see swearwords, that's pretty plain. Should they already be seeing swearwords on the rules and information page before they've had a chance to form an opinion of us? First impressions last, and I don't know if that's the kind of image I'd like to see associated with the stands we have at conventions or other things of that nature either. But my main point is: it wouldn't hurt to use a different, inoffensive phrase. If you really think people ought to be warned that there may be naughty words here, then put up something that says that instead. You don't have to swear to prove that the site contains swearing. Would anyone really object if we didn't swear in what amounts to our official rules?

As for the real names point, how are you going to check it is their real name? You can't force someone's real name out of them, all you can do is enforce a policy where people have to use a name that sounds real. It's going a bit far to ask for proof of ID just to join an internet forum. Anyway, what happens if we get ten John Smiths? Numbering system? Overall though, and I gotta say it, if we want people to come here then we have to make it welcoming, not keep dropping barriers in front of them.

Ash

I think its a significant point that many people in the small press scene find the Forge derived rule of using your real name to be helpful and welcoming. In fact to many its a given that anyone not using their real name has a reason not to.

To my mind that can create a nice disconnect with more regular forum culture where people revel in anonymity and act like dicks with impunity. Handles and nicks can actively encourage bad behaviour.

Given that most people here are publishers/writers or me and Paul Bourne, who thereby engage in financial transactions over the net, and have some desire to excercise some degree of mutualism asking for real names seems pretty reasonable.

You're being allowed a free pass on that rule Ashok so I'm a bit lost to your beef on that score, since pretty much no one else seems to have an issue (or a fake name). I dunno, but isn't asking for two rule changes, getting a change that applies only to you, and then hammering away at the other potentially dickish?

"Dont be a dick" actually seems like a fine phrase to me, much as I generally find bad language to be unprofessional, given my usual posting capacity representing my services/profession/experience. I do use the occasional swearword though being a human in a pretty in formal setting and I can't say I feel particularly offended by "dick". To coin a phrase. Its all pretty tame and public school. Gosh Ashers, don't be a dick old boy etc etc.

Perhaps in all fairness a substitution for bounder or cad could bring a certain something?

I do however like how it clearly puts the onus on the reader to think about what comprises "dickish" behaviour, and emphasises how distasteful the community finds it. Though of course I'm sure not all of us find actual dick distasteful.

Overall I'm happy though to assume that all of these points were extensively discussed by the site mandarins, and since they are clever chaps and ladies, who's wisdom and benevolence allows us to even converse in this manner, many of these points have been previously made and decided upon. So however strongly we might feel we need our special fake name status to continue (I personally am blessed with the real life name Thorin_McRaven1973 so have to use this dull pen name, ho hum.) eventually we will have to accept its a done deal and maybe try to think about why the decisions were made the way they were, and try to bring a little more signal to CE FM.

Hold on a second, am I understanding you correctly in that you think it's good that the reader has to decide what the rule means? Surely the point of a rule is to give an unambiguous representation?

Ash

Now you're just being silly. Go away and think about it instead of posting.

...yes.

I run a very successful, thriving games community based around CCGs. Have done for nearly nine years now. The basis of that community has always been respect, self-policing and the twat rule.

Respect - you respect other users, you respect the forums and you respect the reasons the forum exists.

Self-policing - the users know the score and they will step in and tell you when you are wrong. This usually is enough for people to stop it.

The Twat Rule - Are you being a twat? Is your behaviour likely to have made someone else say 'What a twat!'. If so, its wrong! Stop it!

Some forums and communities don't mind people being asshats. They tolerate it. They sometimes even encourage it. Some don't. I have seen the twat/dick/pillock/asshat/idiot/retard/numpty rule on a number of sites and it works. And for the people it doesn't work on ... no rule is ever going to work. And thats where those delightful words 'IP BAN' come in.

Similarly, in my experience, the one surefire way to double the chance of someone being any of those delightful words is using a pseudonym, for all of the reasons Jon has explained.

If we were the forum for the International Guild of Women's Institutes (Scones and Jam Consistency Sub-Committee) then maybe the lingo could be sweeter. But we're not. We're all grown-ups who understand full well what that sentence, presented in that way means. Sure, we can conjure the extremes of argument one way or another, but the bottom line is that it accurately represents the self-policing nature of people's contributions to this site in a short and functional way.

Now, there are games to be written and more importantly played. I certainly have no problems with these rules.

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Therefore as the graphite rod of eternity let me cool down the reactor of fate.

There is a simple set of statements that have been set up as the rules for this forum. A chunk of their meaning is implicit: that is, the way they are written tells us something about what the members of the core group who wrote them expect the style of discussion to be. If Ash or I or other people had written them they'd look different. Regardless, it's pretty easy to work out what they were supposed to be saying, and therefore what the deal is about playing in those people's sandpit.

Now if folks have substantive issues about what's there, this is indeed the place to raise it.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

Thanks guys for both explaining and clarifying. The rules are there for a reason, and those two in particular are not up for debate - objections and opinions have all been noted. Therefore this thread is now closed.

If you have any further commentary/questions on other aspects of the rules, please start a new thread.