JJ, on 12 January 2011 - 11:59 PM, said:
1. While this is a place for debate & discussion, please treat others with respect. Getting personal will see you suspended. Continued violation of this rule will see you banned.
2. Racism or sexual discrimination (including against one's gender or sexuality) will be met with an immediate ban.
3. Do not flame others. Strawman arguments will be frowned on and likely result in a suspension.
4. The OP has the right to set the terms of a discussion, however that does not mean they get to play moderator. Please respect the OP's wishes in respect to the framework of discussion. This is a trial rule. If it does not work out well, we will remove it.
5. If you post an excerpt from an article, please also post a link to the source.
6. Please post your topic in an appropriate sub-forum.
Quoted above are the current rules as set down by JJ, the forum Administrator. I would like to open a discussion on the forum rules, to see if any changes are necessary.
Firstly, I think the rules would work better if they were grouped into categories with individual subcategories under each category. We can broadly group the current rules into categories: Respect (1, 2, 3), Posting Rules (3, 4, 5, 6).
Secondly, each rule should have focus on a single topic. Rule 3 is particularly problematic because it addresses two separate topics. When citing Rule 3, it's necessary to clarify.
Thirdly, do we need additional rules? I'm particularly concerned when other posters freely cite statistics without providing a citation. Even if a citation is provided, make sure it's from a reliable source. I would also like more concrete guidelines on quoting external articles. I generally adhere to a 10% rule - quoting up to 10% of an article (by word count in electronic form) is OK because the Copyright Act allows this. Paywalls make things particularly difficult. If an article is behind a paywall, I think the onus is on the individual poster not to quote more of the article than can be seen by the general public, which is generally about one or two paragraphs.
BAM