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TFF Central => Suggestions => Topic started by: Bricket on March 31, 2017, 07:30:28 PM
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Hello everyone,
I would like to remove the rules around backseat modding since this is in my humble opinion a rule that shoudln't exist.
Punishing people for backseat modding is basically the mods admitting they weren't able to keep the situation under control.
My proposal is short: no longer punish backseat modding with a warning % but allow it.
Why allow it? When users remind other users about the rules this is positively perceived since it's just one user helping another and thus a positive low entry enforcement which shoudl be applaud at instead of punished.
Title changed on 02/04/2017 12.38 GMT+1
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Firstly, no. It does not mean we were unable to take action at the time, we all have lives outside of this forum and there is not always someone to watch for reports and take care of things the second it comes in. We don't get paid to do this, we do this voluntarily and on our own time when we have it. That being and allowing users to police others on rules leads to harassment eventually and requires us to actually step in and clean up a bigger mess than was there to begin with. You as users of the forum are responsible for hitting that report button if you see something out of place or clearly breaking rules. It helps us keep on top of things if you catch something we don't. Hope this clears things up.
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But is it needed to report of an user can intervene and prevent a mod sacrificing his valuable time to intervene and also prevent a potential warning level for the person who made the "error"? ;)
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The rule does imo serve a pretty good purpose; It's not as much about punishing someone for reminding someone else about a rule but more about preventing people from trying to take the role of moderator upon themselves as opposed to calling in one do deal with the situation. And a lot of the time it can lead to misinformation and all that because someone might suggest X is against the rules whilst backseat moderating when the person being told off did nothing wrong.
Friendly reminders aren't the problem here, as you say, but users creating an argument over whether or not a rule was broken or someone believing they know the rules better than someone else and acting as if they were a moderator is.
That said, one could question how strictly enforced this rule needs to be; A simple heads up here and there may be harmless enough that it might not warrant being considered a rulebreak. So perhaps it could be more lenient toward minor such infractions?
Basically more of a discouragement with a little bit of a gray zone rather than a hard rule of no backseat moderation whatsoever.
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But is it needed to report of an user can intervene and prevent a mod sacrificing his valuable time to intervene and also prevent a potential warning level for the person who made the "error"? ;)
1) It's why we're mods. We're not sacrificing anything. As Alistair said, we do this in our free time when we can (and want to).
2) The main reason for backseating to be a rule-breaking offense is mainly as it causes users to argue and make the whole forums sour. If there are consequences to it, then users won't backseat. Besides, no one enjoys a kill-joy, best to have mods as the kill-joys and have regular member simply enjoy their time on here.
3) Perhaps a good example is real-life too: We have the police. There are rules against people policing themselves. For good reason. Vigilante-behaviour is strongly discouraged for a variety of reasons. The main reason is to let the cops do the cop-work. They know the rules and can do things 'regular' non-cop people can't do. Helping the cops is fine, but being a cop when one is not is rather discouraged. It's also for the safety and well-being of the person themselves. So various reasons.
4) If you tell someone more than once to stop doing something and they keep continuing? They're clearly not listening? Just report, don't let it continue. It's not nice of them nor it's nice for you this thing is happening. When a mod steps in and sees it happening (on time) these things can be stopped sooner and less drama ensued.
And I agree with Timmy; Friendly reminders aren't a problem. However, as stated above, if someone would remind another person over and over again, or creating grounds for an argument, that's when the report-button should be clicked instead of backseat moderating.
There is a fine-line sometimes between a friendly reminder and backseating. We check case-by-case and determine per case if something is backseating or not.
Besides, we don't warn for any mis-reports. Best to click the report button if you think a rule is being broken. "Better be safe than sorry" kind of thing.
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1) It's why we're mods. We're not sacrificing anything. As Alistair said, we do this in our free time when we can (and want to).
But what for some reason this takes more than one day to notice, doesn't that mean the mods weren't watching the topic?
2) The main reason for backseating to be a rule-breaking offense is mainly as it causes users to argue and make the whole forums sour. If there are consequences to it, then users won't backseat. Besides, no one enjoys a kill-joy, best to have mods as the kill-joys and have regular member simply enjoy their time on here.
But isn't it better that a member intervenes quickly and prevents a potential punishment for the person and thus preventing a much bigger buzzkill by helping someone?
3) Perhaps a good example is real-life too: We have the police. There are rules against people policing themselves. For good reason. Vigilante-behaviour is strongly discouraged for a variety of reasons. The main reason is to let the cops do the cop-work. They know the rules and can do things 'regular' non-cop people can't do. Helping the cops is fine, but being a cop when one is not is rather discouraged. It's also for the safety and well-being of the person themselves. So various reasons.
Take this real life example:
you park your car wrong. Do you prefer your neighbour saying that you parked your car wrong and giving you a shot of parking it right or immedialty calling the cops and having your car towed away? ;)
4) If you tell someone more than once to stop doing something and they keep continuing? They're clearly not listening? Just report, don't let it continue. It's not nice of them nor it's nice for you this thing is happening. When a mod steps in and sees it happening (on time) these things can be stopped sooner and less drama ensued.
Here I agree with you, but a mod should only intervene after a while
I think we can all agree the consensus is as the following: don't punish someone for backseat modding nor give him a warming.
But removal of the rule should maybe not happen, just don't enforce it.
Yet I still pledge for a removal of said rule since it is redundant
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See, there is still a line between friendly reminder and the "bad" type of backseat moderation.
Sure mods are busy and can't always enforce the rules immediately for every situation but if it's a serious issue that requires more urgent action it's probably already at the point that backseat moderation will just lead to arguments and more trouble than when it started and will possibly even lead to more people getting in trouble over it rather than the single one that broke the rules in the first place.
Eventually, continued backseat moderation will more often than not just lead to people getting upset with you for telling them off all the time.
Briefly reminding someone that X is, in fact, against the rules is one thing; Asking someone to tone down a heated debate or a trying to intervene a drama that's happening or something like that will more likely just end up getting you involved in it and make an even bigger issue of it.
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1) a) Arguably, why did no one report it?
b) It was eventually all found out, and it didn't take a whole day ;)
c) Once again, we're all volunteers. We need the time to go through every single post, we do this in our free time. As of which, are you able to read and check every single post made on the forums? Certain threads (counting threads for example) a lot of posts can be made in such a short amount of time.
d) By not reporting it on time we have to spend in more time sorting this stuff out when we could have dealt with it from the start, thus giving us more work by not reporting it.
2) Hence the report button. You intervene on time by using that ;)
3) Friendly reminders are fine, but backseating is not. So more kind of like if someone parks their car wrong, you can say "Oh, perhaps you can take another look at that?". You give a friendly reminder. But if they don't listen and create an argument over it, then the police needs to step in.
4) That depends from situation to situation. The rules are there for a reason. I have seen in my time I've been on the forums that people remind people of the rules in a friendly manner and sometimes get quite angry responses from them. It all depends how you say it. But if you clearly say "Gjee, that is against the rules, you shouldn't do that" then... why don't you report it. Sometimes it might need a warning, or not. In certain cases we don't warn (be it because a rule is being broken or not) and sometimes send a friendly reminder to read the rules. We can also be lenient for a variety of reasons.
Moderators moderate and oversee the forums and its members. That also means we might know things 'regular' members don't which lets us as moderators have a better judgement how to deal with a situation.
As I've read we don't all agree as consensus to remove the rule or the punishment. Others and I have already stated it's there for a reason and I personally think it should stay. (Even before I became a mod, I should point out.)
There is nothing stopping anyone from pressing the report button to inform the moderation team and we want to enforce that we want to have people help us to make things easier, not harder.
(PS: Timmy, you worded that part really well. That's what I mean as well, thanks!)
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I think we have to make the distinction between frequent backseat modding or helping.
If there is a topic where someone frequenctly backseat mods then it means there are some issues with the subject or posts themselves and thus a mod should intervene to resolve the issues.
But helping is now also seen as backseat modding thus both cases lead to a punishment.
What becomes clear here is that the rule is archaic and should be modified and adapted to the way the forum works now.
Biggest advice I can give here to every mod on this forum: if you see someone frequently backseat modding, talk to the person and don't just give punishments because you want to apply the rules. Talking helps so much
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Reaction on Ventus-post.
1-2, why did no mod check it on time?
If you're volunteering this and you don't find out on time, shouldn't that mean that there is a shortage on staff?
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As said, it's looked at case-by-case :)
Reaction on Ventus-post.
1-2, why did no mod check it on time?
If you're volunteering this and you don't find out on time, shouldn't that mean that there is a shortage on staff?
Arguably I think there is a shortage of members reporting :P
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Looks like there is a need for some good ol' propaganda then :P
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I have seen in my time I've been on the forums that people remind people of the rules in a friendly manner and sometimes get quite angry responses from them. It all depends how you say it.
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Moderators moderate and oversee the forums and its members. That also means we might know things 'regular' members don't which lets us as moderators have a better judgement how to deal with a situation.
Yeah, very much agree there. I've been here for quite long as well (longer than most, I believe) and I may not be a mod but I can definitely say I've seen (and experienced myself as well) just that how people respond differently to what might very well be intended as a friendly gesture.
What becomes clear here is that the rule is archaic and should be modified and adapted to the way the forum works now.
Biggest advice I can give here to every mod on this forum: if you see someone frequently backseat modding, talk to the person and don't just give punishments because you want to apply the rules. Talking helps so much
What's there to say this isn't already being done? I think the majority here seems to agree the rule is there for a good reason and should stay. I'm not really sure if a rewrite/rephrasing would help to be honest, it's better to keep it there and clear as is to discourage this behavior as an alternative to the system that is already there in place to inform the mods there is an issue.
It should be up to the mods and not the users to determine the severity of the situation and the eventual action that needs to be taken. The mods aren't all black or white on this and they already do, as mentioned, judge these things on a case by case basis.
You don't need to always get a warning for breaking a rule, you know. If it's a one-time thing that can be justified and considered harmless enough you can very well get away with only a simple heads up from one of the mods.
Plus, people need to learn things the hard way sometimes, and a lot of the times getting told off by a mod will have a much better effect than if told off by a random user.
(PS: Timmy, you worded that part really well. That's what I mean as well, thanks!)
Haha, that's so nice of you to say, thanks! X3
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If the rule as you say isn't severely enforced then a rewriting it needed since it no longer fits in the current context/situation of the forum.
That's how simple it is.
Is it needed to punish people for backseat modding? Absolutely not! It just does not make any sense to punish people, yet people are being punished for doing that.
Just talk to the backseat modder about the situation, ask him why he does that etc. Talk instead of punish.
Rewrite the rule so punishing is no longer the logical outcome of the rule but a conversation is.
That is the essence.
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I think the rule certainly has value. I haven't seen any angry responses to friendly reminders, but there certainly are people who would react that way. Besides that, back-seat moderating can create drama and ruin the fun for everyone in the thread, and that's something we should avoid. Moderators have the position to deal with the situation, so we should leave it to them.
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Hey Bricket
I suppose it'll help to tell you that Backseat moderating is actually one of the infringements that receives a very low warning. If we wanted to really punish someone for that, we'd revoke their posting capabilities until they've sent us a 100 word essay saying why they shouldn't Backseat moderate :P
We are deterring members from backseat moderating here. When a member does take it on themselves to see to a problem instead of simply reporting it and moderating, it actually save a lot of time. As soon a post gets reported, mods have something to go on and can evaluate the situation from there. Usually the report is made quite early on and then the mods can see it and handle it as soon as it is possible for them. In the case of a member not reporting and "handling it" themselves, things get very messy.
Is this down to the efficiency of the mods? perhaps, but I'm not omniscient/omnipresent to be able to foresee this stuff happening.
Perhaps instead of bashing the mods and saying this should be like that and that should be like this, maybe we can all work together in the way that we're all supposed to? Come on dude, there's a report button on every single post made. you don't really have an excuse here :P
I want to finish of with saying that it's a bit weird that you're complaining that members shouldn't have to follow the system we have set in place, then complaining that the system isn't working because people aren't following the system:P
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I want to finish of with saying that it's a bit weird that you're complaining that members shouldn't have to follow the system we have set in place, then complaining that the system isn't working because people aren't following the system:P
I take your points on consideration.
About that last thing: that does sound like a strawman my friend :P
There is a golden rule about rules (yes there is a rule of rules... why I don't know but there is) that goes as this: if many people break a rule consider 2 things: find the source why they do this, and find out if breaking the rule has its' origin in the rule itself. In other words: would you break the rules and why would you break said rule?
With the backseat modding rule you have to take in consideration: is it useable in its' current form and does it have to adapt to the forum culture?
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(...) if many people break a rule (...)
I wonder, do you happen to have any information we don't? :P
Because as far as I'm aware of this rule isn't being broken that much. That aside, just because a rule is broken a lot, doesn't mean the rule is wrong.
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Yes, this is in fact very true and I am very happy to take that into account.
I would however like to say that what you've said seems to say that everyone is always forever backseat moderating always forever every second.
I would like to stress that this is in fact not the case and that it is something that happens quite rarely.
If this is however not the case, I strongly urge you to please report these posts so that we can continue working towards achieving synergy between members and mods ;)
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(...) if many people break a rule (...)
I wonder, do you happen to have any information we don't? :P
Because as far as I'm aware of this rule isn't being broken that much. That aside, just because a rule is broken a lot, doesn't mean the rule is wrong.
If you see breaking a rule as normality then there is no issue with installing a rule prohibiting to post any content.
See the point I'm telling.
Good remarks Razot
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I did not say it was normal, I said the rule wasn't broken much. Doesn't mean I think it's normal.
It's what Razot pointed out, it happens rarely, and if you have information we don't, like seeing more backseating than we are, then you should report it.
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I'm going to be honest here: I don't see why I should report backseat moderating since giving simple rule advice can also be seen as backseat moderating ;)
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As many people have already touched upon there are some primary reasons for the rule being in place.
1. People sometimes get it wrong: In actuality, most of the time I've seen a user tell another user for violating a rule, the backseat moderator has been wrong and the actual "infringement" wasn't against the rules. This can be very problematic ESPECIALLY if the user being told off is new, it can cause them to feel unwelcomed in the forum, can cause them to learn incorrect rules and has other unfortunate side effects. It's best that moderators step in to make sure that the appropriate rules are being followed and that the appropriate action is being taken. (And while moderators do sometimes make mistakes, we have a great team that discusses these actions in great length, so potential mistakes can be reversed and the correct action taken, something that is less viable with backseat moderators)
2. It can cause arguments: Someone who attempts to take forum justice into their own hands, even if they're correct, can cause arguments and debates that eventually spiral out of control. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that the backseat moderator does not have any additional powers to silence a heated argument, if you tell someone to "follow the rules" and they say "No f you", there's not much you can do about it, instead what will most likely happen is there will be a heated response and the thread will spiral out of control causing a much worse situation than the initial rule infraction. The second thing is, you're just a normal member, and by telling someone to "do something" people can take offense to that, there's no reason why you should be commanding them, so they may lash out against that, feel unwelcome, annoyed or irritated at the user for trying to enforce a rule that he doesn't really have the authority to enforce.
I personally think that reminding someone that "Maybe this isn't the most appropriate of conversation", is fine. It doesn't involve a demand, it's just saying "I'm feeling uncomfortable with this, so please stop" and that's totally fine. But telling someone to "Follow the rules" or "You're doing X wrong you should do Y" can be problematic due to the above reasons.
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This brings us to the following point: the idea here is that a person can remind someone of a certain rule yet if this person continues breaking a rule then the person who reminded the other person to NOT break the rule gets punished for not reporting OR not reporting in time.
Which forces us to ask the following question: is the person who remined the rule really guilty or do the other people who where active on the topic also guilty because they didn't report something and thus breaking the "moral-duty" of being a member?
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It's not really about guilt, it's about prevention. We don't want people commanding others on what they should be doing for the above two reasons (they get it wrong, or they start arguments making the situation worse). So we give a small warning to deter people from doing this. It isn't saying "YOU'RE A TERRIBLE PERSON", it's exactly what the name suggests, a warning, "Don't do this".
Also regardless whether person A stops breaking the rule or continues breaking rule, the backseat moderator would still be warned for backseat moderating.
Simply not reporting a post is ok, I mean it would be ideal if you did report posts, but sometimes people forget, they don't know or they're new. We don't give warnings for simply not reporting a post, we give warnings for people telling others to do something when they don't have the authority or experience to do that.
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Also regardless whether person A stops breaking the rule or continues breaking rule, the backseat moderator would still be warned for backseat moderating.
Where do you draw the line of backseat modding?
Where is that line?
Is there a clear definition of it?
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Backseat moderating is defined simply as "Someone acts like a moderator who is not a moderator".
That's basically the clearest definition, so this means telling someone what to do*, instructing them to do something* or anything that makes it imply you have a sense of authority over the user in question, even though you don't.
*In a moderator sense
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Anoni, could you change your sentence to be a bit more clearer?
Was this backseat modding or not because in the definition you just gave this can be seen as backseat modding.
Anyway, I propose this discussion what we're having to move it to the PM's
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What can be seen as backseat moderating? What you're doing now or what I'm doing now?
This threads about whether the backseat moderating rule should be removed, I think this discussion is relevant here.
Either way, what I'm doing now is not backseat moderating because I am a moderator (I'm an admin but I'm also a moderator if you like to think of them as separate).
What you're doing now is not backseat moderating, because you are not acting like a moderator, you are acting like a member, making a suggestion on how we should change the forum. Which is good!
The examples I gave were examples, not the definition, the definition remains "Someone who acts like a moderator but is not one".
So some clearer examples would be
- A member who tells another member that they have to move their thread to another part of the forum.
- A member who tells another member that their post is violating a certain rule and they should or must change it.
Those are just some examples.
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Suggestion is "A member performing tasks that are meant for a moderator, these tasks are [Summary that differ a member from a moderator]"
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Some of them aren't tasks though, for example someone who acts like they are a moderator could just be someone who acts like they have some authority over the forum. Someone who demands that a member respects them and does what they say. That's not really doing a task, that's within the general attitude of the member in question.
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That is just a way a person acts: some people are more authoritarian in behaviour than others
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Try to see it like this.
You're discussing something with a friend and then you say that you might want to take our discussion to PMs. This is because you have more freedom in PMs and because the discussion was getting somewhat personal. Is this backseat moderating? Probably not.
You're in the counting thread and you and a few others are all talking about the same game. You suggest you could create a thread for that game due to the interest. Here you are trying to prevent the thread from going off-topic, but it isn't directly backseat moderating.
What is backseat moderating is saying that someone violated a rule. Though I do understand this can be with the best intentions, you can't always predict how the other is going to react. Reporting to the moderator is generally the safest course of action.
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This is a question for the staff: can someone point me where exactly I can find the rule on backseat modding?
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First rule under "Concerning Moderators"
Please contact a moderator if you see someone breaking the rules or have a question.
And adding the 'description' that can be found attached to it when you click it in the Rules page https://www.thefurryforum.com/forums/index.php?page=rules (https://www.thefurryforum.com/forums/index.php?page=rules) if you wish to see for yourself.
There is a “Report to Moderator” button on every forum post that will email all the moderators should you find anything inappropriate on the forums before we do. You can also PM any of the staff at any time.
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That's the issue, there is no rule on backseat modding.
In fact: if there is no rule no warnings nor punishments can be given out for this.
Can someone here point the exact rule out on "backseat modding" where is that described?
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But to be honest: if I can help here writing a rule clearly defining backseat modding etc. I will gladly help ;)
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I don't know about you, but I would say that is pretty plain-and-clear to me: "If something seems wrong, just report it."
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It's not an explicit rule against backseat moderating, but it only makes common sense. I'd say adding that you shouldn't tell anyone they violated a rule should be enough.
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As a moderator, my primary hope when it comes to broken rules is to jump in and remove the content as quickly and cleanly as possible.
Now imagine we had a rule against the word Smurf.
Someone posts "HEY! EVERYONE! SMURFING SMURF SMURF".
The next person quotes them, and says "This post is against the rules".
The person after that says "Yea, don't say smurf, mods don't like that."
Suddenly, I have 3 posts that need removing rather than 1, as all 3 posts include the rules breaking text in some form.(If you think this sounds unlikely, I have literally seen threads have this happen some forums, though not with the word smurf.)
alternatively, 2 people can report the Smurfing post, post while ignoring it, and then we remove and warn one post and the jobs done.
Then we have edge cases, imagine if someone is typing that they are going Surfing, and their finger slips, resulting in them going Smurfing.
Usually we as a mod team would laugh at such an incident, if its urgently bad we might edit it and make it what it was meant to say. But more likely we would simply point it out to the person either in the thread or via PM.
...Or we can have a page of posts go up to say how terrible it is that a post said smurf in it, intimidating the person who made the honest mistake, and driving the thread off topic. Alternatively there is a disagreement over if this counts as a break of the rules, and we end up with a heated debate/Flame-war.
Finally, we have a troll who decides to turn up and post some stuff purely to get a reaction. If that's reported, we remove it as quickly as possible, and prevent the troll getting any real reaction.
Alternatively, we have a set of posters turn up and giving the troll a reaction. Making them more likely to stick around. Its the old thing of "don't feed the trolls".
While its true there is no exact rule against backseat moderation, we do have rules saying to report problematic posts, and to avoid "Drama". Calling someone out and saying "Your breaking the rules" is definitely going to cause drama. If you want to help. report things. please. Its easier on everyone. Yes, it means there might not be an instant response, but I would rather delay the response by 2 hours and have it dealt with cleanly, than to risk having a multi-page flame-war to come deal with every time a rule is broken
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I should point out, there actually used to be a rule explicitly banning backseat moderation. This rule was however changed into "Please contact a moderator if you see someone breaking the rules" back when the list of rules was re-written some time ago.
I believe the point of this change was less to do the ban on backseat moderation and more to do with clarifying what you should do instead.
It's true there is now no rule directly addressing the act of backseat moderating but it's rather supposed to be implied by the fact that if you see someone breaking a rule you should contact a moderator as opposed to trying to resolve the issue yourself.
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It's true there is now no rule directly addressing the act of backseat moderating but it's rather supposed to be implied by the fact that if you see someone breaking a rule you should contact a moderator as opposed to trying to resolve the issue yourself.
And that's the issue: you should never assume.
A rule is either A or B, never assume C.
So if mods want to punish people for backseat modding there should be a rule about it OR people shouldn't be punished at all for it ;)
Real life example: if you get pulled over you would like to know why and you would also like to know what law you broke. If you were pulled over for breaking a law that "could" exist if you "assumed it did" you wouldn't like to be pulled over, would you?
Same with the rule about backseat modding: either A: there is a clear rule written on it and where I want to help or B: you don't punish people for it.
So what's my suggestion here? Rewrite the rule
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And that's the issue: you should never assume.
A rule is either A or B, never assume C.
So if mods want to punish people for backseat modding there should be a rule about it OR people shouldn't be punished at all for it ;)
Real life example: if you get pulled over you would like to know why and you would also like to know what law you broke. If you were pulled over for breaking a law that "could" exist if you "assumed it did" you wouldn't like to be pulled over, would you?
Same with the rule about backseat modding: either A: there is a clear rule written on it and where I want to help or B: you don't punish people for it.
So what's my suggestion here? Rewrite the rule
Well, it's not that it's not there. It's still implied and does derive from the fact that it's an action that goes against the rule we've already mentioned. Just because the rule does not specifically refer to it as "backseat moderation" it does not mean it's not covered by it.
In a real life example this is when you go to court and have a judge decide whether or not a law was broken. And in these forums the rule against backseat moderation has always been there, it's just the wording on it that has changed. And the judges here would be the admins (and Anoni, being one of them, already confirmed this is a rule they do enforce if necessary).
Again, the rule state that the appropriate action when one sees another user breaking a rule is to report the issue to a moderator either by direct contact or through the built-in reporting feature.
Thus, as per the wording of the rule; By backseat moderating you're basically acknowledging the fact that a potential rule breaking did take place and effectively also end up breaking that rule by choosing an action (backseat moderating) as opposed to the appropriate action of calling in an actual moderator instead.
Nevertheless, this could potentially be clarified better indeed, but there is a point in keeping the rules slightly vague in regard to specific scenarios in that it allows the mods to better go by a case-by-case basis as well as having fewer potential loopholes as opposed to having a list of things you strictly cannot do.
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Bricket, look. The moderation team has taken your thoughts into consideration, but at this time we are not removing the rule.
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I'm proposing a rewrital now to make the rules better and more clear ^_^
@Timmy, implying is not good enough. It has to be written down black on white (or if someone uses a different them in their colours then)
Even tho I prefer a more humane way of "moderating" I do tend to see that a better wording which is clear can only contribute to a better working of said forum
Post Merge: April 03, 2017, 01:45:39 PM
I propose to shutdown this thread since the essence has been said, and to be frankly: who even cares?
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The moderator team and several community members have specified its reasons as to why removing or heavily modifying the rule isn't a good idea. You have specified reasons as to why it is a good idea, but it has failed to convince both the moderator team and, by the nature of this thread, the community as a whole. Thus, I think all that is said has been said.
Currently the rule will not be modified and this thread will be locked to ensure an infinitely long discussion doesn't occur.