So we're getting quite a few new and lapsed users, and more than one person has asked us just exactly what KIA is.
So here's our mission statement, a basic description of what this place is for, and our half-finished rules still full of less-broken-than-I-thought-it-would-be reddit CSS and placeholder text. As you can clearly tell, THIS IS NOT DONE, we haven't even gotten started on figuring out how much of rule 3 we're gonna change...again...now that the admins are off our backs. For the moment we're allowing some shitposting and general partying, but at least now we'll have something to point to when someone goes too far past the line and needs a smack. Please bear with us as things are still very much under construction. Also, we need to do something about the character limit that's forcing me to put half of this into a sticky, so...SEE STICKY!
Our Mission
KotakuInAction is a platform for open discussion of the issues where gaming, nerd culture, the Internet, and media collide.
We believe that the current standards of ethics in the media have alienated the artists, developers, and creators who perpetuate the things we love, enjoy, and enthusiastically build communities around. We have observed numerous incidents involving conflicts of interest and agenda-pushing within media which we feel are damaging to the credibility of the medium and harm the community at large. We believe much of the current media is complicit in the proliferation of an ideology that squashes individuality, divides along political lines, and is stifling to the freedom of creativity that is the foundation of human expression.
KotakuInAction is a community that condemns willful censorship, exclusion, harassment, and abuse. It is a community that organizes to hold the media accountable to the concept of artistic freedom by standing up for the artist, the developer, the writer, the filmmaker, and all who enjoy the freedom to create, explore, and expand. It is a community that allows the exchange of information, supports the ongoing discussion of media ethics, and protects the right of the individual to embrace their personal interests in entertainment and fandom.
KotakuInAction is built around a core focus on reasonable, friendly discussion of the issues related to gaming culture, and those involved in it. That is not all we are about, but it's where we began and will remain our core. We hold ourselves to be politically neutral ground, not forcing anyone to conform in their opinions, and permitting a wide variety of viewpoints to express themselves in a civil manner.
Code Of Conduct for KotakuInAction
WARNING/BAN POLICY
For the sake of making it easier to read, more transparent, and to cut back on confusion regarding which rules get dealt with in which way, we are pulling the warning/ban policy out of Rule 1 and moving it to stand independently so that other rules with specific policies are all in one place. The updated policy is as follows:
General Rule 1 Enforcement
You'll get two public warnings from the mods. Any offenses after that, and you'll get a 3 day temporary ban. Screw up again, and you're gone for a month. Screw up again, and you're not coming back.
Warnings will expire after 90 days. So if you got a warning and didn't screw up for, say, three months, and get warned again, that counts as your first warning on the road to being banned. However, if you received a temp ban for breaking Rule 1, it'll stay on your record, and won't expire for a year, so if you screw up after that before a year has gone by, you go to a 7-day/month-long ban and the year-long timer resets. Basically, don't screw around.
Rule 7 Enforcement
If a user is determined by at least two moderators to have violated Rule 7, they will be issued one warning not to do so again. If they repeat the behavior, as agreed upon by at least three moderators, they will be issued a 7 day ban. Doing so again (and agreed upon again by at least three moderators) will result in a permanent ban.
Other Rule Enforcement
All other rules will generally be enforced with a single warning followed by at least one temporary ban before any permanent ban is issued. The notable exceptions are Rule 2 (dox) and Rule 5 (personal army requests), which we reserve the right to immediately and without warning issue a permanent ban. In more severe or extreme cases of violations of other rules, should at least three moderators agree a user needs to bypass the standard warning/ban process and be moved straight to a permanent ban, such action may be taken, though this route should not be taken often.
Moderator Rule-Breaking Policy
Compared to regular Rule 1 enforcement, this is going to be bit more strict - first violation results in warning (publicly visible as all other warnings), second warning within a month will result in temporary suspension or permanent removal of permissions.
Reporting of mod violations should be done via modmail - please provide link to violation, rule violated and context, if necessary. If you don't want to report via modmail, you can also report to the head moderator directly. If you don't want that either, you may elect someone to report on your behalf. Nevertheless, links and context are required. Needless to say the mod in question won't be involved in evaluation of said violation.
GENERAL RULES
- DON'T BE A DICKWOLF
Attack arguments, not people.
"Fuck off, retard," is not an argument. Neither is "Kill yourself, faggot." Regardless of whether you think someone is a shill, SJW, or whatever, stick to arguing the points. Name-calling does not contribute to discussion. Refer to the pyramid as a general guideline. If anything, just make sure your criticism outweighs any insults. However, well-reasoned arguments that end with parting shots like, "Stop being obtuse; even children understand this concept," are okay. Ostensibly, we're all adults here; a comment like that can just be ignored.
The core of this rule is primarily based on patterns of behavior, which fall into these categories:
1. Harassment
Badgering and/or baiting another user across multiple threads or baiting after disengaging (mod enforced or otherwise), including persistent mentions and/or replies. Note that this generally does not apply to people that are outside the community, (e.g. "God, the guy who wrote that article is such a fucking retard."), but does apply in cases of tagging a user (e.g. "reallybadpersonidontlike you're a fucking mongoloid and you should go die in a fire.").
2. Trolling
Posts and comments which are clearly not intended to generate discussion, but rather aimed at generating or maximizing as much drama and emotion as possible. Intentionally posting to make people angry.
3. Crusading
Posts and comments intended to drive a wedge in the community, or to rally a mob to target users or communities, without the intent to hold a constructive discussion. Crusading eschews conversation, going beyond well-meaning criticism into behavior that includes excessive attacks against specific users, demands that action be taken against specific users, and/or bombarding a post with hostility towards KiA or specific users.
4. Malice
Don't resort to malicious name-calling, brazen insults, and/or general hostility against any individual user. Don't use identity politics or unironic slurs (that is, language intended to advocate blatant hatred) against groups of people. Don't make serious calls for violence against individuals or groups. If you're joking, please make clear you are joking so we don't have to slap you for it.
2. No Doxxing
We do not allow the publication of personal information, which is defined as:
1. Real names
Exceptions are made for "public figures," including (but not limited to) journalists, actors, published authors, and public-facing company personalities, as well as the subjects of published journalistic articles (limited purpose public figures). Facebook and LinkedIn pages may only be linked for corporations and public figures.
2. Phone numbers or addresses
Public contact numbers/address for companies (not including individual employees) are exempt.
3. Promotion of known doxxing sites
Certain websites exist for the primary purpose of collecting and spreading dox. You may not link to them, encourage others to visit them, or discuss them by name. The list of such sites can be found here. (link)
4. Other info which may be used to personally identify someone
Including personal e-mail addresses that are not intentionally available to the public, images of homes, etc.
If you are in doubt whether what you posted may constitute posting personal information, reach out to the moderator team. (link)
3. POSTING GUIDELINES
Posts on KotakuInAction must focus on one of the topics included in the whitelist and may not include a topic from the blacklist.
Post that do not meet this criterium will be removed. Removals due to Rule 3 alone have no consequences aside from the post being removed.
Meta Posts are excluded from this rule.
Whitelist
- Gaming
- Journalism Ethics
- Censorship
- Official Social Justice
- Media Meta
- Tabletop gaming, comics, sci-fi/fantasy, manga/anime, and derivative media of such
- Sub related OC Artwork
- Tech Happenings
Temporary Whitelist Items
- None
Blacklist
- Unrelated Politics
- Memes (as in image macros)
- E-Celeb Bullshit
- Forum Noise (random users complaining on random forums [directly involved devs are exempt from this])
- Social Media Hot Takes
- Lets Plays
Temporary Blacklist Items
None
Notes
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To pass unrelated pol, topics containing politicians; laws; government or major political organizations without direct relation to GamerGate, must be presented without partisan slant and the majority of the topic must focus on relevant actions or proposals, rather than their partisan or electoral implications.
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Official social justice is defined as: The propagation or implementation of identity politics by institutions or companies of major size.
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Tech Happenings is defined as: Significant events concerning the policies, business practices, algorithms, behavior, and corporate cultures of tech companies and social networks, especially where pertaining to free expression, identity politics, and anti-consumer activities, as well as legislation affecting tech spaces.
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If you believe your post is of sufficient importance to the community but are concerned that it would not pass the above guidelines, please contact the modteam for approval
4. Posts must be intelligible
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Non-English links must include a translation in the immediate comments from the OP. This can be either a full length translation, a copypaste of a machine translation, or a direct link to a full machine translation of the page.
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All links to videos longer than 5 minutes will require either a comment by the OP or to be in a self post summarizing the relevant parts of the video to what they are trying to point out with it. Exceptions may be allowed if the title is clearly explaining what's going on with the link pointing directly at the relevant timestamp in the video.
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Avoid mobile links if possible.
Did you miss the statement where we I said at the top of this very chain that we were going to be revising and thinning down Rule 3, which is the part you are complaining about right now?
Oh I read it, I just don't believe you.
Why should I or anyone else when you've lied about it multiple times?
It doesn't take weeks to sort out, btw. You could do it in an hour if you so choose.
You just don't want to.
Here's how this is gonna go: you're gonna kick the can down the road for a week while slowly tightening up enforcement, then make a post about how you're working on it and are listening to feedback, then a week later you're going to make some half-assed change no one wanted or asked for but pushes everything further into being a regressive leftist's dream.
Oh, here's a little tip for you bud.
When you have a reputation for being a fuckup and a liar, put your money where your mouth is and act BEFORE you talk mad shit.
Despite what some people want to pretend, we completely stripped out the old point system half a year ago, and replaced it with something simpler - whitelist/blacklist (sorry, list of color). That opened up a whole lot of additional content which had been getting blocked that should not have been under the older ruleset.
Do you know how long it took to iron that out with mods who wanted to see it changed, while still maintaining the blocks that needed to stay in place, alongside stress-testing to make sure things that should fail still failed, and things that should pass but did not before were actually able to pass? Two months.
I say a week or two for the revisions here because I need to make certain all mods are on the same page for what that enforcement change will be - to prevent someone enforcing on the older system or misunderstanding parts of the changes. I also say that long because we have people tied up with getting the technical back end of this site up and running properly, between everyone having IRL obligations like work, family, etc.
This is not something that can be "done in an hour" without managing to have half the mod team fuck it up because nobody is on the same page, combined with having to make a half dozen re-revisions as different people notice different things being missed, or things failing to get through that should under the newer lighter ruleset.
Maybe take a few to ask yourself who painted up that reputation, and whether all the people trying to maintain that narrative are actually being honest about why they got banned, or whether they even got banned, as half of them hide on new accounts, making claims to victimhood because they could never have done anything wrong, it must totally be the fault of the evil oppressive mods. Don't be a lazy shit while playing listen-and-believe, fucking well verify shit where you can. We maintained public mod logs for the last 4, almost 5 years on KiA, and it takes little effort to show that I was one of the vocal people calling for that transparency back before I was hired on as a mod, and I have kept that in place despite needing to go through multiple different public mod log options. We will have those active here, too, in the near future.
When?