India-Forums.com- Participation Guidelines & Rules - Page 15

Originally posted by: ~Saraa~

Congratulations to the entire India-Forums Community. We have achieved something that was a long time coming! 👏👏👏

Hopefully, the stricter rules and guidelines will urge members to be polite towards one another. 😃

Originally posted by: Olive_Rose

Saraa I sent you a PM about my WL a few days ago and still no reply.

I will like to know the excuse for not acknowledging or replying to my PM.

You are definitely on the forum so what is the problem?

I emailed Deepz and she replied to me straightaway.

I understand that you need to be here to support your boss.

I am not asking to be your friend nor did I PM you to ask you for money or borrow a piece of clothing.

So can you answer my PM because I will not send you another one.

Vijay please ask certain members of your DT to be more efficient!!

This is a perfect example of what I mentioned in my first reply to this topic.

Originally posted by: Olive_Rose

Princess whatever I think saraa is capable of answering for herself, I did not know she required a mouth piece. YESSS I can read quite well and her Siggy front is quite big enough.

Still my grievance remains

Originally posted by: Olive_Rose

Princess whatever I think saraa is capable of answering for herself, I did not know she required a mouth piece. YESSS I can read quite well and her Siggy front is quite big enough.

Still my grievance remains

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

Privacy violations, threats or personal attacks no matter how mild should not be tolerated. Everything else is secondary and unimportant compared to this.

Well we are working on this but who is violating and making such privacy violations / threats and personal attacks? When the DT takes action against such people they are termed "biased" and called different names so just wanted to ask you does it not amounts to personal attack?

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

However, 90% of these rule updates are somewhat of an extension of old rules. They are highly subjective, ambiguous and rendering to arbitrary interpretation and implementation.

Yes much of the rules are somewhat an extension to the old rules. One has to see the same in which context the said content has been made. We DO NOT encourage members to post any sexually explicit or graphic content on the forums. And many things still can be discussed and post one's opinion without being "explicit".

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

Another issue is adult humor, flirting or banter on the forums. Such things are actually not explicit in the literal sense. The language is often innocuous, but the implicit meaning tends to be adult. It is a very subjective matter of how to interpret such language and what level of explicitness and offensiveness it carries. There is also a matter of subjective cultural interpretation of explicit. To a libertarian European even nudity is not explicit unless it is intentionally po*nographic in nature while a small town conservative may deem the smallest show of skin to be explicit. Why should any one subjective culture be subject to rules dictated by the other?

Same thing goes for swearing. In India dropping the f bomb is shocking, repulsive and ill mannered while here where I live even five year olds will drop the f bomb like it's the ABCs. Indians don't seem to think too much when they say Bloody Hell or God Damn It, but to many here that is absolutely revolting and worse than dropping the f bomb because of the religious sentiments attached.

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

Why bother with all this censorship or grapple with the highly subjective issue of what defines explicit? The law requires that members be over 12 anyways. Anyone under 16 must have parental consent-supervision. So honestly, immature kids shouldn't be hanging around without supervision. The law requires that only X rated po*nographic content or graphic violence be censored. So we don't really need to mess around with this explicit bullshit. po*nographic and titillating material is clear and easy to censor. For the rest of it, just require that topics be marked mature if it contains mature discussions. That way no one experiences censorship and the prudes can know what to avoid. And hopefully the DT can catch a breather rather than double time as net nannies for kids who shouldn't be here in the first place.

Well we are an Indian company and we have to be in compliance with the Indian laws. And as per the same any content which can be termed as "obscene material" or "sexually explicit act" in electronic form is not allowed and can attract penalty. This certainly exclude use of such material for eductation and awareness.

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

Then comes the issue of slander

Slander by definition is an untruthful statement passed as fact with an intention to defame. An opinion or critique does not classify as slander no matter how outrageous it is. I think celebrity X acts gay, I think celebrity X is gay wouldn't be slander unless passed off as fact. Celebrity X is a fat slug, Celebrity X looks like a transvestite, Celebrity X is one ugly mishap can all be offensive to fans but they are all opinions and nowhere close to being slander. Finally truthful statements like 'Sanjay Dutt is a convicted criminal' or 'Salman Khan is a convicted criminal' or 'SRK is banned from Wankhede for misbehavior' would cause a hue and cry.

Celebrities are not members of this forum. Unless it actually fits the bill of slander and defamation, the forum shouldn't bother. The DT is not a paid PR squad to protect celebrities and eliminate traces of unsavory remarks from the internet. Moreover, fans and bashers need to grow up and get out of their obsession with celebrities. 99.99% of the useless workload in IF would be cut out if it was simply decided screw the celebrities. They have their PR machines and their fans. We'll just deal with slander. Otherwise let everyone say what nonsense they will. Fans and bashers will just have to battle it out till they finally grow up. Intervene only when it gets personal.

Well tell me one thing what if Celebrity X is a member of the forum? Should that member not be given the same privileges that is enjoyed by other members?

IMHO rules are never made in a way that you just protect one set of people (sitting behind anonymous IDs) who are allowed to abuse / ridicule others just cause they are your "members" against people who are not members but who visits the site for constructive feedback.

We welcome constructive criticism but one should be careful and not to make offensive / derogatory posts against anyone whether its a member or a celebrity.

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

That rule about MIDs is also nice. MIDs are my pet peeve. But what measures do we have to prevent MIDs? What measures do we have to prevent banned members coming back with a new ID? Do we block proxies? What process do we have to ensure that every warning and ban is warranted and no moderator acts out of pettiness or nitpickiness. I myself have come across DT who have acted ridiculous, but I can't be knackered to argue a futile cause.

Well its a challenge keeping MIDs off the forum and we are continuously working on ways to improve our system to fight this problem.

We are also looking at options where members will also get a chance to give their feedback on Moderators.

I hope I have answered much of your query and we appreciate that you took out time to post your feedback and suggestions and sharing your perspective.

Regards,