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[Morwen Lagann]

EDIT/UPDATE 2015/04/05: New (condensed) version of the rules has been posted here.

Again, my apologies for the extreme delay in getting these things out; people have had RL up the wazoo.

This is the first thread of several to come covering aspects of the planned IC forum. This particular thread is intended to cover the rules that we want to have and enforce on the new forum, and mostly duplicates an existing thread in the private moderator areas.

We (okay, I) have taken the original EVE forum rules located here and sorted them into three groups. Each rule has a note with it; these are the quick summaries that I attached to each rule in the original thread. Thoughts from the moderation team (some paraphrased, some quoted) have been added to rules where specific comments were directed.

In the interest of transparency: based on feedback from the moderation team, a number of rules have been moved from their original position in my first iteration of the list, and some of their summaries have been updated since then, too. The first iteration of the list was posted internally on December 17th in response to a post from Mizhara on the 15th.

Since there are a lot of rules listed here, for the sake of easy reference and being able to follow the discussion, if you have feedback, please indicate which rules you're speaking about and try not to blob them all together into one massive wall of text. It will help us and everyone else sift through for commentary on specific rules. You don't need to make a new post for each rule you have thoughts on, but a separate paragraph would be helpful!

Anyway: THE LIST.

The rules we think we should keep:

• 2. Be respectful toward others at all times.
  Self-explanatory, though we'd have a lot of moderated posts if we dealt with this one too strictly. We'll need to figure out where to draw the (IC) line - some wiggle-room should be allowed, but serious transgressions should be stomped on.
• 3. Ranting is prohibited.
  Same as above.
• 4. Personal attacks are prohibited.
  Same as above.
• 5. Trolling is prohibited.
  Same as above.
• 6. Racism and discrimination are prohibited.
  Same as above.
• 9. Posting of personal information is prohibited.
  Self-explanatory. Doxxing is not okay, even IC. We have locator agents for that shit ingame.
• 10. Posting of private CCP communication is prohibited.
  Self-explanatory, though the odds of this happening are low. Might be worth discussing when it's permissible to post mails from event actors.
• 11. Discussion of warnings and bans is prohibited.
  "... outside of specific designated areas and methods, if we provide them."
• 12. Discussion of forum moderation is prohibited.
  "... outside of specific designated areas and methods, if we provide them."
• 13. Spamming is prohibited.
  Self-explanatory.
• 17. Redundant and re-posted threads will be locked.
  Except with the explicit permission of a member of the moderation team, as it is on Backstage.
• 18. Impersonation of another party is prohibited.
  The expectation is that there will likely be zero tolerance for this sort of behavior, and users can expect that characters and/or players trying to impersonate character(s) belonging to other players will have action taken against their account(s).
• 19. New player bashing will not be tolerated.
  On an IC forum this is likely to translate as some version of the YDIW rule from Backstage.
• 20. All posts must be related to EVE Online.
  Self-explanatory. Couple with 25.
• 21. Posting advertisements is prohibited.
  ... if it's OOC advertising. Advertise your corp or its services if you want in the appropriate subforums.
• 22. Posting regarding RMT (Real Money Trading) is prohibited.
  This will likely be changed to mirror Backstage's current CYA policies about illegal behavior/content.
• 23. Post constructively.
  Self-explanatory. We might want to leave a little wiggle-room here though.
• 24. Posting with alternate characters is prohibited in some forum channels.
  This rule will probably be rephrased to specify "no astroturfing." It's fine to have multiple characters posting in a thread if they would legitimately be participating in said thread, but astroturfing will be shitcanned.
  -"I would frankly enjoy using some of my alternate personas, rather than [redacted], sometimes. Since we can see the backend, unless someone is particularly crafty with hiding their IP, this shouldn't be too much of an issue. Considering we are not the IGS, someone in the community has to go out of their way to do this."
  -"I would say that some kind of rule about astroturfing should be in effect. I think people should feel free to use alts, but we want to avoid people using alts to talk to themselves. Can be hard to regulate when people may have characters who would legitimately be participating in the same thread, but I would say if it is done with the intent to astroturf it should be shitcanned."
• 25. Out of character posting on roleplaying channels is prohibited.
  Self-explanatory: this is an in-character forum. Out-of-character posting should be done on Backstage when at all possible.
• 26. Re-opening locked topics is prohibited.
  Same as 17.
• 27. Off-topic posting is prohibited.
  As with EVE-O (in theory), permitted within reason; deliberate attempts at derails or excessive off-topic posting should/will be dealt with.
• 28. Ban evasion is prohibited.
  Self-explanatory.
• 30. Posts that distort the forum layout are prohibited.
  Self-explanatory.
• 31. Abuse of CCP employees and ISD volunteers is prohibited.
  Probably not necessary to refer to CCP/ISD, but worth rebranding to refer to forum staff and moderation accounts.
• 32. Rumor mongering is prohibited.
  Where the line will be needs to be discussed.
  -"I think rumors are great, but we would probably have to draw a line somewhere, and somewhere fairly clear. I know there are certain members of the forum for whom rumors are a favorite weapon."
  -"We could even have sort of a version of the gossip thread so people can spread rumors about themselves."
  -"If we prohibit private conversations being posted, we should prohibit people from spreading rumors that can only be disproven by private conversations."
• 34. Posting of inappopriate content is prohibited.
  Self-explanatory. Try to keep it SFW. Moderator discretion here.
• 35. Posting of chat logs outside the Crime & Punishment forum channel is prohibited.
  This is done on EVE-O to avoid a lot of drama and "those are faked!" arguments. A valid stance to take in general but there are cases where it could/should be permissible, such as for recording-for-posterity of live events and things like SeyCon. Private conversations and evemails are a no-no. We will need to come up with a clearer definition of what is and what is not acceptable, but the above are a starting example.
  -"If we prohibit private conversations being posted, we should prohibit people from spreading rumors that can only be disproven by private conversations."
  -"We should honestly keep chat logs out, and leave it on a 'if you want it, please send me a request' basis. It keeps threads neat, and stops people from cherry picking in the thread and possibly derailing."
  -"Chat logs of public events are fine, and I think we should probably avoid ones of private conversations."
  -"I think we would also want to make clear what is a public event (ex: a conference, a speech, etc) and what is a private event that happens to be in a public channel (ex: overheard conversations in places like bars)."
  -"We could keep it loose on rumors and have the same type of rules we have on Backstage for discussing warnings and bans: If you bring it up, it's fair game."

The rules that we think can be discarded:

• 1. You must have an active EVE Online game account to post on our forums.
  This can only be enforced if we require it under an API mod (specifically the AccountStatus flag, or whatever it's called). It would prevent some issues, but would not prevent others. Current inclination by the team is to ignore the rule, and just go with a public position of "it's a privilege not a right; we will be keeping an eye on this, so don't abuse it or we'll find a way to disable it."
  -"While useful, it would encourage inactive veterans to RP, who otherwise don't want to pay for Chat Client Online."
  -"[As] much as I would like to see some of the people who sit on the sidelines yelling banned, I don't think this is either practical or fair."
  -"Some people don't have the money, or the time to participate in the game. On the other hand, I would say it's [an issue] we would want to monitor as I would be concerned about certain types of trolling from non-subscribers."
• 7. Discussion of real life religion and politics is prohibited.
  Not necessary - implied by the in-character nature of the forum.
• 8. Use of profanity is prohibited.
  This rule can go fuck itself in an ironic fashion. More seriously: be reasonable about it. See rules 2-6.
• 14. Pyramid quoting is prohibited.
  This is not really a problem on Backstage. It also falls under item 30, so it's a bit redundant.
• 15. Bumping outside the EVE Marketplace and Alliance & Corporation Recruitment channels is prohibited.
  If we have specific subforums for this sort of thing, we ought to keep or tweak the rule. As worded, it's not needed. "Be considerate" seems like a reasonable guideline here if necessary.
• 16. Posting about bugs and exploits is prohibited.
  Not really necessary - implied by the in-character nature of the forum.
• 33. "Quitting" posts are only permitted on the Out of Pod Experience channel.
  Beyond the fact that this refers to a specific subforum we aren't going to have, we also have backstage for OOC posts of this nature.
  -"I see nothing wrong with this taking place on the new forums if it's IC."

The rules that could go either way and need more discussion:

• 29. Please use the correct language when posting on the forums.
  Not necessary, really.
  -"It may be worth suggesting that if you don't post in English the moderation team reserves the right to run it through Google translate and replace it with the results, for better or for worse. Maybe we should add this rule to Backstage even if it isn't used for the IC one."
• 36. Posting of kill reports outside of the Crime & Punishment forum channel is prohibited.
  Generally serves to do little but cause drama. Possibly worth including references or details regarding killmails in rules 32 and/or 35.
• PROPOSED: This forum is for capsuleers only.
  AKA, "no baseliner alts". Up in the air; the moderation team had no real consensus on the issue, but the "it's a privilege, don't abuse it or we will enact a rule banning it" stance was popular with several of us.
  -"I think they should be permitted to begin with and only prohibited if it becomes a problem that can't be sorted by disciplining individual problem users."
  -"On baseliner posting, I see the danger, but at the same time I'm not sure I'm behind a 100% ban. Still, if it is popular I'm not too attached either."
  -"I don't think that the majority of people use the baseliner characters with ill intent."
  -"No baseliner posting, I think. It'll invite too many 'woe be it to you mortals' god-hood posts."
  -"The primary problem that I have with both baseliners and inactive mains is you can't shoot them in space. Anyone who can be an asshole with absolute impunity is, to me, a toxic element."
• PROPOSED: IC/OOC divide - players are not their characters, and vice-versa.
  -"While this might seem self evident enough it needn't be stated, it is also pretty clear to anyone who spends time RPing that it is often forgotten."
  -"As a moderation issue it more likely applies to other people forgetting the difference between a poster and their character."
  -"Possible wording: 'Please remember, as an IC forum people will be posting here not as themselves but as their characters. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt that if they aren't being very nice to you IC it might be because their character doesn't like your character - don't just assume that it is because the player doesn't like you. Also feel free to reach out and clear up any possible misunderstandings, rather than jumping to negative conclusions.'"

Have at it.

[Morwen Lagann]

Some additional thoughts from me that I didn't just edit into the list directly:

Rule 2-6, 8 (respectfulness, ranting, personal attacks, etc.): This isn't intended to be a hard red line. I would expect us to try to avoid enforcing these rules too strictly, and only take serious action when it was causing a pattern of thread derailment or the like.

Rule 9 (doxxing): It's one thing for people to post their own location, or to post that sort of information (belonging to someone else) with non-hostile intent. This rule should specifically handle doxxing in the traditional sense, though with that said, I don't think that addresses and locations of serious import tend to come up in RP - for someone's actual ingame location, locator agents are always available.

[Esna Pitoojee]

There are a few things here I'll address in turn:

Rule 2, 3, 4, 5, 6:
I would prefer that these be left out entirely, and a general rule against being disruptive and/or trollish in general be instituted with the relevant portions of 2-6 listed as things that are likely to be considered 'flash points'. Here's my reasoning: Even if the rules aren't intended to be a 'hard red line', merely having them in place may cause people to tiptoe around them because they aren't exactly sure how and where the line exists with those rules; new people may become confused when they see people apparently ignoring existant rules. Putting them as mere examples under a rule against disruptiveness/trolling moves the focus back to behaviors that we actually want to curtail, while still being informative.

Rule 9, 'doxxing':
This seems questionable and vague to me; does it refer to just telling where a given player is docked at a specific time, where they tend to be active, or where an RP-critical location is? Does it refer to things in space, in text, or both?
- For example - player X puts up some items in space as part of an RP arc they are doing, posts about it on our IC forums. Player Y of opposing faction mentions their location in another post. Did they just commit an offense?
- Player A has a channel for their home/private bar/whatever. Player B has a falling out with player A and posts information regarding the in-universe location of the place represented by the channel. How would this be handled?

Rule 19, 'new player bashing':
While I don't disagree with the rule in concept, I think a line of some kind needs to be worked out for the possibility of a new player posting something which - IC - is quite mockable, without breaking this rule or going OOC. Should their mistake be pointed out in the thread? The post reported and/or a move request be made? The poster quietly PMed and informed of their error?

Rule 32, 'rurmors':
Seems overly sensitive to me unless interpreted in the loosest possible way - the line between rumor and opinion is an exceedingly fuzzy one. E.g., player X posts that player Y supports a faction by doing A, B, C (not verifiable ingame activities). Player Y says "you can't post that, that's a rumor!" Where does the line get crossed without smothering virtually any accusations of any kind?

Rule 35, 'chat logs':
I would personally add the caveat that chat logs may be posted under mutual agreement of all parties involved in them.

Baseliners:
I favor making it a rule only if this develops into an issue.

IC/OOC divide:
I think it merits being up there, even if just as 'ass covering' - so there's something to point to if anyone ever does need to be smacked for breaking this.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I do largely agree with Esna.

More generally, I'd say that the rules should be as few as possible, imho. Having 27 rules or what is confusing, and easily lends itself to metagaming based on those rules. So, I'd propose that the rules get condensed and I think there is a lot of room for that, along the lines Esna proposes for rules 2-6.

Rule 11 is included in rule 12, imho.

Rules 13, 19, 21, 23, 34 can be included in the 2-6 complex.

Rules 17 and 26 are already suggested to fit together. 28 fits here as well, I think.

Rules 20 and 25 are already suggested to be one rule, really. 22 fits here as well, imho.

[Morwen Lagann]

Condensing rules: I had figured it was a given that this would happen before any official ruleset was deployed, especially with some of the notes/summaries for individual rules in the list, which is - at least the bolded parts - a verbatim copy of the official EVE forums' ruleset. We don't want 30-40 individual rules either. We do, however, want to start where the apparent core of the issue requiring a new IC forum lies - namely that the rules that are there for EVE-O, do not seem to be enforced consistently or at all when they should be, and that that is contributing to the reasons many people are giving up on the IGS or want an alternative.

The impression we'd gotten from reading the threads here was that if those rules were actually enforced that most of the problems would go away, so we figured it would be simplest to start from the same set of rules and work our way forward from there.

[Aedre Lafisques]

Here's my take, 23 is redundant in part because of 1-6 and a few others. If you're not being a ...uh huge helicopter d*ck to people, then I would say to have a comment moderated solely quoting 23 would be pretty disheartening.

As for Rule 19, I think PMing the 'offensive' newbie is the best reaction. OOC, nicely. There's no reason to publicly shame and haze people over canon misunderstandings. I've never really understood that. There is so much canon. Maybe that's easy to forget once you get past clearing up the fundamentals?
This should maybe also be done by a mod? Rather than a pile of (potentially well-meaning) people. This is exactly why people are afraid to reach out. Don't tell me they're not - I spent a year studying the lore before I felt comfortable saying so much as anything! I still couldn't say I know very much about certain topics. I'd rather be chatted informed and linked to nicely than messed-with IC. That's destructive. Who would want to keep playing like that? And realistically, who's going to spend a year studying and doing other stuff just to RP? XD

35 - I sometimes reformat chat logs with permission for posting. Would something like that be allowed, as it's not copy-pasta private chat logs, and with permission? I ask not to mess with the rules, but because that could come up.  Is there a place for character stories, or would that continue to be posted here?

PROPOSED: I would add to the last one that people also remember to post as not-themselves too, just as they should take slights as towards their characters; it works both way, IC <--> OOC. While that's obvious and some people's duders are more avatars than others, I think the wording would still be appropriate.

32 - I think rumors could be handled as an extension of forceposing (which, while a basic tenant of RP, might be good to put in the rules anyway?). IE, consent. I think if you wanted to spread a rumor about Aedre and actually asked me, I'd probably allow it no questions asked. Roughly speaking, I think I'd be okay with it either way, but I can see how, at least in this community, that could get really dirty very quickly. You know, nobody forces me to mine all day or do market stuff while I play my EVE. I don't really see why anyone should be forced to play the rumors game either if they don't have the skin for it. It's not really fun if they're not into it, you know? However, if they are into it, then banning rumors outright stops a style of play. It's fairly simple to be like "I want to say I saw this about your duder, interesting?" or "mod, I didn't okay this rumor wtf :x" Since there's only ever two people involved, it should be reasonable to manage?

And here I started pro-rumors. I talked myself out of it :p

6 - How are you going to enforce no racism? 90% of RPing I see is racism-based. XP I'd lift that, since you have, instead: No Ranting, Personal Attacks and Trolling! IE, being a huge racist specifically to get a rise out of people. You can be a huge racist, because New Eden is Racism Central (probably everyone is racist, because their cultures literally demand it, and everyone thinks in at least terms of the Big Four), but you can't use your bigotry to then instigate hysteria.

Anyway, TLDR, I think 'being a racist' isn't really a very good rule for us IC, when you have 2-5 to cover the actual assholery that usually comes from it. It seems more like a public forum/OOC concern to me, Real Life stuff. (Additionally, if the rules are somewhat IC, then it doesn't make sense I don't think )

Thanks for all this! And for opening up the table for discussion.

[Jennifer Starfall]

More generally, I'd say that the rules should be as few as possible, imho. Having 27 rules or what is confusing, and easily lends itself to metagaming based on those rules.

Detailed rules allow for significant weaselling. Broader, "softer" rules specifically counter metagaming, as Nico puts it. An RL example is the FDA in the US. The FDA was originally founded to combat snake oil merchants (the ultimate rules lawers). FDA regulations are deliberately broad and do not have  hard and fast requirements (I do not miss my days in the pharma industry).

By the same token, when you start writing rules that delineate "bad behaviors", they can be meta'ed around by saying "but it doesn't say that's wrong." Whereas, "behavior deemed disruptive by the moderators" will cover anything that disrupts the community and can't be weaselled around. The only flaw is that it depends on a body of trustworthy moderators, but I think we're covered there.

[Vizage]

I'm also in agreement with Esna, Nico, and Jenn on this one. Properly condensing the rules will not only give user proper room to breath but also allow for proper moderation "In good faith."

If there is anything Backstage isn't short on its proper moderation. So I think we won't have nearly as much as to worry about when it comes to particularly inflammatory post or repetitive grudge flaming going under the radar.

Beside that, I think these are pretty great rules and I'm getting excited about all this!

[Lyn Farel]

Rules have to be made the most simple possible, but also the clearest. Too many rules leads to obnoxious rule metagaming, but too loose rules lead to what we have seen already here or there, which means no moderation accountability, which is even worse because it creates gaps between mods and users and leads to mistrust and toxic environments.

Condensing rules is good, but they will have to be made clearer. For example, include things like "no ad-personam". It's rather universal and not too vague to deal with. The more vague and loose you will be, the more you will have people contesting rulings, and pointing fingers at "moderation tyranny".


BASELINERS :

Banning it under the justification that too many people abuse it is unfair in itself for the people that play by the rules. Either allow it, or ban it first place, but banning it under such reasons is completely fallacious in my eyes, and dangerous. It already happened about other things in the Summit/OOC, and it will happen again if people start to abuse it.


Letting non subscribers participate :

Banning them under the pretext that they can't be shot ingame is a fallacy. You can't either shoot anyone who stays docked and spew things here and there. So either ban everyone that is not ready to undock to back up their words, or just don't. I think the answer is pretty obvious on that one.

[Muck Raker]

Rumor mongering is prohibited.

kek.

[Silver Night]

That rule is, as you notice, appended with some pro-rumor comments. I think the concern would be that while rumors can be awesome, they can also be an effective means of trolling. I guess the question would be if the environment we would be looking at creating would be one that would support that type of 'he said, she said' arguments that can arise from unconfirmed and unconfirmable rumors spread with malicious  (rather than constructive) intent. With RP the problem is noone can really prove anything other than what happens in space, and combat - alas- does not cover the full range of things people might do.

It can lead to what we are trying to avoid, which is uninteresting, repetitive arguments with nothing new or interesting coming out of them.

[Morwen Lagann]

2-6, 23, etc.: If people want this literally condensed into a single rule that says "Post constructively and don't be a cunt" and let the mods determine the definition of the latter part, we can do that. The general idea I was hoping for was similar to how it's handled in the Summit ingame. When it gets disruptive, it gets dealt with - sometimes it is hands-off, sometimes it is hands-on.

9 (doxxing): I was more specifically considering standard internet definitions of doxxing. Places of work, residence, that sort of thing. But because most of us don't exactly come up with street addresses (or equivalent) for our characters, and even if we did, there's this issue of hostile actions to those locations often would be godmoding anyway. If you want something simpler - private things would be an example of a no-no. Precise address of home, family members, that sort of thing. If it's an object in space it's fair game.

11, 12: I don't disagree. But as I said in my previous post, each individual rule is listed because it was from the original rule set. Not because we intend to have each of those rules listed out. I will repeat this in red so that it is clear to everyone: There are thirty-nine rules listed in the OP because there are 37 rules for the official forums and we added two new ones for discussion. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE INTEND TO HAVE THAT MANY RULES LISTED IN THE END.

19: I'd rather avoid having OOC discussions on the IC forum. If people want to PM people directly, be polite about it. If you can't be polite, then report problematic posts with a note "hey, this person needs a quick PF-check" and have a moderator then go and approach them and point them to Backstage/Evelopedia/Source.

32 (rumors): I am personally ambivalent about this one. There's a difference between a rumor intended to attack someone, and a rumor intended to generate RP for people. The idea, in theory, would be to curb the former and encourage the latter - as someone on the team suggested, through a similar gossip thread to what we have on Backstage. Of course, the IC nature of the forum might make posting things to the rumor thread... awkward, so my thought there was that perhaps the mod team (or just the admins) would have a shared "gossip" account that people could PM their rumors and gossip things to, and then the moderation staff could post them anonymously for them.

35 (logs): The whole concept of "with everyone's consent" is great and all but all you have to do is say you have everyone's consent. And then if you actually don't, there's a shitstorm. Or if someone changes their mind, there's a shitstorm. This is why we want to try and narrow down a definition of a "public" event.

Baseliners and Active Subscriptions:
I really wanted to avoid responding to specific posts if I could, but this particular one isn't going to work.

Banning it under the justification that too many people abuse it is unfair in itself for the people that play by the rules. Either allow it, or ban it first place, but banning it under such reasons is completely fallacious in my eyes, and dangerous. It already happened about other things in the Summit/OOC, and it will happen again if people start to abuse it.

I'm going to say this as nicely as I can: jesus fucking christ. You seem to have read so much into that one that you came out responding as if it says the opposite of what it does. Not a single mod ever said 'ban it because too many people abuse it'. The "no" responses were because of "I can't shoot it QQ" (not me) and "because the capsuleers are probably going to be dicks to them." (also not me)

The rule is proposed as a "baseliners are not allowed" because the moderation team considers the default state to be that they are allowed.

My response to you is the same regarding subscription status: It's pretty clearly stated that the moderation team doesn't believe we should require people to actively be subscribed to the game - let alone actively logging in - in order to post on the forum, unless it becomes a clear issue that cannot be resolved simply by taking action with individuals as it comes up. Not just because it's difficult to enforce without an API mod, but also because requiring it discourages the people who don't have the time or money to play internet spaceships but have the time to spare to forumwhore.

Please read more carefully and stop leaping to conclusions that are in the opposite direction of where the evidence lies.

[Ché Biko]

• 10. Posting of private CCP communication is prohibited.
  [..]Might be worth discussing when it's permissible to post mails from event actors.

I think this could be merged with rule 35.

• 18. Impersonation of another party is prohibited.
  The expectation is that there will likely be zero tolerance for this sort of behavior, and users can expect that characters and/or players trying to impersonate character(s) belonging to other players will have action taken against their account(s).

I would like this to be possible with the consent of the impersonated character's player. Because the best way to do this may be having the impersonated character's player post on behalf of the impersonator, I think this should be purely an IC rule (possible character ban, but not player/account ban) if the transgression is IC only.

• 24. Posting with alternate characters is prohibited in some forum channels.
  This rule will probably be rephrased to specify "no astroturfing." It's fine to have multiple characters posting in a thread if they would legitimately be participating in said thread, but astroturfing will be shitcanned.
  

Where lies the line? I feel there should be some lenience, especially for alts in the same small corp, like D-STON. Also, this seems to overlap with rule 18 somewhat.

• 32. Rumor mongering is prohibited.
  Where the line will be needs to be discussed.

Rumors should be refered to as such, slander and defamation is not allowed. "I've heard a rumor that PIE eats babies." is ok, "PIE eats babies." is not.
I think a seperate forum section for IC media might be in order, with an attached disclaimer that these can contain unverified information.

• 34. Posting of inappopriate content is prohibited.
  Self-explanatory. Try to keep it SFW. Moderator discretion here.

No IC snuff movies on this forum then? Or IC adverts from certain adult venues?

• 35. Posting of chat logs outside the Crime & Punishment forum channel is prohibited.
  This is done on EVE-O to avoid a lot of drama and "those are faked!" arguments. A valid stance to take in general but there are cases where it could/should be permissible, such as for recording-for-posterity of live events and things like SeyCon. Private conversations and evemails are a no-no. We will need to come up with a clearer definition of what is and what is not acceptable, but the above are a starting example.

I think that the IC nature of the forum partly prevents this from taking place, as the chatlogs of things like bars would not be chatlogs IC, but probably an audio/video recording, and should be reformatted as such.
I would not want to ban media outlets or others from posting recordings/communications, though, if all involved parties agree OOCly that the eavesdropper could have obtained them. But perhaps the rule should be that only media outlets (see my comment on rule 32) can post these communications/recordings, after they have done some form of checking the authenticity of these things (or not). Stuff is leaked to the press by others. This may serve as a buffer to keep things from spinning out of control.

• 16. Posting about bugs and exploits is prohibited.
  Not really necessary - implied by the in-character nature of the forum.

Implied? Not for everyone. I sometimes talk about bugs ICly, especially if it affects my IC actions. If my drones can't lock because of a bug defect in CCP's patch, then my drones will have a similar problem IC with their/my capsule/implants latest firmware update. A lot of bugs in EVE are also bugs IC. ECAID is an IC division, we can't talk about them?

• PROPOSED: This forum is for capsuleers only.
  AKA, "no baseliner alts". Up in the air; the moderation team had no real consensus on the issue, but the "it's a privilege, don't abuse it or we will enact a rule banning it" stance was popular with several of us.
  -"The primary problem that I have with both baseliners and inactive mains is you can't shoot them in space. Anyone who can be an asshole with absolute impunity is, to me, a toxic element."

I'd like to try to have baseliners on the forum. I think the "Primary problem" above is not that big of a problem. Being an asshole is largely not allowed in the first place (the other rules enforce it), and having to engage in consensual RP and deal with someone OOCly to deal with them ICly is a legitimate alternative to shooting-in-space in my eyes, and one that can be just as fun.
Also, toxic elements will be toxic, wether that is as capsuleer or baseliner. I don't see this rule decreasing that.

• PROPOSED: IC/OOC divide - players are not their characters, and vice-versa.
  -"While this might seem self evident enough it needn't be stated, it is also pretty clear to anyone who spends time RPing that it is often forgotten."
  -"Possible wording: 'Please remember, as an IC forum people will be posting here not as themselves but as their characters. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt that if they aren't being very nice to you IC it might be because their character doesn't like your character - don't just assume that it is because the player doesn't like you. Also feel free to reach out and clear up any possible misunderstandings, rather than jumping to negative conclusions.'"

I too feel that this is sadly still worth repeating, if only for the newbs, although this looks more like a disclaimer then a rule to me. I like the "Possible wording".

[Lyn Farel]

35 (logs): The whole concept of "with everyone's consent" is great and all but all you have to do is say you have everyone's consent. And then if you actually don't, there's a shitstorm. Or if someone changes their mind, there's a shitstorm. This is why we want to try and narrow down a definition of a "public" event.

Why not just saying it's allowed, and that any capsuleer can simply says so when he or she wants something removed ? As long as one of the people included in the logs wants it removed, it will be.

Of course you run into the issue of people just posting for the sake of showing it until it gets removed. You can apply sanctions if necessary to prevent that.

Baseliners and Active Subscriptions:
I really wanted to avoid responding to specific posts if I could, but this particular one isn't going to work.

Banning it under the justification that too many people abuse it is unfair in itself for the people that play by the rules. Either allow it, or ban it first place, but banning it under such reasons is completely fallacious in my eyes, and dangerous. It already happened about other things in the Summit/OOC, and it will happen again if people start to abuse it.

I'm going to say this as nicely as I can: jesus fucking christ. You seem to have read so much into that one that you came out responding as if it says the opposite of what it does. Not a single mod ever said 'ban it because too many people abuse it'. The "no" responses were because of "I can't shoot it QQ" (not me) and "because the capsuleers are probably going to be dicks to them." (also not me)

The rule is proposed as a "baseliners are not allowed" because the moderation team considers the default state to be that they are allowed.

My response to you is the same regarding subscription status: It's pretty clearly stated that the moderation team doesn't believe we should require people to actively be subscribed to the game - let alone actively logging in - in order to post on the forum, unless it becomes a clear issue that cannot be resolved simply by taking action with individuals as it comes up. Not just because it's difficult to enforce without an API mod, but also because requiring it discourages the people who don't have the time or money to play internet spaceships but have the time to spare to forumwhore.

Please read more carefully and stop leaping to conclusions that are in the opposite direction of where the evidence lies.

Am I not allowed to have my own opinion on that ? :/

Either you didnt understand or I wasnt perfectly clear, but I was actually refering to that no slave rule on the summit, which was iirc applied because too many people abused it.

Here I feel it is the same, you will condemn players that use it well and do nice things with it just because some abuse it. It's wrong imo...

[Gaven Lok ri]

Is rule six IC, OOC, or both?

From an IC point of view, who is hosting these proposed forums? Seems like that should have an impact on the choice of IC rules.