Beyond the rules

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SorchaRei
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Beyond the rules

Post by SorchaRei »

The forum rules are posted here: http://friendsofcaptainawkward.com/forum/rules.php

If you take a look at them, you will notice we've been working on making them more legible and complete. (And, yes, we know there are currently a few issues with formatting and links. We're working on fixing those.) Please bear in mind that we enforce both the letter and the spirit of the rules.

Beyond just following the rules, here are some ways you can be helpful to your fellow posters. If you have other ideas about how members of this community can make things go even more smoothly, we invite you to add suggestions in this thread.


OP control of their thread

The original poster has quite a lot of boundary-drawing power for threads they create. While the specific forum in which a topic is placed may also exert some control (see: no advice in Jedi Hugs, ever), within those bounds, an OP may place further boundaries.

Examples, which would be appropriate in an I Need Help or a Ballad thread:

I am not interested in advice that involves doing X thing.

I am specifically interested in scripts and other actionable advice.

I'm not ready to take action yet, so I am mostly interested in hearing stories of similar experiences and how you solved them.

I've pretty much decided what actions to take, but I'd like to dig down and explore the underlying psychological/philosophical/theoretical issues.

I'm pretty overwhelmed right now, so I would appreciate it if people could keep their responses to just a paragraph or two -- I feel exhausted at the mere thought of reading any lengthy essays about my situation.


Putting these kinds of boundaries up, if you happen to have a preference of this sort, helps focus responses where you'd like them to be. (And, of course, we remind everyone that when an OP creates this kind of boundary, the rest of us need to respect that.)


How to make useful links

We have a rule that when you post a link, you should include a description of what people will find if they click on that link. Useful information to include in that description might be things like who posted it, what the topic is, and whether there are any caveats. For instance, if it points at a site where ableisms are commonly used, you might mention that, since this will be a difference from FoCA. In addition, please note any content warnings people should be aware of before clicking the link.


Readability

Paragraphs are your friends.

Use of all-caps for emphasis should be confined to one or two words, and used sparingly. More than that and it starts to look like yelling.

Please use spoiler tags to cover spoilers about media and tw tags to cover potentially triggering material. The hide tag is not reliable, and often misbhaves on some operating systems. Moreover, using more than on hide tag in the same post always breaks them.

If your post in someone else's thread is long, consider placing a summary or abstract at the top. This helps people decide whether to read the whole thing.


Getting moderator attention

Please do not use phrases like "If I did something wrong, I hope a mod will let me know" or "mods, did I do this right?" We do try to get moderator eyes on all posts, but we also miss some. If you need us to look at your post, please report it. You can explain in the text field of the report form what kind of help you need.

Likewise, if you see a post that you think we should look at (for a good reason, for a neutral reason, or for a bad reason), please report it. Reports are not awful -- they are just a way to draw our attention to something in a specific post.

Finally, if you want to contact us about a general issue, please use a PM. Reports are for specific posts, so please don't report a post and then raise a different issue in the report text field. You can send a PM to any moderator, so pick one you feel comfortable with.

If you need help addressing a moderation issue, Patu is our ombudsperson and boutet is Patu's backup.
The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.

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