Effective immediately our Site Rules are now minimum guidelines that all users must follow in their use of this site.
The Admins will no longer be subjected to endless debate concerning any application or enforcement of the Site Rules with any user or taking sides with that user.
The Admins are no longer limited by the Site Rules in enforcement, maintenance, and administration decisions on this site. The Site Rules will continue to serve as guidelines for Admins to follow, but multi-week arguments and definitions regarding the meaning and previous application of Site Rules will no longer be entertained on this site. Words written in advance simply cannot define every possible circumstance of what is and is not permissable behavior on this site. All decisions made on this site are now at the Admins' discretion, and all such decisions are final.
You are free to criticize me and say anything you wish to me, but you may no longer refer to Calthine by such words as "cunt" "whore" "bitch" or similar on this website, and any use of those words towards her will result in your immediate ban. Calthine is my employee, and this is her working environment. This is not a playground to her as it is to you and I. You are still free to use profanity towards me if you like, subject to the Site Rules.
This new "Admin's Discretion" enforcement policy is simply based on the amount of time it takes to administer and monitor this site.
I've tried to run this site as close to a democracy as possible since we started up in August. I hereby announce that experiment has failed.
Since the middle of December until New Years Eve, I've spent almost 100% of my free time dealing with the nonstop complaints of less than 10 people from one guild. Unless someone is willing to pay me $80k as a full time annual salary, I'm no longer willing to spend 30 to 40 hours of my time each week arguing and re-explaining things to the same 10 people who disagree with my actions and decisions on this site.
It takes only about one second to make a decision about an issue or user behavior on this site. It takes only another second to edit or delete a post, or ban a user based on that decision. But it takes hours and hours of time to explain those decisions, over and over in excrutiating detail to challenger after challenger. By no longer having to justify or explain my decisions to anyone, unless I choose, I've just saved myself at least 20 hours of my time each week. And I'm also convinced that won't result in a thing being done differently on this site now than it was before, it's just that the time it takes me to administer this site will be cut in half, or less.
In the future, if anyone disagrees with a decision I make about anything, you are entitled to start ONE thread about that subject in the appropriate forum of this site. I then may or may not respond to that complaint thread with a reply. All who desire may give positive or negative feedback in that thread, any thoughts you wish to provide will not be censored, provided they don't violate the Site Rules.
But, after the first thread about any particular complaint goes up, no other user will be allowed to start an additional thread on that same issue, or any issue that is directly related to that issue, or obviously posted because of that issue or for the purpose of escaping this rule.
Using Snark as an example, if you disagree with what I've said about not starting more new threads on a particular subject, you MAY NOT then start gay new posts like this one:
Anger Management, which any 5th grader can see in context was nothing more than a low budget way to take a jab at me while technically complying with the directive I posted here:
http://www.eq2flames.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=511
The point is, I would have had no problem with him making the exact same post in an existing thread on the same subject. I'm more offended by the failure of his public education and him thinking that he's slick than I am by what he implied in his new thread.
This is also the perfect example of why the new Admin's discretion rules are needed, because it is impossible to define and prohibit every last technical way that some people will invent to violate or avoid a rule. The violation in Snark's new thread is obvious. If he wanted to say I have anger management issues, he could have done that in one of the six other threads on the same matters that we already have going on this board. There was no need to start a new thread for the sole purpose of attempting to insult me without violating my clear and direct orders. And to be clear, I will not tolerate further such juvenile bullshit. If you want to continue whining, bleating, crying, moaning and pissing on yourself about matters that are now dead and buried, do it in an existing thread, do not fucking start new any more new threads as a way to let the world know that you still have sand in your vagina and that is continuing to cause discomfort and chafing.
The reason we need to limit the number of different threads we allow on any particular subject, or related subjects, is simple. In the past, everyone who disagreed with a decision I made on this site believed they had a right to dispute and argue about that decision here endlessly, in as many new threads as they felt like starting on that subject. What that does is take over this site, so that soon it appears the entire site only involves that problem.
But the majority of other users really don't care about that dispute - it may be interesting to them at first, but after the second week, many will even stop using this site when all the threads seem to be about that dispute, or between the same people and arising from that same dispute. People become sick to death of it. Imagine 6 different threads at the same time about an argument between Elanie and Priceless. If that's all I could read about on this site in thread after thread, I'd quit using this site also. And I say this without intending to offend either Elanie or Priceless, it's just the truth.
Over 600 different people are now visiting this site each day (unique IP numbers excluding spiders). Dozens and dozens of those people have sent me tells and PMs asking me to just ban the few people on this site who refuse to stop arguing about issues that have been beaten to death, and who insist on rehashing the same problems and issues over and over. These problems for the past two weeks have caused many users to stop using this site. I will not outright ban those people who are still arguing about this issue in existing threads, provided they don't start any more new threads on the same issues, and otherwise respect the Site Rules. But these problems will stop effective immediately, and will no longer be rehashed in any form outside of the existing threads.
In the future, anyone who receives a warning to stop doing something on this site has two choices. Your first choice is to fully comply with the warning. Your second choice is to get banned from this site.
We will not tolerate continued, endless, ceaseless debate, whining, crying, pitching fits, throwing tantrums, and people endlessly reactivating problems for others, me or this site.
Bans on this site are never permanent. Bans on this site are 3 day suspensions that do not automatically run out. Three days after being banned, any user may send me an email to
elleffgee@comcast.net saying they agree to follow the site rules in the future if I unban them. Upon recieving such an email, I will unban them most of the time, but again, this will be at my discretion based on factors I cannot completely predict in advance. It makes no sense to just suspend someone who will then come back and do the same thing after being unsuspended. Users who are banned must first say they have read and understand the Site Rules and agree to follow them in the future.
Users will usually never be banned for mistakes or any first time failure to follow the site rules, except in cases where porn is posted, and in similar unforeseeable circumstances at the Admins' discretion.
Users will be banned in every case when they are directly told to not do something or stop doing something by an Admin, and when they do it anyway, either to throw a tantrum or to be a martryr and get banned intentionally.
Again, this is no longer a democracy, this site is now managed more as a benevolent dictatorship. I am the dictator, my rules will be enforced with an iron fist, and are no longer subject to endless debate.
If you don't like these rules, please do not use this site. I don't need, and the vast majority of other users do not want, this site to be overwhelmed by threads arising from one issue, or between the same people, again in the future.
All this really comes down to whether you trust me to enforce the Site Rules fairly and without bias, for the purpose of making this site as fun as possible for as many reasonable people as possible. If you don't trust me to do that, or don't believe I am doing that, please just don't use this site.
Thank you
New Site Rule #1: Permanent Martial Law, this is no longer a democracy
