New Rule: Disruptive Avatar/Sig

**Farnan** · July 08, 2008, 01:59 PM

Disruptive Avatar/Signature (1 or 3 points)
All avatars and signatures must follow the TOS in its entirety. Furthermore any avatar or signature which is intentionally disruptive may be punished under this rule. Examples of disruptive avatars:
- Avatars of historical or fictional characters designed to draw others into insulting the poster (such as Hitler or Mohammed Cartoons)
- Avatars that make obscene gestures
- Avatars deigned by the moderators to be disruptive.

Posters will be pm'd to remove these avatars before the poster is punished in the last case, but failure to comply or re-adding the avatar will be punishable.

Examples of disruptive signatures:
- Signatures that have deceptive links
- Signatures that misquote other posters
- Signatures that include obscene gestures
- Signatures deigned by the moderation staff to be disruptive.

Again, posters will be pm'd to remove these signatures before the poster is punished in the last case, but failure to comply or re-adding the signature will be punishable.

**Dayman** · July 08, 2008, 02:13 PM

I'm kind of against this. Disruptive in my opinion would be loud colors and annoying .gifs, not anything to do with mocking historical characters or religions. We want a minimum of rules regarding this kind of stuff, not more. If a sig has porn or something obscene like turds then it is removed, not because someone can be offended by it and definitely not anything deigned by the moderators to be disruptive. I don't trust an authority judgment on those matters. The rules must be concise and clear and I don't think this deserves to be addressed beyond annoying .gifs.

**~~removeduser_487563287433~~** · July 08, 2008, 02:14 PM

1) Too long
2) Too complex
3) Infringes on freedom of speech
4) causes unecessary conflict
5) attempt to fix something that is not broken

**Farnan** · July 08, 2008, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by Boeing

I'm kind of against this. Disruptive in my opinion would be loud colors and annoying .gifs, not anything to do with mocking historical characters or religions. We want a minimum of rules regarding this kind of stuff, not more. If a sig has porn or something obscene like turds then it is removed, not because someone can be offended by it and definitely not anything deigned by the moderators to be disruptive. I don't trust an authority judgment on those matters. The rules must be concise and clear and I don't think this deserves to be addressed beyond annoying .gifs.

What I meant to do was deal with rick rolling sigs, sigs that misquote members to insult them or contain insulting messages and those that would normally be removed by a moderator, but I see where your coming from. Consider this advice withdrawn.

**~~removeduser_487563287433~~** · July 08, 2008, 02:25 PM

And where do we draw the line, Farnan? JP's signature "kicking British ass since whenever?" It's certainly caused a bit of conflict, but should he be punished for it? To be honest I think people should be allowed to draw their own judgements about it, rather than us protecting them.

**Farnan** · July 08, 2008, 02:27 PM

When I was creating this, I was trying to add a TOS line to go along with the moderator policy of removing avatars designed to cause flame wars along with dealing with misquoting sigs, but then realised in doing so it is unweildy and should be left to a case by case basis rather than in a standing rule.

**Dayman** · July 08, 2008, 02:35 PM

Well that could be dealt with simply by allowing no humiliating reference to another poster in your sig or avatar without their permission.

**Farnan** · July 08, 2008, 02:36 PM

True...

**pannonian** · July 08, 2008, 02:47 PM

The current sig rules could do with some clarification. In practice it works well enough, but sometimes users just won't accept the moderators' discretionary right to remove sigs without the ToS to back this up.

**Dayman** · July 08, 2008, 02:49 PM

but sometimes users just won't accept the moderators' discretionary right to remove sigs without the ToS to back this up.

As long as it is concise and clearly defined I would have no problem with it. Discretion is important, but I do not think it should written into the rules. The rights of the posters are more important.

**Farnan** · July 08, 2008, 02:51 PM

How about this:

The moderation staff reserves the right to remove any signature or avatar that is intentionally disruptive or insults other members directly.

**~~removeduser_487563287433~~** · July 08, 2008, 02:54 PM

I suppose.

**Farnan** · July 08, 2008, 02:55 PM

All it does in reality is put in the TOS what is already done.

**pannonian** · July 08, 2008, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by Boeing

As long as it is concise and clearly defined I would have no problem with it. Discretion is important, but I do not think it should written into the rules. The rights of the posters are more important.

With controversial sigs, in addition to the right of the user to use that sig, there is also the right of other users not to have that sig staring at them. Currently, the policy is that, if we feel that there is unnecessary bother as a result of such sigs, we'll have a word with the user about perhaps opting for something that isn't quite so provocative. This usually works. Some posters deliberately choose provocative sigs again and again despite these chats, and choose them precisely because they want to provoke - we use the nuclear option, I forget which it is, with these. However, we discuss sigs which may be provocative but which we feel weren't meant to be provocative, with the status quo of letting the sig live if we don't clearly decide against the sig.

The procedure was described in more detail in the Q&S thread, but I don't suppose anyone noticed it, as they were more interested in fighting their private fights than in the moderation policy for sigs.

**Dayman** · July 08, 2008, 03:01 PM

With controversial sigs, in addition to the right of the user to use that sig, there is also the right of other users not to have that sig staring at them.

People have the right to be offended. If the sig isn't deliberately insulting, visually annoying or obscene then I could never support the removal.

**imb39** · July 09, 2008, 12:34 PM

The current rules about sigs/avatars work well enough, imo. Cases are dealt with individually. We have VERY few issues. I think they are very successful.

Where it comes to quoting others - well, if you post something on THESE forums you should have no problems with being quoted (provided meaning hasn't been twisted somewhat).

I personally think we should not be too prescriptive on this issue (a contradiction to other areas, I concede).

**Dayman** · July 09, 2008, 02:20 PM

It's not a pressing issue at all, and this can be rewritten if we still have the energy after dealing with more important issues.

**Trajan** · July 09, 2008, 05:00 PM

This is not a big deal as we are already handling these things case by case basis. It would be nice to add a sentence or two to the TOS in the long run to back it up.

**Simetrical** · July 18, 2008, 05:39 PM

As I see it, the rules only govern what people can be warned and suspended for. Moderators can delete anything at their discretion, without any need to cite the rules, and are accountable only to senior moderators over doing so. This is what justifies, for instance, locking a thread on something that's already being discussed elsewhere, or deleting a multi-post caused by a forum glitch (which surely can't be considered against the rules).

But the rules are vague. It's implied that at least notes and warnings will only be handed out for rules violations, but I don't see even that stated explicitly. Certainly nothing about other moderator actions, like deletions, is mentioned at all.