Safe Speed Forums

Here's a first draft of a sensible set of minimal forum rules, aimed at keeping up the quality of discussion and ultimately winning the war.

* Don't swear
* Don't insult people
* Don't issue threats
* Don't incite crime

* Do remember that the public can read these forums, including children, the press, the police and "the other side".

* If you are concerned about a post by someone else breaching these rules contact the moderator - don't get drawn into a flame war.

What do you folks think?

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Sounds good, though I'd be tempted to terminate rule 5 after the word "police".

There aren't any "sides" are there? Just people with points of view to air, or perhaps a need for good advice...

How about speeding?

_________________
-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

Absolutely, that must be included. Really. I never encourage anyone to break the speed limit, and neither should anyone else. It could be "incitement to commit a criminal offence", which is a crime in itself.

We have to be careful with our words.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Pointing out that in many circumstances exceeding a posted limit is not per se dangerous, and acknowledging that this is routinely done by virtually all drivers, is not at all the same as encouraging people to do it.

Regards,

Peter

Final draft forum rules:

1) Don't swear

2) Don't insult people

3) Don't issue threats

4) Don't incite crime

5) Don't libel anyone

6) Do remember that the public can read these forums, including children, the press and the police.

7) If you are concerned about a post by someone else breaching these rules contact the moderator - don't get drawn into a flame war.

8) Messages that contravene any of these rules may be deleted by a moderator.

9) Posters who ignore the rules may have priviledges or forum membership withdrawn.

10) Safe Speed is not responsible for information or opinions posted in these forums by visitors.

Any comments?

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Seems reasonable to me. Is there room for some posting guidelines? Maybe something about avoiding or qualifying generalisations, unusual acronyms (e.g., some lucky, lucky people might not yet know what a NIP is), being able to support or reference claims unless you say otherwise. No criticism intended to a great forum, I'm just repeating some guidelines in use on another forum I post to.

additional coments/suggestions:

* don't accept porn (not even in general chat).
* don't accept entertainment outside "general chat" (fun pictures etc.)
* put the topic in the proper forum
* any moderation is with or without (I prefer the latter) explanation
* behaviour within the forum should be within the social acceptable
* trolls are banned

_________________
www.beterveilig.nl

I am fully in favour of the rights of the moderator on here. Even though it probably means half of my more controversial comments probably won't last five minutes

Agree with 99.9% of this ! But would say you cannot ban "trolls"

Everyone is entitled to their opinion - and banning their "free speech" would lead to our being accused of employing the same Stasi tactics that they do!

We should rise above it and respond with reasoned argument. If they mount high horses and hurl abuse at us - then fine! Let them!

Because by doing so - they play right into our hands by showing themselves as the unreasonable ones.

Hi Mad Moggie, perhaps you know, perhaps you don't. I'm from a dutch website, similar to safespeed and we have a forum. Believe me, we've had enough "crap" on our forum for me to propose these things. By the way, I think you'd define "troll" to something else that I would. We have banned exactly one person on our forum and he was bad behaviour on the forum of our "competitor". He was also bad conduct on our forum and one good day he vanished - while we pressed the button to do so.
We have quite a large forum, about 1800 registered. This forum is quite small yet and didn't have simular problems which we did. So it is a choice by either paying learning money or trust the people who have been there already

_________________
www.beterveilig.nl

Yes. Thanks Frank. I'm watching with interest and carefully considering your points.

I'm interested in your definition of a "troll".

In UK "internet speak" a troll is someone who posts in order to provoke a reaction, rather than a debate. Trolls are not especially welcome, but sometimes good information can come out of the discussion following a troll posting, and I wouldn't ban someone for trolling by my definition.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hi dromad!

Yes - I know your forum - and so does Mad Moggie! (My cousin's husband! He persuaded me to join in here as thought my point of view may be beneficial to discussions.

Not a "troll" - but may not always post what you want to hear
Have to put the law's point of view - and speed limits are there to be obeyed

(Though - have to say - not a great fan of PC Gatso as he is basically "crap" at the job and antagonises a lot of people! Not exactly well blessed in the "PR and good communications" skills - but then - he is a robot )

You have some of our lot as "regulars" on your forum - most of the "gang" are multilingual - and one does live on border Holland, Germany and Belgium. He is on your site very frequently (And he really dislikes PC Gatso and his mates - not that he has been "done" - as he is one careful and skilled dude behind the wheel of his car )

But yes - know what you mean about your bad lad - our chap told us all about him! We have others on "Tuf-Tuf", "bogey's "Duty" forum and we do er ..."troll" on the cyclists' fora

So - Am quite a bad lad myself (My excuse? - outnumbered by "rebels")

Er Guv ... it's er ... um peer pressure - you know!

The troll which we banned made himself famous with annoying others. This not only by provocative remarks, also by distorting and cripling other's discussions. This guy suffers from lack of attention and he just got about 20 years old and has no girfriend. All his talk was about sex and there was actually no sensible discussion with this guy possible.

So, a I don't have a good definition of "troll", but this guy was realy, but really counterproductive and annoying. Sometimes we have other people making provocative remarks, but they usually don't stay that long. We have moderators and they will send the guy a warning by PM if things tend to get out of hand. Banning is about the last thing we do, but with this guy called "system flits" we had no option. To put it in a less polite way, we decided that it was not sensible to ask a piece of wood to stop building a party in our rectum - wood doesn't have ears.

Usually we treat sceptical people, with sarcasm, irony and provocative remarks as good as possible. "System Flits" was just too destructive and the only guy who was banned.

I would be very modest in banning people, but sometimes you could get unlucky and attract the wrong people to the forum.

_________________
www.beterveilig.nl

Hi In Gear, perhaps you mistake me for someone else. I'm not from tuftuf, although the webmaster of tuftuf is also called Frank.

I'm from www.flitsservice.nl and unfortunately we don't have an English section.

"System Flits" was also banned on the Tuftuf forum by the way.

_________________
www.beterveilig.nl

Hi dromad!

Yes - we heard of that guy! What a type!

Our guys over there do speak fluent Dutch. German and French, and they do frequent both these sites. They participate in a few other Euro fora as well!

Persuaded my wife's cousin to join up - as thought a BiB's perspective may be useful to some of the debates.

He's an OK bloke - even though he does have a few weird opinions from our point of view