On rules, 2025-11-11. Edits included.

Seeing as the community appears to prefer to build its consensus more irregularly I'll try this one by putting my thoughts out first and taking the heat rather than trying to formalize the order of discussion.

[Rule 0:] This is a forum for free thinking and for discussing issues which have captured your imagination. Please respect other views and opinions, and keep an open mind. Our goal is to create a fairer and more transparent world for a better future.

Rule 1: Be respectful. Attack the argument, not the person.

Rule 2: Don't abuse the report function.

Rule 3: No excessive, unnecessary and/or bullying "meta" posts.

[Rules 4-10:] Disclaimer: Submissions/comments of exceptionally low quality, trolling, stalking, spam, and those submissions/comments determined to be intentionally misleading, calls to violence and/or abuse of other users here, may all be removed at moderator's discretion.

[...]

1. [Also 0.] Respect seems to have a simple objective test of no personal attack or namecalling. I've found it helpful to permit indirect concern (if there's a known rapist then speaking indirectly about rapists at least allows the level of respect to keep it at arm's length from attack and namecalling) and to be hard-line about direct statement ("you're a rapist", "you destroy community"). [Recommendation: Start only with the most objective namecalling, i.e. slurs.]

2. Straightforward, unless mods lie about reports, for which there is no beneficial reason. Reports must be credible and not just an attempt to punish another (or even to start a dialogue, which should be started through modmail instead).

3. This literally says any post whatsoever that is not about conspiracies directly but is about the forum itself (and for the most part we don't have established "conspiracies about the forum" so I wouldn't encourage the blurring of that line) can be deleted immediately if viewed as bullying or unnecessary; so any meta post should be extra respectful and objectively justifiable. (I see that while writing this I'm speaking about some things with two levels of indirection by comparing them to racism; I think that's passable for a meta.) Further, even if that's the case it must not be excessive meta, such as a couple times a day, because why in a non-emergency would people need to make several meta posts in a day? [Recommendation: No meta actions for a published transition period, e.g. 3 days, during which more objective definition of meta contribs can be published.]

4. Very low quality can be deleted freely; this would suggest to me, for instance, the meme with very little graphic improvement and very little title interest, as it's unlikely to provoke new conversation.

5. Trolling is vague, but I define it as disruption, behavior that doesn't fall in another category but is clearly uninterested in pursuing the community goal (rule 0) of fairness and transparency. Focusing on another user's past elsewhere on the forum, for instance, is not a matter for Conspiracies mods but for mods of the community where the behavior occurred; focusing on the past of this forum would only be submitted as a request for specific action from the mods, because complaining without an action plan is basically borderline disruptive. [Recommendation: Limit to objective acts of disruption initially.]

6. Stalking refers to continuing to interact with a person after the person has clearly indicated a request not to interact in a first page.

7. Spam generally means unsolicited, and in the Content Policy it includes consistent promotion of outside websites or of agendas (I did discuss this with a contributor in another forum, he knows who he is, so I'm not saying something new). (When I arrived at Scored I found from core mods that it was okay for me to inconsistently promote the website that has the same name as my handle.) We might draw a line between theory and agenda as relating to facts versus propaganda. [Recommendation: No spam actions other than monitoring ordinary levels objectively, and then wait until a clear outlier appears. I don't believe it's spam to repeat context many times if the context remains applicable each new repetition, e.g., if there is no change in the behavior contextualized. I'm getting tons of free advertising of my side forums, for instance.]

8. Intentional misleading allows mods to judge insincerity via demonstrations of illogic. I usually try to state the illogic publicly before taking action to see if the person responds positively, as it may just be a lapse rather than an intent. [Recommendation: No illogic actions without a post on classic fallacies.]

9. Calls to violence are easily handled. [Recommendation: Start with direct and indirect reference to suicide and dehumanization. Advocacy for the historical NSDAP (as opposed to historical research) might be considered by some as a call to violence, use judgment case by case. Advocacy for nazism in general need not be judged as a call to violence without specifics. Abuse of this recommendation is likely to be resolveable by reference to other rules.]

10. Abuse of others, although already handled under disrespect (including attack and namecalling), also includes categories like gaslighting.

These are simplified suggestions and I'm open to wording improvements. I propose that a minimal, objective adherence to baselines similar to the above should be the initial post-backlog transition stance, with lenience toward more debatable activities. If this, or a new rules thread, can be used as a community discussion, that should be beneficial to all. Essential to the transition will be transparency and openness to appeal, without the community overwhelming those anticipations of the mod team. I'll be commenting separately at a later time about individual backlog cases where there has been some question. I have no official status so am merely sharing views I think helpful for the community like anyone else.