SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

**nirvAnA** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 3:30 AM

In light of the recent drama that has surfaced, I feel there is no better time to introduce a basic set of rules on SC2SEA. It would avoid problems in the future and it could have avoided ALOT of problems we had in the past with the way some members were treating the admins and mods on this site because there were no "official rules" in place and as such certain people felt we were obligated to serve them in certain ways.

I personally wanted to keep this whole issue private bearing in mind all the potential negativity that could arise, with sponsors staying away not wanting to touch our tournaments resulting in no more tournaments no more SEACLs etc and frankly this whole thing has been very embarrassing for SEA. deth did not agree with my decision that was discussed with Rossi in private and went ahead to air it for TL to decide. (Only for alot of them to tell us it should be discussed privately).

This post was made by Mezza on TL.

Mezza said:

I refer to the TL rules from which the humble admins/mods of sc2sea who are fully respectful of this website and everything that it has done and as a result, draw inspiration and guidance from.

TL's 10 Commandments

In particular, I believe these in particular (and probably more) apply in some form or another to you, deth. (Read abovementioned link for full explanations of each)

1. THIS IS OUR HOUSE
2. THOU SHALL OBSERVE FORUM ETIQUETTE
3. THOU SHALL THINK BEFORE POSTING
6. THOU SHALL RESPECT FORUM VETERANS
10. THOU SHALL HAVE FUN - in particular, the bit about "Enjoy it. Make others happy. Be happy. Avoid being negative."

All things being considered, "evidence", or rather, smatterings of conversations which could easily have been posted out of context isn't much to go by on a forum.

Honestly deth, this tournament will go on, with or without you, and this tournament is something awesome nirvana and his team put together, and you're not doing TL/sc2sea/the sc2 community any good by your actions. So man up and take the ban, keep playing SC2 and have fun, or at the very least, don't stop other people from having theirs, or rather, wasting everyone's time. So let's just get the tournament on, shall we?

p.s. Dissing nirvana about him making a living off the site is quite a low (and inaccurate) blow. I'd imagine nirvana makes a shitload more working at his previous day job than at this current "job" and honestly its not like he's making a killing off his site. So even if he does owe the community "shit", you alone don't exactly constitute "the community".

p.p.s. My apologies to the rest of the forum members who have to put up with this.

These 5 rules are now the first official 5 rules of SC2SEA

They are exact carbon copies of TL's rules whom we have always drawn inspiration from which will set the precedent for now and be adapted as time passes by.

1. THIS IS OUR HOUSE

+ [Read More] +

2. THOU SHALL OBSERVE FORUM ETIQUETTE

+ [Read More] +

3. THOU SHALL THINK BEFORE POSTING

+ [MUST READ] +

4. THOU SHALL RESPECT FORUM VETERANS

+ [Read More] +

5. THOU SHALL HAVE FUN - in particular, the bit about "Enjoy it. Make others happy. Be happy. Avoid being negative."

Lastly, this is not a thread for the deth vs nirvana argument to spill over and all efforts to turn that into it will be infracted.

It is about the new rules we have implemented, which have being used by TL to great success. Surely you can't find fault with TL for coming up with theirs and if you do, let them know. If you still have issues kindly take it up privately or post it on TL (if they haven't closed the thread yet).

SEAL will happen and it will be amazing, lets not forget that and look forward towards the league that all of us have been working our ass off to make happen. I would also recommend checking out deL's post below which has an amazing preview of the championship league.

Quick Comments

Volition:

i like

faithHunter · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 3:48 AM

While I agree to most of TL's house rules, what I don't agree on is the 4th SC2SEA's "new" house rule, which is "THOU SHALL RESPECT FORUM VETERANS". Why? It promotes elitism and it makes the guys that have posted more posts on this website look more "elite" compared to other users.

Since this IS a carbon copy of the TL's house rules, then that means it currently has the same "definition" of the ones at TL. Unfortunately I can't find the TL house rules page on TL (If someone could link me to the page, I would really appreciate that), but the definition of the rule as far as I can remember is that when a "veteran" does something that you could get banned for, people will just let him off the hook just because he has been around for a while and he has contributed much to the site. But when a new member does it, he doesn't get the same treatment as the veteran does. I know that maybe the way it works on SC2SEA is different (and I sincerely hope so), and I know that things can change, but since the thread has just been posted and the house rules ARE an exact copy of TL's, that means we haven't took the time to "revise" it, to "adapt" it to the community so that it can fit in.

Quick Comments

NDG.Stitch:

He's got a good point...

**cure** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 3:50 AM

Although the rules are pretty common sense-ish. I'm glad that it's posted.

souljah · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 3:51 AM

Agreed with neozxa, I feel that veterans should not have greater leeway for getting away with things simply because it can lead to abuse or to complaints of favouritsm cos most of the veteran will be on better terms with the admins.

**nirvAnA** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 3:53 AM

neozxa its over here http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...topic_id=17883

Yea that is in the TL rules at number 6. You bring up a very valid point, I think the general idea is to show respect to everyone regardless of how long they have been on the forums. And to show even more respect for members of the community who have helped built the site into what it was today rather then "based on duration". That would be our definition of veterans and perhaps i need to reword that abit. In TL that would refer to HotBid, Nazgul, Chill, etc who have done amazing things for the TL community.

With that being said, our veterans will not get away if they commit certain offenses, but being veterans, the possibility for that seems really low.

As you said, I as well believe its best for our rules to be adapted to fit our community and as time progresses tweaked further.

**Maynarde** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 3:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neozxa

While I agree to most of TL's house rules, what I don't agree on is the 4th SC2SEA's "new" house rule, which is "THOU SHALL RESPECT FORUM VETERANS". Why? It promotes elitism and it makes the guys that have posted more posts on this website look more "elite" compared to other users

You could apply some common sense here. In context for SC2SEA, "Forum veterans" would be more like our MVPs for example (people with yellow names). They're given this status for a reason; because they have a history of providing good content, good posts and good behaviour. These people are an example of an SC2SEA user who should have auto-respect from new users.

But really, EVERYONE on this site should respect eachother. We're a small community, when there's conflict and disrespect it creates repercussions whether we like it or not. You are allowed to disagree, this is a forum, but don't disrespect the person you disagree with.

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

exactly 100%

faithHunter · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 4:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maynarde

You could apply some common sense here. In context for SC2SEA, "Forum veterans" would be more like our MVPs for example (people with yellow names). They're given this status for a reason; because they have a history of providing good content, good posts and good behaviour. These people are an example of an SC2SEA user who should have auto-respect from new users.

But really, EVERYONE on this site should respect eachother. We're a small community, when there's conflict and disrespect it creates repercussions whether we like it or not. You are allowed to disagree, this is a forum, but don't disrespect the person you disagree with.

Yes, I agree that MVP's and other people (mods, admins, etc) should be respected by other users for what they have done for the website, but what I'm trying to say is that they should be treated the same as other members when it comes to breaking rules and/or receiving bans since, in the definition of that rule in TL, it says that the veterans could just get away from a ban just because they're veterans. Since this rule haven't been tweaked yet to match SC2SEA's community, I was just pointing out on what part of the new house rules that I disagree with.

**Maynarde** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 4:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neozxa

Yes, I agree that MVP's and other people (mods, admins, etc) should be respected by other users for what they have done for the website, but what I'm trying to say is that they should be treated the same as other members when it comes to breaking rules and/or receiving bans since, in the definition of that rule in TL, it says that the veterans could just get away from a ban just because they're veterans. Since this rule haven't been tweaked yet to match SC2SEA's community, I was just pointing out on what part of the new house rules that I disagree with.

Hence the second part of my post

And in regards to veterans getting away with bans on TL, IdrA has been banned MANY times. Also, like nirvAnA said none of us vets or coloured names should be exempt from these rules. I would love to see them implemented ASAP so that everyone (regardless of previous indiscretions) can start anew OR simply continue respecting their fellow SC2sea member

Quick Comments

	Volition:	Starting anew would be great for all involved. let bygones be bygones
	NDG.Stitch:

deL · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 6:18 AM

lol I don't think there are any forum veterans, they have probably been members for like 3 months longer than the rest of the people xD

Peleus · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 8:00 AM

Treat all members with respect, there should never be anything that I could say to a forum "MVP" that I should be banned for that I should be able to say to a day old poster and not be banned.

Equality for everyone, but I agree with posting rules in the open to avoid issues.

Krrn · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 8:41 AM

Maybe the 4th rule could be "Respect your fellow forum members". As I don't think a rule should differentiate between how you act towards MVPs/Mods and 'regular joe poster #465'.

ToRXypha · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 9:53 AM

The rule is to say, that a veteran provided a lot in contributions and proven themselves. it allows for the fact that people do simply slip up occasionally but as they are a veteran they are given a little more leniency as its not their normal behaviour, it doesn't mean they will get away with it, the TL Rules also state, it is their house, the rules aren't always meant to be fair. it does not give a veteran free reign to do as they please and get away with it.

Quick Comments

	Mezza:	This man understands.
	Nemo:	^ this

fur · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 9:57 AM

Damn shame that it has come to this.

This site actually reminds me so much of the way TL.net was back in 2002/2003 when it was very special.

Use your brains guys and

- it's not that hard.

TASlowHands · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 10:15 AM

While I understand and appreciate why these rules are being set, I just hope that this site remains in the same spirit it always has. Where we can troll each other and have a laugh, not looking over your shoulder for a banstick if you say something a bit close to the bone

I trust the staff here to maintain a high level of fairness though, and not adopt the worst from TL.

VB_WhiplashJC · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 10:47 AM

If you're going to borrow from TL, then borrow their policy of not deleting posts. People don't learn if they can't see what happens when you don't follow the rules.

Quick Comments

	Dox:	Bravo!
	Cute:	100% Agreed
	BaKaiNu:	So this.
	Fadey:	agree!
	dippa:	and the left jab connects
	iM yang:	definately
	Maynarde:	Good idea
	ToRXypha:	for sure, gives good examples of what not to do
	nirvAnA:
	TADivinity:	On the freaking money
	TAScarecrow:	been saying this for ages
	AxSGRiM:
	AxS.Sorathez:	I am in agreement.
	TAEdarus:	I'm glad someone else feels this way too <3
	inFeZa:	I liek this because i usually miss out on the drama
	Nemo:	Agreed and well said with manner
	Melennas:
	x5.Revenant:

**nirvAnA** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeleusSPR

Equality for everyone, but I agree with posting rules in the open to avoid issues.

I want to stress that Equality is extremely important. Just because you are a "Top Player" or you come from a big clan does not mean you should get special treatment after breaking the rules, or the rules should apply different to you. Zannoku was banned from the site AND all our sc2sea tournaments for his forum etiquette and behaviour towards mods, and the tournament bans was something TA supported as well. Why do I bring Zan up? Believe it or not, deth is the 2nd highest banned user on sc2sea with at least 4 different accounts being banned (TAdeth, hted, nazivana, TAPelican) with some of these accounts receiving more than 1 ban and his actions after receiving the ban have been very similar to Zans, for instance immediately making another account to circumvent the ban. I don't want to go more into this as this thread should only be about rule discussion so look at cure's post http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...&currentpage=4 if you want direct quotes and you can continue discussion there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VN_WhiplashJC

If you're going to borrow from TL, then borrow their policy of not deleting posts. People don't learn if they can't see what happens when you don't follow the rules.

I definitely agree with this and I have NOT being randomly deleteing posts i disagree with like what is being portrayed. Look at del's post about my wife, look at pinders post against baka, they are all still up there for all to see. The only times i delete stuff is when theres obvious derailment which will harm the thread for example halfway into the Tgun/glade thread 5-6 pple spamming "Wheres Roz?" one after the other and it took up one whole page and was obviously derailing the thread. deths baselss accusation in his rep comment if not deleted would have me had to make a lengthly response in the thread (Which i have since made on tL) which would have derailed the glade/tgun discussion and i wanted to avoid that. I also deleted stuff that in my opion were detrimental to the forum and overboard like mancannon sexually harassing kelly as well as the racial slurs by zan, as well as multiple memes attacking benji made in multiple threads whereever benji posted.

Also want to add some have been using the comments feature when "downreping" to circumvent this. aka making infraction worthy comments in the downrep". For e.g i have deleted down repped comments made against a certain member that went like "How can you manage your own team you can't even manage your own weight" which was a personal attack worthy of infraction that came out of nowhere that would make things worse between the two groups. those are the types of comments i have deleted, ones that clearly crossed the line as they cant be infracted. Which perhaps i should not have in hindsight so people learn whats acceptable and whats not, i just felt it was so wrong and no one should have ever had the misfortune of seeing that.

I also want to apologies for deleting Dox's and rossi's posts and have restored them.

http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=3233

I deleted rossis post because it was very misinformed and if i had to refute all the points it was gonna have the thread blow up (like what you see on TL now) with very long walls of texts from both sides but since everything is now out in the open people can go read the TL thread and decide for themselves and there is no point leaving it deleted. You also have to remember there has been ALOT of drama over the last month, from the 1. SEAL format discussion, 2. the GLade tgun team, 3. the map hacking incident and 4. the SEACL player eligibilty. Those are HUGE threads and I have had to read every post in these threads to keep an eye on what was going on to make an educated administrative decision, and it was taking up massive amounts of time and I definitely did not what the "message from deth" thread to turn into another thread like that, we are already very stretched for time with SEACL just one week away and with alot of work still to be done.

As for Dox i still have and will always have an amazing amount of respect for him. I did not want people to see two very important people of sc2sea having a big public disagreement, and i did not want to tear apart the community by having people to take sides, especially when the league was so close to launching. I immediately messaged him in skype after his post so that we could talk about it privately where I explained my rationale behind my actions and likewise he explained his.

Quick Comments

	nGenLight:	Don't need to know your reasoning, just stop doing it mate.
	TAEdarus:	Thank you for restoring those posts, this is going a long way to helping =)

Peleus · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 1:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nirvAnA

The only times i delete stuff is when theres obvious derailment which will harm the thread for example halfway into the Tgun/glade thread 5-6 pple spamming "Wheres Roz?" one after the other and it took up one whole page and was obviously derailing the thread.

Personally, I'd say never delete stuff for any reason. If you're worried about thread derailment there are plenty of effective ways of dealing with it, without removing the post. If you simply warned / put an infraction on the post with a justification people can see if they continue along those lines it's unacceptable, thread gets back on track and everyone is happy.

This is also more effective in other ways because when the next person who wants to spam "Where's Roz?" comes into the thread they can see that it's unacceptable rather than being the first person (from their point of view) doing it and getting harshly dealt with when they never knew there was a previous problem.

"Rule #6 - Openness, transparency and equality are the cornerstones of sc2sea.com"

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

Also want to add some have been using the comments in "downrep" to circumvent the infactions.

**Eddie** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 1:21 PM

Common sense rules, applies both to on-line and real life. Probably didn't need to be stated, hopefully it's not referenced too much. We're all here to have fun, improve, play Starcraft etc. Makes sense to be pretty level headed. Sometimes people disagree, act out, but we move on/compromise, and hopefully the site/community/tournaments/events will grow as a result.

more gg more skill

**nGenLight** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 1:26 PM

Wait so not posting positive tones - infractable? gg Benji!

Quick Comments

Dox:

ahaha

**Mezza** · Sun, 8th-Jan-2012, 2:11 PM

As much as you guys want transparency, and having the ability to see what transpired so you can 'learn' from it, I strongly believe that an ounce common sense would be able to guide you through without having to observe one retard's actions leading up into a ban to learn from it.

Also, I've got to agree with nirvana to quite a large extent of sometimes, deleting a post may make for an easier moderating job than to leave it and then having to refute the arguments that will ensue, but that's his strategy, and honestly its not wrong. Because most threads that descend into a stupid flamewar after leaving inflammatory posts up would end up how? Having the thread shut down anyway. Only to have another thread spawn with the exact same discussion topic.

The way I see it, he's keeping the thread on track, his style, and who's to say its a totally wrong way of doing things? To move the OP to a totally new thread, recreating the thread and moving the relavant posts into a NEW thread and renaming the old thread to be a discussion thread for that ONE issue of contention, is a huge pain in the ass, and a mod's energy could be better spent doing other more constructive, rather than destructive stuff. Just because you disagree with his style of doing stuff, doesn't mean its wrong. Doesn't make it entirely right either, but in the grand scheme of things, its just stylistic.

About the point on forum veterans, read the first line of the bit where the point is explained on in the TL commandments "All other things being equal, we will give preferential treatment to site members who have been with us longer (as reflected in their post count + length of time with us as a registered member). It's a simple recognition of the quality of these people. Longevity and contribution are prized commodities around here."

This doesn't mean veterans get to whatever the crap they want to do. But ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, (ie. in a 50/50 situation, or the no he started the shit vs no you started the shit first arguments) we're gonna veer on the "veteran's" side, for obvious bloody reasons. Thank you ToRXypha, you obviously understood it whereas some others didn't.

Also, honestly how many people from this site have actually positively and significantly contributed to the site? Most of us are just passengers. So maybe the least we could do would be to less of a nuisance and be nicer in general. Also, actually think before posting.

p.s. I'd suggest for all the TL rules to be made official rules honestly. I mentioned those only in particular to a previous situation from the TL thread but yeah, perhaps "RESPECT YOUR ID" and "THOU SHALT CONTRIBUTE TO THE SITE (positively)" would have applied as well but I didn't mention it then for fear of some people misconstruing it and dragging it way off line, once again.

p.p.s. Light, constructive criticism is great, but personal attacks against Benji isn't. I not exactly Benji's greatest fan, but seriously when it comes down to personal attacks, I'm all for just deleting that line and infracting/banning the person right up with no given reason by the mods, to leave the personal attack up for all to see is a sore spot.

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

I hope everyone reads this