Announcing changes in CASS

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Announcing changes in CASS

Postby Tesseracts » Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:38 am

Hello TCSers,

After some consideration we have decided to reform the way serious topics are discussed on this forum. Here are some of the changes we will make:

Current Affairs and Serious Stuff will be combined with Loud Noises. We created Loud Noises originally because CASS was more strictly moderated. In the future we intend to moderate all serious discussion in the same fashion and leave less room for threads that go all over the place.

You can be banned from CASS. If you can't contribute constructively, you will be banned. This ban will NOT impact your standing in the general community, and you may be participate as normal on TCS without worrying about being punished as long as you follow general site rules. CASS will have it's own rules. More details about this system later.

In addition we will be announcing some new guidelines which can be summarized as:
    • Be respectful.
    • Keep thread titles and OPs related to the issue neutral. Your own opinion can still be included but your boring, dry, Wikipedia style Neutropolis description comes first.
    • No link dumping.
    • Sources are highly encouraged.
    • Stay on topic.
    • As always, the mod team will lock unproductive threads at our discretion.
    • The mod team will intervene if we see dogpiling.
    • Mega threads will be locked.
    • Memes and shitposting are allowed but should be on topic and part of a larger discussion, no dumping somewhat related macros.

These changes will begin to happen 24 hours from the time of this post. I hope this makes our experience more productive and welcoming for everyone.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby 52xMax » Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:53 am

I don't really participate on the forums that often anymore, so I don't see how these new rules might affect me much, if at all. Upon first glance, they seem to make sense...except...

What kind of offense would get someone banned from CAaSS that wouldn't get you banned from the whole site? Is this really necessary?
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sun Nov 25, 2018 3:07 am

We still get free banana pudding, though, right?
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby NathanLoiselle » Sun Nov 25, 2018 3:16 am

So....... no more non-sequiters.


SEE? I CAN SO BE ON TOPIC!
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby SandTea » Sun Nov 25, 2018 4:46 am

Tesseracts wrote:More details about this system later.


• Memes and shitposting are allowed but should be on topic and part of a larger discussion, no dumping somewhat related macros.


I'm only vaguely familiar with the term, mostly from context clues. The first result I got was-

Shitposting is posting large amounts of content of "aggressively, ironically, and trollishly poor quality" to an online forum or social network, in some cases intended to derail discussions or otherwise make the site unusable to its regular visitors.


I'm hoping the more details will be better defined for folk like me who often have to google internet speak and still not quite completely understand. As I understand it now a single image meme that is on topic would be allowed with no other comment along with it and so would a mean spirited backhand not directed at any particular user but at their standing on a subject in general?

I am still going to abstain from CASS to the best of my ability.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby Ladki96 » Sun Nov 25, 2018 9:30 am

Does this mean the Trump thread will be renamed? :) Or a new main thread on the topic will be created and the current one will be locked or something?

Edit: Oops, missed bullet point 8. So does that mean no main threads at all? That's fine too ^^
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby iMURDAu » Sun Nov 25, 2018 3:32 pm

52xMax wrote:What kind of offense would get someone banned from CAaSS that wouldn't get you banned from the whole site?


I'm guessing just breaking the established rules in that area can get you banned and some of those things aren't really reasons to kick someone entirely out the community. Like being off topic. Or link dumping. But seriously, that link is to a video about the history of speedrunning the original The Legend of Zelda. So I'm giving my neutral text introduction to it here.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby Windy » Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:40 am

RIP free speech, it was nice while it lasted
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby gisambards » Mon Nov 26, 2018 2:26 pm

I think these rules make sense, and should make it much easier for people to comfortably express controversial opinions. I also think that the rule regarding neutral titles and OPs is sensible - I suspect this will be the most controversial one, but it can make the topic of threads very unclear if the OP is overly opinionated and makes one feel much less welcome to pipe up if one disagrees. That said, two things I think could do with a little more clarification:
1) Does the rule regarding memes, shitposting, etc. cover making purely joke responses? It would be a shame if people felt unable to be more lighthearted about things.
2) With OPs no longer being opinionated, might it make more sense if it's just that OPs need to open with a neutral paragraph describing the topic of the thread, but then can contain the poster's opinion, clearly delineated, in the rest of the post? I do think that making the OP purely factual might make it more awkward for the OP to give their opinion without just double-posting.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby iMURDAu » Mon Nov 26, 2018 6:20 pm

Windy wrote:RIP free speech, it was nice while it lasted


The only things that seem to be restricted are charged topic titles, link dumping, and being off topic.

It'll make for an easier read and keep people from derailing threads. I suppose. We'll see.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby Kate » Tue Nov 27, 2018 9:52 pm

My apologies for any responses that don't quite answer the question, please let me know if I have failed to adequately address something.

52xMax wrote:I don't really participate on the forums that often anymore, so I don't see how these new rules might affect me much, if at all. Upon first glance, they seem to make sense...except...

What kind of offense would get someone banned from CAaSS that wouldn't get you banned from the whole site? Is this really necessary?


iMURDAu is correct, basically if someone is consistently making thread titles that say things like "Liberals love pedophiles! Roman Polanski invited to speak" And "Racism wins again! X politician re-elected" we may ask them to cool it in CAaSS but wouldn't want them to miss out on the forum in areas that are not as stringent on posting guidelines. If you break a site-wide rule and it coincides with a CAaSS rule, that's different.


Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:We still get free banana pudding, though, right?
Of course.



SandTea wrote:
Tesseracts wrote:More details about this system later.


• Memes and shitposting are allowed but should be on topic and part of a larger discussion, no dumping somewhat related macros.


I'm only vaguely familiar with the term, mostly from context clues. The first result I got was-

Shitposting is posting large amounts of content of "aggressively, ironically, and trollishly poor quality" to an online forum or social network, in some cases intended to derail discussions or otherwise make the site unusable to its regular visitors.


I'm hoping the more details will be better defined for folk like me who often have to google internet speak and still not quite completely understand. As I understand it now a single image meme that is on topic would be allowed with no other comment along with it and so would a mean spirited backhand not directed at any particular user but at their standing on a subject in general?

I am still going to abstain from CASS to the best of my ability.
We are trying to make that as clear as possible, but basically, memes and shitposting should be within the rules. If you can break down the meaning and message of the meme and it adds to the conversation without insulting your TCS peers, it is probably okay. If it is something that would break the rules if written out as a verbal statement, it's best to hold off.

Ladki96 wrote:Does this mean the Trump thread will be renamed? :) Or a new main thread on the topic will be created and the current one will be locked or something?

Edit: Oops, missed bullet point 8. So does that mean no main threads at all? That's fine too ^^

This one is still being discussed but I personally like your solution of a fresh start.


gisambards wrote:I think these rules make sense, and should make it much easier for people to comfortably express controversial opinions. I also think that the rule regarding neutral titles and OPs is sensible - I suspect this will be the most controversial one, but it can make the topic of threads very unclear if the OP is overly opinionated and makes one feel much less welcome to pipe up if one disagrees. That said, two things I think could do with a little more clarification:
1) Does the rule regarding memes, shitposting, etc. cover making purely joke responses? It would be a shame if people felt unable to be more lighthearted about things.
2) With OPs no longer being opinionated, might it make more sense if it's just that OPs need to open with a neutral paragraph describing the topic of the thread, but then can contain the poster's opinion, clearly delineated, in the rest of the post? I do think that making the OP purely factual might make it more awkward for the OP to give their opinion without just double-posting.

Don't worry, it has always been the plan to let OPs put their thoughts and feelings and takes as passionately as they wanted to, clearly delineated from the thread introduction. Our intent with this is have a way to set the tone in an inviting manner without policing an OP's opinions, and it's one case where double posting is completely okay if that is someone's preferred method of doing so. As for joke responses, it's okay within reason. We split off of a comedy site and are generally people with a good sense of humor, I agree that it would be a shame to quash that. But as with all things, ask what do the jokes add? What is their aim? There is a vast difference between making fun of public figures and making fun of their supporters, for example. Joking about the victims of a tragedy is less likely to be okay than joking about the perpetrator. As a rule of thumb, with humor try and follow the idea of not punching down.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby cmsellers » Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:32 pm

So I like some of these and am neutral on others; the only rule changes that I potentially have issue with are the titles one and the one regarding "mega threads."

Addressing "mega threads" first, the fact it's two words and Kate's mention that the Trump thread may be replaced with a neutral title suggest that this means long threads, and not megathreads which cover multiple incidents on a give topic. But I would have interpreted it as prohibiting megathreads entirely, and I don't think we have enough activity to sustain that. Now, I am someone far more willing to create whole threads for fairly minor things, but if I think something isn't worth the effort and there's no existing thread, then at best I will post about it on Discord, and at worst I may not say anything at all. I imagine for people who are already reluctant to create new threads, the decline in activity would be even more pronounced.

Regarding neutral titles, I get where you guys are coming from and why you implemented it, but I see two issues. The first is that this pretty much kills wordplay in titles (the only title I can think of where I've engaged in wordplay in the title that might arguably adhere is the now-obsolete "Jeff Sessions Megathread of Justice," and even there I'm not sure), and for obvious reasons I find that change at least a little bit annoying. I also feel that given how pervasive wordplay was in the old comments section, it runs a but against our culture as well.

The second is that I remember starting a thread in which I used the term "alt right" as a neutral descriptive term, and it infuriated a lot of people who though I was using it as a derogatory slur targeting a specific member. I worry that as people try to write neutral titles, there's far more potential for acrimony over whether a word or phrase is loaded or not than there was when we could write biased titles but were expected to argue in good faith.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby Windy » Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:39 am

24 hours without a single post in CASS. a-a-are the new rules helping?!?
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby cmsellers » Tue Dec 04, 2018 1:39 am

I haven't seen any threads breaking the rules since they were announced, have you?

But seriously, CASS has been on life support for awhile.
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Re: Announcing changes in CASS

Postby Tesseracts » Thu Dec 06, 2018 5:46 am

I deleted Loud Noises and made a new thread explaining the rules.
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