Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-4750818-20150924214643

Hello everyone,

Over the past few months, we have had at least two angry arguments on the wiki. The first was started when the word "penis" was mentioned on this wiki (that argument was the biggest one in the wiki's history), and the second was started when WarPig  was banned for three days, although I unbanned him after 12 hours.

Why am I bringing this to your attention?

Because we really do not want any more angry arguments on the wiki if we can avoid it, for several reasons:
 * They are a distraction when there's work to be done  on this wiki.
 * They do not accomplish anything, and risk dividing the community.
 * Arguments often lead to rules getting broken, which can lead to temporary bans.

The latter point is particularly important because banning a user often leads to other users raging about that ban. If those users commit serious enough infractions, it could lead to a "banning spiral", as below.
 * User A breaks a minor rule and gets a 24 hour ban.
 * Users B and C get angry about this and start raging about User A's ban.
 * User D tells User B that he's stupid, which leads to all three getting banned for a short time.

This could theoretically go on and on, possibly involving the ban of many, many users, who had nothing to do with the original infraction at all -- they may not even have known the one who committed the infraction. If you play Dwarf Fortress, you might know this event as a "tantrum spiral".

What should users do to avoid this potentially undesirable phenomenon?
 * If you don't have anything nice to say, then keep it to yourself! This is the simplest way to avoid arguments.
 * If somebody posts something that was meant to offend you, tell an admin. Don't blackmail them back.
 * Don't get offended too easily! Getting offended easily probably won't get you anywhere, whether here or in real life.
 * If somebody you think highly of gets banned, don't tell the whole community that "this ban was unfair! Please support my cause and get this user unbanned!". It will probably end up with a bunch of people supporting you, and another group supporting the banning admin, with both groups arguing. Saying "I quit this wiki because XXX's ban was unfair" or the like is just as bad.
 * If a conversation appears to be going nowhere and turns into an argument, simply leave. Arguing is a waste of your and everybody else's time.
 * If you are admin or moderator: Keep above an argument. Handle this professionally by either warning users in the argument, closing/removing the thread (provide explanation, though), messaging the users on their message walls, or banning if needed (keep these bans to 24 hours or so, though).

I hope that by following these guidelines, we can build a new level of cooperation amongst ourselves and make the remainder of a 2015 the most productive period in this wiki's history.

Glflegolas (admin) Send a Messenger  21:46, September 24, 2015 (UTC) 