=][= FORUM RULES FORMAT CHANGE INCOMING =][=

[Brother Tyler]

I'm in the process of changing the format (but not the content) of the forum rules. None of the existing rules are being changed (not yet, anyways). The format change is to support some guidance for prospective new members, returning members, and prospective advertisers. That guidance will be in the form of additions to the forum rules and will spell out things that have either been discussed previously (e.g., the changes to advertising) or which have been established via the software settings since the update in May/June of 2022, but which haven't been spelled out previously. Links to that guidance will appear at the top of the main page, but only for people that aren't logged in and for administrators/sacristans (i.e., above the ++ COMMUNITY ++ category). This will give immediate visibility/linking to that guidance to people in those groups while keeping things clean for everyone else. Since that guidance applies to everyone, however, the actual guidance will be added to the forum rules at the bottom of the page in the ++ ORDO ADMINISTRATUM ++ category. The change you'll see will be that the forum rules, most of which are currently collected in a single discussion as a series of posts, will be broken down into individual topics. This will enable members to find specific portions without having to scroll through a single discussion.

 

Things are only in a draft mode right now, however, as I develop the overall structure and provide the guidance (which the moderati will review and refine before the guidance is finalized).

 

Anyone that wants to keep me honest is invited to take screenshots of the current rules for comparison between now and when the reformatting is complete. An announcement will be posted in this discussion when that guidance and rules reformatting are complete (and I'll make all of the changes in one fell swoop).

 

Eventually, we'll look at updating/clarifying the forum rules. If there are any that are either unclear to you or which you think could be improved upon, feel free to post your questions/suggestions here.

[Scribe]

Is the mission statement banner staying?

[Brother Tyler]

For the time being, yes. It is intended to be a constant reminder of what the site/community is about in hopes of preventing/minimizing the problematic behavior. There has been a decrease in that type of behavior since the banner went up and we'd like to see that continue.

[Brother Tyler]

I originally intended to implement all of the changes in one fell swoop, but I've been too busy. I have made a few of the changes, but the others are a lower priority.

 

Some of you may recall recent incursions of spambots. This compelled us to switch our new account approval process back to including the step of an Administrator having to approve each account. A key part of that is to verify that new accounts have valid email addresses (a significant number of spambots don't use valid email addresses). One method by which that is done is to validate that email domain names (when they're not well-known email domains like gmail.com, yahoo.com, or gmx.de) are valid. Other spambots hijack people's email accounts, so an email has to be sent to them to confirm that they registered an account. Both of these processes take valuable time, and this can be problematic when I'm not around as much as I would like. This has, unfortunately, slowed new accounts down. The forum rules now include a topic about signing up. That guidance includes the final step of sending an email to the Site/Administrators, which will speed the process up. The portions of the pre-existing forum rules that address creating a new account will be removed.

 

Two other new rules topics that will be added address recovering access to your account and advertising. The first will be somewhat shorter and is a much higher priority, so it will appear first. The second will take some time to build.