During the recent admin meeting, we brought together old admins and new admins to discuss policies for the community and propose future changes. This blog is a summary of what we discussed. These will be worked into the terms of use and general functionality over time.

General Member Policies
This community generally allows freedom of speech. However, there are some limitations when they infringe upon other members. There will be no toleration for direct attacks upon other members, including for reasons of race, religion, sexuality, disability, etc. This also includes bringing fights from outside sources into the community to make this a hostile environment.

Since members can activate a profanity filter, general usage of profanity is not bannable, but excessive usage can be. Please keep such language within the bodies of age-rated blogs or within age-rated chatrooms. Terminology and slangs related to sexuality, racism, etc., are not generally bannable in age-rated blogs and chatrooms, but if they cross thresholds to be deemed pornographic or abhorrent by admins, then admins can ban or delete content at their own discretion. Just because you belong to a particular group to which a slang may be directed, it does not mean it is appropriate for you to "reclaim" such terminology to lessen the impact of usage. Pornographic or targeted violence in artwork is bannable. Any illegal or inciting activity is bannable and may be reported to appropriate legal authorities.

Treat T-rated content as roughly the MPAA movie rating of PG-13 and M-rated content as roughly the MPAA movie rating of R. Nothing should be AO-rated (MPAA NC-17). Members known to be too young to partake in age-rated chatrooms will be kicked and may be banned upon repeated entry. Age-inappropriate content in general chatrooms may result in a kick or ban.

Admin Policies
We will be adding more robust logging to admin actions to provide an audit trail and protect members and other admins against malicious actions. Most of these will be logged to a page that admins and overlords can see. Some logging may be visible to all members, where appropriate.

Until this system is in place, admins should use the following guidelines:

- When featuring or declining a blog, please post a comment that gives a reason for that decision.
- When banning, perma-banning, or restoring, please provide a reason on the appropriate admin page or notated within the member's account.
- Give the benefit-of-the-doubt for some actions members take, as cultural and language differences may mean members don't realize what they are saying is infringing another member. Call them out in chatrooms or private messages, where appropriate.
- Escalate punitive actions, under your own discretion, starting with direct communication, chatroom kicking, bans of increasing duration, perma-bans, reporting to overlords, and reporting to authorities.
- Consider the chain-of-authority to be members, admins, overlords, and me. Rather than fighting over disagreements made by someone at the same level, please escalate in the chain-of-authority.
- Overlords, please only promote members as needed, and log the reasons within the profiles. When demoting, do the same.
- For major decisions, admins/overlords will hold meetings to reach consensus, rather than acting unilaterally.
- Before we decide to add any more admins, let's give some time with these policies.


If I'm forgetting anything here, go ahead and leave it in the comments, and I'll amend this blog. I will also be posting another blog about the future of the community.