Rules v. No Rules!

[Shawn G]

Shawn G submitted a new Article:

Rules v. No Rules!

Rules v. No Rules!

A lot of new forums are popping up without a proper set of rules! This is a cause for concern because everything needs some form of rules in order for everyone to get along. Sure, having too many rules can break a forum but not having any rules can really break a forum. I wrote this article to explain why a forum needs some form of rules and what the consequences are for not having any rules at all.

They have rules

Some of the most democratic or chaotic management style forums out there still have rules. Looks at forums like Hack Forums, a forum about hacking and yes even illegal hacking. They have rules in place to prevent certain violations that could make their community liable to criminal and/or civil penalties. There are many political and debate forums out there that express the need for complete freedom of speech but they still have some sort of rules explaining to their members what they cannot do on their forum community. Not having rules may seem like your forum will be better than the others but it will also open up a world of trouble if you are not careful about it.

Playing Dumb Effect

Let's say that you are a forum owner who doesn't make any rules page because you feel members will just use common sense. Let's say you start to get a load of real people joining your forum just to make one liner topics to advertise their signature links in an attempt to get more traffic. What if the links are in direct competition with your forum? If you send PMs asking them to stop doing that, they will likely respond that they didn't see any rules about not being able to do it. They can easily play dumb with you about it because you have given them the perfect opportunity to play dumb by not having any rules in the first place.

That's Not Fair!

Let's say you start a forum with no rules or no topics about possibly creating rules in the future. Your forum members start to do activities that get on your nerves. They become used to doing these activities and you finally snap and make rules against doing those activities. The members will likely become angered that new rules are in place that stops them from doing what you have allowed them to do for a while to begin with. I have seen forums fail because of this very thing and it also starts a bad reputation for your forum and you don't want that. If there are rules in place from the beginning and they are enforced from the beginning, then members are not going to be able to get used...

Read more about this article here...

 

[VicTroX]

I almost feel like my post about my new trolling site inspired you to write this. LOL
It was a good read, Shawn. Good job. You have some valid points, indeed.

But here's my poorly put together plan, you tell me if you think this will work at all:

• Post a few rules (which I have already done on my own site).
• Enforce those rules and enforce the imaginary rules I didn't write down (which covers everything).
• Any violators of my posted and not-posted rules are subject to ban with the possibility of receiving a warning first.

 

[cheat_master30]

Nice article.

Now admittedly, there are some forums which truly don't have rules. I think some image boards (like parts of 4chan) don't to much of a degree, although I'm not sure about that. There's also a few (extremely illegal) such forums accessable via Tor due to its near complete anonymity and general lack of regulation. But I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to set up a forum with no rules anyway.

The playing dumb effect is a good reason as well, although in theory couldn't you just moderate them anyway and say that 'there are no rules, hence I don't have to obey any rules either and am moderating you regardless'? I have to wonder why no one arguing for anarchy and no rules ever considers that point, that 'no rules' applies both ways.

Same with most of your other points, just say that 'no rules' means you can do whatever the hell you like as a forum owner and that not having them means no real way of knowing what's 'fair' or not. I'm sure most people who hate the idea of rules on forums would back down pretty quickly after hearing that.

 

[mansawalta]

Rules are definitely good to have as a general guide. I think that enforcing rules is a big issue especially cause there are all kinds of people online......so maybe have rules that aren't overly strict and make the forum user feel like adults as opposed to little kids whom you tell what to do

 

[Soliloquy-AdEx]

It's not that I'd want to discourage open discussion on my forums, but I don't want them turning into Lord of the Flies either. Last thing I need is someone posting something clearly illegal.

 

[limcidson]

Those sites without rules eventually learn why there needs to be some sort of baseline for acceptable conduct. Humans always devolve without some degree of rules to keep them mindful.

 

[ThisOldMan]

This post reminds me of a forum where the admin declares right up front that there are no rules except for him. I mean he's the one who makes up the rules and the rules are the ones which he says are rules. No buts and no protests allowed. However he did soften the blow by adding that he's generally easy-going and as long as no one is making anyone feel uncomfortable, he's fine with it.