you know that person who pushes boundaries, and pushes, and pushes, but dances just within the scope of the rules and gets more than their fair share of chances? Not naming names here, as I'm actually not thinking of a specific person.
That is the sort of person or behaviour that rule 10 is meant to stop. It is meant to provide us a rule-based recourse if and when someone decides they're going to start trying to worm their way around the things we've put in place.
You ask whether we need this sort of clause when we've lived without it for ten years. I say yes, we absolutely do.
1. discipline protocols need to be more cleanly stated than they ever were.
2. What does and does not constitute a breach of rules needs to be stated more cleanly.
3. When those things are done, there is going to be wiggle room where people can, if they're clever or want to raise a little hell, start doing so.
4. I practically guarantee that if this happens and there is no community failure clause, someone is going to get very upset if we go above and beyond in punishing someone for repeated/cumulative behaviour and bend the punishment protocol, no matter how good our reasons might appear. Someone's going to cry foul on the mods. Someone's going to claim we're abusing power, showing favouritism, etc. Guess what? I've already seen this several times in my time here.
5. You want us to be more accountable. A community failure clause does that. If you are genuinely interested in being a productive member of this community, it's something you'll never have to fear or even worry about.
If this was such a rare occurrence that the likelihood was only a few thousandths of a percent higher than Pluto hitting Neptune, then okay. You'd have me there. But it isn't. I have already seen what happens when protocols aren't cleanly defined and people get punished. they get outraged, and people get outraged on their behalf. Community failure clause gives everyone a point of reference.
Here is what I envision.
A mod makes a post in the closed topic regarding punishments:
JimDoe: warned on November 11, 2018, by Mod1, for encouraging two users to share cracks (no specific links or methods provided)
Warned on November 22, 2018, by Mod1, for issuing personal attacks
Warned on December 3, 2018, by Mod2, for personal attacks
Warned on December 14, 2018, by Mod3, for character assassination (validated by Mod1, Mod4)
Community failure clause invoked on January 8, 2019, by consensus of Mod1, Mod2, Mod3, Mod4; although JimDoe's warnings have been more than one week apart, his actions suggest repeated patterns of behaviour which merit a ban; JimDoe has been personally contacted with regard to his behaviour and it is hoped that he will learn from this experience.
So everything about the process of invoking rule 10 would be transparent. You'd see who, and what, and when, and even why. And past a certain point, it's that trust word again. We're not going to wail on people with it.
Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1