You are overreacting, yes.
Take most rules with the knowledge that we want to have a hands-off approach wherever possible. If you make one insulting post that isn't utterly trashing someone on the forum but is, for instance, expressing some anger at Microsoft, you may (key word, may) get a caution to be aware of your behaviour, but you aren't going to be slammed for it. Remember, cautions are not cumulative and they aren't punishments; they are nothing more or less than a mod stepping in and gently advising you not to get too much more heated. They will never be counted against you. We recognize that everyone gets hot under the collar sometimes, and that in those instances, things can be said which, upon reflection, shouldn't have been, or should've been said differently at least. Happens to the best of us. The forum rules are here to protect people and to stop things exploding. They are not here so we can issue warnings everywhere.
Regarding rule 10, I'm sorry but I am still convinced, even after reading what's been written, that it should be here...because if it's not, and behaviour occurs where we feel it needs to be invoked, people may get very upset if we start inventing rules. In particular here, we now have warnings proposed to expire after a short time; this is something we have tried to put in place because we feel that people who slip up should have a chance to redeem themselves. In all the furor of rule 10, I believe this fact has been overlooked by most. We now have an exploitable part of the rules, essentially, because we actually wanted to ease up on punishments, so there is quite literally now a better chance that rule 10 needs to come into effect to deal with one or more people whose behaviour is bad enough to warrant it. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's possible.
One compromise I am happy to suggest is the following:
We put rule 10, the community failure clause, in place, and we give it a trial run. If it's never cited, great; it's like Liam said, a rule meant to catch behaviour not covered by other rules. If we do use it, and there is valid grounds for suggesting that we are abusing one or more people with it, the following will occur:
1. We will either close the loophole or remove the rule, and
2.The person abused or mistreated will have their associated punishment revoked, and
3. I will resign as a mod
Yes, I will put a personal stake in this. I am so convinced that we will do this fairly, and not misuse it, that I am prepared to stake my position on the team upon its success.
Remember that we will be publishing "cases", for want of a better word, against players, so if we do have to invoke rule 10, you will know why, and you will have a record of the behaviour that caused it.
This does -NOT mean that I will resign if even one person disagrees with the ruling. What it -does mean is that we did publish a list of staff protocol, and if we have been found to abuse that with regard to rule 10, then the promised action will take place.
Many of you are wary of giving staff any power whatsoever right now. I feel that, while this is a realistic enough concern, it's being blown out of shape. In reality, this community failure clause is difficult to invoke and even more difficult to abuse. it is a last-ditch measure which only gets used when other methods aren't working or are being circumvented. It has checks to ensure that one person can't just run roughshod over the whole thing. It demonstrates proof of behaviour for the community. I am opposed to having you guys vote on whether it hurt the community because it is very, very easy to just use a vote to support a friend or to damn an opponent. Unfortunately - and I want to say this as gently as possible - the mods are not the only group who has made some slips lately. We have responsibility so ours may count for more, but I daresay many things have been said and done that probably shouldn't have been said and done, and to me, they indicate that making a community failure clause into a popularity contest is a very bad idea.
So yeah. What do you think of my compromise, letting us take the idea for a spin and seeing if your fears are actually justified? At the end of the day, it really is going to come down to trust.
Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1