Regarding the Revision of the Prohibited Activities and Account Penalty Policy

[InkstainedGwyn]

So I get the worry at SE going too far, and I'm not going to even try to predict if they will or not.

However, I find it interesting that everybody has immediately jumped to the conclusion that "free speech is dead I can no longer be myself or I'll be banned" and not thought more about situations like the ones we read about "my ex is stalking me and won't remove me from their friends list and constantly makes alts to send me rude/disturbing messages, but SE says they can't step in so all I can do is blacklist them".

I honestly believe this sort of thing at least was created more for the latter than the former. Is there room for the former? Probably. But for people who assume that's why these were put in place, I don't agree.

[Enla]

So I get the worry at SE going too far, and I'm not going to even try to predict if they will or not.

However, I find it interesting that everybody has immediately jumped to the conclusion that "free speech is dead I can no longer be myself or I'll be banned" and not thought more about situations like the ones we read about "my ex is stalking me and won't remove me from their friends list and constantly makes alts to send me rude/disturbing messages, but SE says they can't step in so all I can do is blacklist them".

I honestly believe this sort of thing at least was created more for the latter than the former. Is there room for the former? Probably. But for people who assume that's why these were put in place, I don't agree.

Honestly I just want the rules to be better written as at present many of them have good intentions but are just too broad. Even if you look at them as purely for the benefit of GM discretion there were better ways to write most of them. One of the reasons I'm not panicking as well is that SE's GM's are notoriously lackluster in their responses to problems, even when multiple violations were reported and within the scope of the previously prohibited behaviors. This feels more like an attempt to cover themselves when they /DO/ act rather than a blanket puritanical purge. It just is written very, VERY badly.

[Kumite]

So I get the worry at SE going too far, and I'm not going to even try to predict if they will or not.

However, I find it interesting that everybody has immediately jumped to the conclusion that "free speech is dead I can no longer be myself or I'll be banned" and not thought more about situations like the ones we read about "my ex is stalking me and won't remove me from their friends list and constantly makes alts to send me rude/disturbing messages, but SE says they can't step in so all I can do is blacklist them".

I honestly believe this sort of thing at least was created more for the latter than the former. Is there room for the former? Probably. But for people who assume that's why these were put in place, I don't agree.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions my friend. Nobody thinks that what they're doing is intentionally bad, or oppressive, but people can be so absorbed in doing what seems perfectly reasonable to them that they become oblivious to all the misuse that comes from their idea, and I fear that's exactly what will happen with these new rules. For every outlier like the one in your hypothetical scenario that gets caught, how many do you think will abuse the extremely vague rules for petty reasons or over reactions? I know I meet significantly more people who fit the latter more than the former.