All Members:
Below is the revised and now finalized text of the Forum's Posting
Policy. It will be posted it on the Forum's Home Page and all new
members will be made aware of it.
Edgar and I have noted all of your comments and have done the
following:
* Warnings will be delivered privately for now, but if the warning is
for a personal attack the member attacked may be also advised.
* We've included some wording which requests new Threads be started
if your Reply is off the Thread's topic or will take the Thread in a
different direction then the original Poster intended.
* We've included Chris' suggestions in a separate POSTING TIPS
section.
* We've tabled the suggestion of 'tagging'. We will investigate this
some more and revisit this suggestion when we know more about what it is
and how to do it.
********************
POSTING POLICY
* All posts and replies should have some relevance to the forum's
published topic zen or related areas such as Ch'an, Buddhism,
Hinduism, Christianity, philosophy, etc..., as long as you tie it back
to zen. Digressions will be tolerated to some extent, but any truly
off-topic conversations should be taken off the forum to another medium
such as email.
* New topics or a significant divergence from an existing Thread
should be Posted in a new Thread.
* Personal attacks will not be tolerated. This will be strictly
enforced. Calling someone `stupid' and then following that with a smiley
face will not be accepted as amelioration.
* The Forum Moderators will discuss any problematic Posts or Replies
and will issue a warning (privately via email) to anyone they deem to
have violated this policy. There is no set number of warnings. The
number could range from zero to three or four depending on the severity
of the violation as determined by the Moderators.
* If any member continues to violate any part of this policy his/her
membership posting privileges will be changed to MODERATE - which means
all Posts and Replies will have to be read and approved by the
Moderators before it is posted to the Forum.
POSTING TIPS
* Spirited discussions including disagreements about ideas or
opinions are encouraged.
* Write scrupulously. Assume goodwill. Help rather than judge,
and be aware of people's sensitivities. It is easy to trigger people's
sore spots with careless words.
* Read forgivingly. Assume goodwill. Assume even critical sounding
judgments are meant to be helpful. Read remembering that there is no way
someone can judge you at all based on just your posts. If someone does
get `up in your face', it is their style, not a sign they have
some special authority to judge you. If it continues the Moderators
will intervene.
* Consider including a bit of good humor, koans or anecdotes to
support whatever potentially judgmental or off-topic words you also are
including. Traffic composition is a matter of balance. Make those busy
people happy they glanced at your words.
********************
...Bill! for Edgar and Al
