In that spirit, I've let you all pretty much decide on your own rules of engagement. I'm not here to have to police things, and I sure as hell don't want it to end up like another moderator iron-ruled MozillaZine clone; there is no real point in that.
In 2017, though, it seems there has been a disturbing trend of an increase in heated, immature behavior on this forum, and people bringing up topics that are really out of place to discuss on a software/development forum, that doesn't help anyone with starting debates (about e.g. politics, religion, etc.).
I'm not naming names or singling anyone out here, this applies to everyone, old and new alike. If I have given the impression of applying favoritism, then I'm sorry - it's not been on purpose, although I (naturally) do apply a bit more leniency to people who have been with us for a long time and are or have been part of our dev team. That, however, doesn't include inexcusable interactions with other community members, and if forced to, escalations are handled with equal treatment to all involved. If that is somehow not enough, then I'm sorry -- Aside from already running a project, and doing dev work, not to mention trying to provide answers here to people in the community with questions few others can easily answer, my capacity to also moderate other people's actions is limited.
I try to keep this place a fair community gathering place, with the diverse tasks of providing user tech support, development discussions, and a social place to .. well, just be a community and chat. I and other mods here can't be tasked to moderate and guide all that beyond handling escalations (which we will), and must assume that our wide audience, young and old, can and will behave in a responsible, mature manner, and not stoop to ganging up on and harassing or bashing other members.
If that somehow can't be done and it becomes a wild west, then I will be forced to move tech support into a different system, somehow, where users can still help other users; but a forum has always been the best solution so far because it is public, searchable, and caters to guest visitors as much (if not more) than members. I don't think moving away from that is in anyone's best interest.
We can do better folks. I asked before to keep things pleasant. Apparently that didn't sink in enough, so I'm asking here again: keep things pleasant.
To help everyone in that task, please:
- Keep your discussions related to Pale Moon, its side projects, and directly related discussion.
- Don't derail ongoing discussions. Wildly tangential thoughts are fine, but either put them in Off-topic:
tags or make a different topic.
[*]Keep political, religious, conspiracist and other highly flammable topics off of this forum. Don't bring up these kinds of heavy subjects in the future, not even in the "general discussion" area, because it just attracts the wrong kind of attention. This is a software product forum, primarily.
[*]Take any issues you have with what people are talking about or expressing in their posts to private channels. If you want to argue about something, that's fine, just don't do it in public.
[*]Don't apply immature behavior like ganging up on people, picking on people or drawing in statements about someone's looks, background or other properties into a discussion that are just there to be hurtful or to press a point. If it feels like it's behavior you'd expect in an average high school, it probably doesn't belong here.