I'm going to echo Natalie here and say that warnings are something that, while necessary, shouldn't be taken so seriously unless it's an actually serious thing. The scale seems to go from 0 to 60 in seconds flat rather than a gradual scale with some good peer review like "What's really a big deal vs. this IS actually a big deal".
One thing I've observed having been in a few different RP communities and even moderated some is that "tone" isn't something that should be policed since, unless it's blatantly obvious that the person's 'tone' is intended to be egregiously offensive or inflammatory, no one can say for certain, really. That's really only one small facet but I can say with absolute confidence that tone policing is not going to lead anywhere but to headaches and having to be so heavy handed that the mods end up hating the job or being hated by everyone; when your peers despise you then you'll likely find that you can't even sneeze without someone finding fault in the action and loudly voicing it.
On top of that I think the major thing is that we all need to remember that this is a website based on a video game where we all engage in pretendy fun times and this is focused towards the pretendy fun times aspect of it. By that I mean it's a good exercise to take a step back and make sure we're not taking ourselves too seriously. People are passive aggressive online pretty often, it happens and, really, it's how we cope without jumping up and pointing our fingers to scream at one another.Â
The rules being how they are now though, there's a bit of wiggle room that could be abused in regards to what people find "petty" and what a "negative comment" actually is. These need to be either heavily defined as to what is and is not considered to be in that umbrella or reworded to state something like "When you are posting a history of this behavior you'll get a warning" etc. Otherwise someone who is feeling extra sensitive that day could take you disagreeing and giving reasonable statements as to why you disagree as "Harassment" and so on.Â
So for now I'd say the rules need either iron hard clarification and need to be iron hard on both the user and admin side or give a bit of leniency so someone misconstruing statements can't abuse the system, etc.
One thing I've observed having been in a few different RP communities and even moderated some is that "tone" isn't something that should be policed since, unless it's blatantly obvious that the person's 'tone' is intended to be egregiously offensive or inflammatory, no one can say for certain, really. That's really only one small facet but I can say with absolute confidence that tone policing is not going to lead anywhere but to headaches and having to be so heavy handed that the mods end up hating the job or being hated by everyone; when your peers despise you then you'll likely find that you can't even sneeze without someone finding fault in the action and loudly voicing it.
On top of that I think the major thing is that we all need to remember that this is a website based on a video game where we all engage in pretendy fun times and this is focused towards the pretendy fun times aspect of it. By that I mean it's a good exercise to take a step back and make sure we're not taking ourselves too seriously. People are passive aggressive online pretty often, it happens and, really, it's how we cope without jumping up and pointing our fingers to scream at one another.Â
The rules being how they are now though, there's a bit of wiggle room that could be abused in regards to what people find "petty" and what a "negative comment" actually is. These need to be either heavily defined as to what is and is not considered to be in that umbrella or reworded to state something like "When you are posting a history of this behavior you'll get a warning" etc. Otherwise someone who is feeling extra sensitive that day could take you disagreeing and giving reasonable statements as to why you disagree as "Harassment" and so on.Â
So for now I'd say the rules need either iron hard clarification and need to be iron hard on both the user and admin side or give a bit of leniency so someone misconstruing statements can't abuse the system, etc.
