Proposed Cross Left Guidelines
These are Proposed Cross Left guidelines for posting. Please comment. Your comments will be taken into consideration when we come up with a final product.
Guidelines and Rules of Conduct
v We invite you to participate in the ongoing dialogue. We are a Christian organization and as such, we ask that you abide by these general guidelines that are rooted in biblical principles.
· Do to others as you what you would have them do to you. –Mathew 7:12
1. Treat others with respect and courtesy.
· As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. –Proverbs 27:17
2. We encourage discussion of topics and issues as partners in a mutual endeavor between brothers and sisters in Christ working toward the common goal of understanding God’s will and direction as it relates to social and political action.
3. We are here in a spirit of unity and to find common ground from which we can move forward with a progressive agenda.
4. We welcome vigorous healthy debate that does not violate principle #1.
By registering you agree to abide by the following rules of conduct. Violation of these rules will not be tolerated.
1. There is to be no posting of illegal content, advocating of illegal or violent acts.
2. No personal attacks including those based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, religion, religious or spiritual views, age, or disability.
3. Use of foul language, curse words, or sexually explicit language is prohibited.
4. Trolls are individuals who are ideologically opposed to the general thrust of a website and whose intent is to disrupt and agitate using hostilities and adversarial language. While dissenting views are welcome, if it appears that you have no interest in engaging in productive dialogue, the CrossLeft (policy committee) reserves the right to take action which may include warning, request to leave, or termination of your CrossLeft account.
5. Do not violate intellectual property rights. Refer to Creative Commons Statement below.
Creative Commons License
At Crossleft.org we use a Creative Commons License that allows sharing with attribution to the author. In other words, you are free to share, copy, distribute, and display work you see here but you must attribute that work to the author, when you use the author's work.
Looks good.
The guidelines seem reasonable to me. Thanks for this.
anglobaptist.org, Community Church, One of the Girls
I have two concerns
(copy of post from other guideline topic)
Thanks, y'all. I've read over and over the proposed guidelines and I have one concern and one "process" remark.
My main (actually my only) concern with the written guidelines is over the "troll" guideline. (this is #4) First off, I think we can skip labeling anyone with a negative name, even if we all do recognize what the person is doing. I've been in places where these folks were called "energy creatures" rather than trolls, which is still negative and I wouldn't like changing the label any more than leaving it. I want the labeling gone.
And then I THINK I can go with the committee deciding who adds to a discussion and who does not, however it seems to me that if we have a policy of DNFTEC (do not feed the energy creature), these folks will leave on their own. And then they have no tales to tell on conservative forums about how mean the "Christian" group was. I'd rather see us remain the welcoming inclusive discussion board. And I'd rather see us leave that rule out completely. We'll get the desired outcome when either these folks get bored and leave (because we're not taking their bait) or when they get frustrated and start flinging out the personal attacks.
Which brings me to my process concern. When/if the committee agrees that someone has violated the personal attack rule, it seems to me imperative that these warnings be given in private. We saw what happened when what would have been a warning (if we'd approved these) given in public. Usually there's more than one person involved in the attack fest, besides, even if there's just one getting a warning nobody needs to know that except the person warned. Besides, I guarantee it, no matter who is warned over what, they WILL point a finger at someone else for some reason. So keeping who has been warned over what a big secret is just the only way to go.
I'm still discussing, but I'm feeling pretty stubborn over warnings being absolutely private and not discussed in public EVER. Oh yeah and when you give someone a warning, delete the post in question. To leave it up and warn someone in public is just asking the whole community to weigh in with their opinions. And then we're discussing rules and posts, not ideas and issues. I feel really strongly about this.
And okay, you're right, Jim, Eileen wasn't censured. But putting myself in her place, I would also be out of here and fast if ever I was criticized in public that way. I think as a group we can be kinder and more respectful of our participants than that.
need to dissuade advertisers?
It occurred to me that we might want to also include something about not advertising products without permission or something like that so Bubba-jo doesn't try to sell his widgets here.
Maybe it's unnecessary.
David
we have little control
David,
We have litle control over google ads that come up. We can say specifically which ads should not come up, so if there are any that are offensive let me know. Otherwise, google runs its own relevancy algorithm to display the ads.
not the google ads
I didn't mean banner ads and things. I guess what I had in mind was related to something that I've seen at our church website a couple of times, thought I guess I haven't noticed it here. On our church site we've had people register just to post an ad for some herbal medicine or male enhancement pill or stuff like that. The Google stuff doesn't bother me at all.
David
oh...good point.
Good point David! Sorry I didn't understand your initial thought there. I think I get you now.
Yeah, I've deleted that stuff if and when its been posted, but we might want to have it guideliness.
That being said, if there's church or activism related stuff, we love those posts and in fact have an underutilized classifieds section for them:
http://www.crossleft.org/?q=ed-classified
definitely
So, maybe we need to add something to the positive guidelines to the effect that we encourage people to share related groups and activities that fall into a progressive agenda. And then, in the 'do not' section we need to add something to the effect that promotions and advertising of off topic products, or events is not permitted and will be removed.
David
Deep calls to Deep
I third these Guidelines and offer a 6th:
We are all on a spiritual journey and all have different life experiences that will be reflected in our points of view.
Jesus said he came that we would have life to the FULL: abundant life [John 10:10] and that takes deep thinking and action.
Would you all agree that as sisters and brothers we are to do as St. Paul said and NOT judge the non-believer but provoke the believer onto good works?
And thus, since we all claim to be progressive we should uphold and honor that word which means to MOVE FORWARD, ADVANCE, ACHIEVE, DEVELOP, IMPROVE and
Thus, commit ourselves heart, mind and spirit to SUCCEED in changing the world as we now know it?
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
committment to progress
I agree and may I add that the committment to follow the gospel Jesus gave us will bring the change we all hope to see.
I agree too
The guidelines sound very good. I think we may need to refine a process of enforcing them, though.
And I agree wholeheartedly with Eileen and Gid, well and Gandhi, too, that being the change we want to see in the world is a sure way to success.
here it is
found it.
why doesn't it show on the discussion page? i had never noticed that "active forum" space before.
david
Posted in Both Places
I posted it in both places because a lot of people don't check the "forums" regularly but do check and see what the latest blog is.It is not really a routine blog so I put it under "Forums".
Guidelines sounds good.
The guidelines sound good.