Multiplicity

As of today, there's now a new community, multi_dispute. We're hoping that it will resolve a lot of the confusion about who to contact if there's a problem on the community, and the problems it's caused in the past.

At this point:

-Membership is moderated, but we'll almost certainly let you in if you're a member of multiplicity. The only situation under which we would turn down a request for membership is if you've been banned from this community for a specific reason. Only members can view the community posts, though (I think we can agree we'd really all rather not have people staking out the community just because they want to find drama to report on).

-Basically, the purpose of it is so people can have a specific place to request mod intervention, if a problem has arisen or they want to request arbitration for a dispute/ban/etc. We thought it would be easier to have a community to post in, when problems do arise, than for members to have to PM 5 or 6 separate accounts. We check LJ more often than we check our email, which I believe is true for some of the other mods as well, so the quickest way to get a message to us is to have it pop up on our friends list.

-Posts are moderated and require approval before being shown to non-mod community members. The reason for this is because the nature of some people's problems may require them to disclose personal information that they don't want the rest of the community to see, or they may fear harassment from a specific person. Tentatively, we're going to start out making all posts visible unless you specify in your message that you don't want it to be seen by others. (I won't go into detail, but this kind of situation has happened in the past.)

-If you're having a dispute with another person or system, we encourage you to see if you can work it out with them before posting to multi_dispute; however, we also understand that in cases where harassment, bullying and intimidation are taking place, trying to reason it out with the other party is often not possible. And we definitely don't want anyone to feel as though they can't post on the community because of the behavior of one specific person or system.

We've had some fairly in-depth talks with ksol1460 over the past day about the need for people to feel that they don't have to "fight their own battles" and be left without allies. I, personally, definitely don't want people to feel as though they're alone, unprotected, and can't ask for help-- we felt silenced for years about a lot of issues because we couldn't get our head around the idea that we had the right to protection from abuse of any kind. And I think most people here would probably agree that this community has a higher-than-average number of abuse survivors-- not because I believe all multiplicity arises from abuse or anything, but because there still is a large crossover between the multiple and survivor communities online, and some people are abused specifically because they're plural-- by family, by peers, by partners or by doctors. And when a community is likely to have a lot of survivors in it, I do think, nowadays, that it's especially important to remind people that they aren't alone, and that it can be done in a way that isn't "whiny" or about "coddling people," or catering to victim complexes, etc.

Okay, on to the second half of this post, which is about trying to lay down new rules about exactly what kind of behavior is considered unacceptable here, and what actions will be taken if someone does these things.

These rules were proposed by Fenners^Kerry, but the rest of us agreed that they sound reasonable, and we would like others' input about them.

Behaviour that can lead to a warning or ban:

Insulting comments and posts ('you asshole', 'you always cause trouble in the community')
Threats
Identifiable passive-aggressive attacks
Snark that appears to have a specific target

Here's what I'm proposing as a disciplinary system:

Three warnings on insulting or offensive posts and comments. After the third warning, a five-day temporary ban/suspension will be placed on the person/system in question.
The second time someone commits a bannable offence, the suspension time will be increased to two weeks. The third temporary suspension will be for a month.
Permanent bans will be issued if the people in question refuse to modify their behaviour even after three temp bans.

There was also some discussion about whether individuals or entire groups should be suspended/banned. I'm currently not sure what my opinion on that is, but fairly has suggested that if members of a group have individual journals, they should be warned/suspended/banned on an individual basis, unless everyone in the group has been participating in the same bad behavior. On the other hand, if the entire group uses one account, and one person in it has been persistently breaking comm rules, there would be no choice but to suspend/ban the group account.

I do understand that a lot of this stuff-- like what does and doesn't qualify as snark or as a threat-- can be subjective at times, and so I also think people should have an opportunity to defend themselves in the more ambiguous cases. I'm hoping that multi_dispute can be used for that kind of thing, when there really is genuine disagreement among community members about whether someone was unfairly snarking/insulting/threatening, or someone feels they have a convincing case that they were wrongly warned or suspended.

Anyway, I'd like to know what others think of these suggestions, if they're fair or unfair, and, if someone thinks they could improve on them, what improvements they would make.

~Riel

ETA: I've been reminded by a system mate that fenners posted a slightly more refined version of the rules I just posted above, in a previous post in this community.

( I think I'm about to go over the post length limit, so I'll LJ-cut this. )

firewheelvortex has been made an assistant mod, to help us and ksol1460 keep the place neat and clean. ;)


-Lilac

I wanted to address this question to the entire group, because I've heard a few complaints and remarks over the last few months-- not a huge amount, but enough that I thought I should ask about it.

Be honest: apart from dealing with people who explicitly break the community rules (flamers, trolls, etc), do you feel that I or ksol1460 censor or discourage particular topics in an unfair way? Do you feel that your own opinions are unwelcome here, or that the discussion environment is repressive? Do you have any thoughts on how you feel certain things should be handled?

I try to make a distinction between disagreement with people's opinions and disagreement with the way in which they are stated/phrased. I more often have a problem with the latter than the former, but I want to make more clear what my problem is with, if I'm not doing a good job of that. I also make a distinction between multiplicity-related issues and trauma or general mental health issues, and would prefer if posts strictly concerning the latter be kept to forums where these are the main topics. However, if someone has a problem which involves multiplicity in some way, I don't want to discourage them or make them feel unwelcome posting here.

Given the vast number of posts in the lilspeak debate over the past day, I decided I might as well review community policy as it pertains to debates like this one. While our in-system children do have a definite take on it, I'm trying not to show partiality, unless anyone thinks their input would be particularly important.

However, I've seen people threatening to quit or leave the community, saying they feel they or their children aren't safe any more, etc. As regards community policy, and safety, there are a few things I should clear up.

1. The original 'just say no to lilspeak' post and its followups did not violate any community standards, though the 'morons on crack' remark, which was quoted from a post in another community with different rules, was admittedly pushing the envelope. Therefore, controversial or no, it was allowed to stay.

This community is not a safe place, in the traditional sense. What it is is an open place. Like the old DP list, it's a place where one can freely discuss any aspect of multiplicity, within reason and without censorship, and everyone is responsible for their own safety and well-being. "Within reason," in this case, means that the mods, some of whom remember the endless flamewars that DP often turned into, instituted rules against direct attacking and flaming of other posters. You can criticise an idea without criticising the person who came up with it.

If your in-system kids, children, littles, whatever, will get upset if someone disagrees with them or doesn't want them to write in lilspeak, then no, this is not a 'safe place' for them if you're defining it that way. The mods will crack down on people if they flame or openly attack, but not if they disagree. Children are as welcome to post as anyone else, but they don't get special treatment.

2. If you feel that you have been personally flamed/attacked/insulted, let the mods know (email is preferred) and we will review the post in question to see if it violates community standards. We don't always read every comment, and sometimes things get out of hand when we're not looking.