happy with most of that...

i don't have any objections to someone having a pot leaf for an avatar, so long as they haven't toked so much that they can't post coherently. i'm fine with political and religious debate, even if it takes on an somewhat extremist angle from one side or another, provided the participants can debate in such a way that they're open to reason, reasonable themselves, and aren't preaching hate or simply being insulting.

As Marcia's pointed out, Pixel's politics are fairly extreme and generally not the normal or common view for this crowd, but we like pixel. now, Hookem on the other hand, Hookem was simply just a variation on Steve (in fact, if steve had ever posted pro-republican propoganda, I'd swear they were the same person), a shit-stirrer who was only in a 'debate' to tell everyone how wrong they were for not telling him he was a genius.

there's a world of difference between the two, and while pixel can be annoying and seek out a martyr complex, he's not a troll.

i think there's a lot of behavior that, when it's a newbie doing it, is not tollerable in the slightest, but if it's someone we actually know and trust then it can be given a bit of leeway.

I suppose the reason for this is that if you're brand new and the first thing you post is talking about how you want to be ravished all the time, we have nothing else to go on and you seem like nothing but a slut. if, on the other hand, you've chimed in with weeks worth of intelligent and thought provoking posts and THEN say that, on a friday night when you let your hair down, you're not adverse to a bit of ravishing, we know that you're not some one dimensional character and already enjoy having you around. This is the difference between temple maiden and Om.

something that's not covered in that code which might be relevant (if only as an example) is sports. we've had posters both good and bad who'd start topics about who won a match or a race or whatever. This has nothing to do with Pratchett, and has nothing to do with the community, but it interests the individual poster, and usually at least a few others. The thing is, again, if you're already fitting in or have established yourself as a good poster, we won't really mind the occasional "woo, go Liverpool" post. If, on the other hand, your other posts are bragging about girlfriends two decades younger than you and telling other posters what bullies they are while being a bully yourself, posting anything about "go Arse in all" is just going to be more fuel on the fire.

I suppose I'm basicly just talking my way back to Sleepy Sarge's social awareness checklist.

hell, maybe we should have that, the code, and the old guidelines (updated), make em all available on a special page on the site, but have them randomly located behind different links.

"Would you like the rules behind Door number 1, Door number 2, or Door number 3, or would you trade it all in for a link to L-space?"

..

...

right, bed time for garner.