Forum:Policy
In the process of working on Uncyclopedia:Ban Policy, I've noticed the lack of policy organization in general. If you ask me (and you didn't:) Uncyclopedia:Policies and guidelines and Uncyclopedia:Policy should be put down humanely, merged with one redirecting to the other, and in the very least function as a one-stop-shop for anything that users might want to know. It could also simply be a mirror for Category:Ignorable policies. Any objections to me trying to tidy up a little? Any suggestions as I tentatively proceed? --T. (talk) 18:58, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
- As long as you remember that all new rules are evil and death until firmly proven necessary. As far as I can tell, the actual operating principles of Uncyclopedia are (1) Be funny and not just stupid and (2) Don't be a dick. In that order. (Uncyclopedia:VFP/Kakuns Place and Uncyclopedia:Useless Gobshite of the Month, for example, are most cruel but also sort of a needed statement.) This is based on my observations, so I'd love to hear Chronarion's take - David Gerard 19:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
- In my understanding, we don't really have any real written rules or policies and work mostly on a set of rough guidelines and precedent that we call policy sometimes. Based on my philosophical understanding or rules/laws/policies, this makes us much more flexible and able to deal with situations as they arise, especially considering we have relatively few hardass admins. As such, I would like to go on record as having said that I am opposed to codifying any policies and think that any page about policies should be no more than half serious, present only vague guidlines and possibly give examples of precedent. --Sir gwax (talk)
20:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
- In my understanding, we don't really have any real written rules or policies and work mostly on a set of rough guidelines and precedent that we call policy sometimes. Based on my philosophical understanding or rules/laws/policies, this makes us much more flexible and able to deal with situations as they arise, especially considering we have relatively few hardass admins. As such, I would like to go on record as having said that I am opposed to codifying any policies and think that any page about policies should be no more than half serious, present only vague guidlines and possibly give examples of precedent. --Sir gwax (talk)
- It should be a case that before a newly appointed Admin takes up his/her ceremonial banstick for the first time that the individual's judgement is, or should be, apparent to the people who have bestowed Adminship. A "general" collection of policies would be a good thing, but shouldn't restrict an Admins judgement. We ARE THE LAW!!!! Seriously though, deletions and bans are for the most part given out to deserving parties, hopefully evenhandedly. As with Gwax I would prefer to have "guidelines" rather than dogma. -- Sir Mhaille
(talk to me) 00:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- It should be a case that before a newly appointed Admin takes up his/her ceremonial banstick for the first time that the individual's judgement is, or should be, apparent to the people who have bestowed Adminship. A "general" collection of policies would be a good thing, but shouldn't restrict an Admins judgement. We ARE THE LAW!!!! Seriously though, deletions and bans are for the most part given out to deserving parties, hopefully evenhandedly. As with Gwax I would prefer to have "guidelines" rather than dogma. -- Sir Mhaille
Re-reading what I wrote, I don't think I suggested anywhere that I was going to create policy. We do have a pile of ignorable policies (whether they've been categorized there or not) that are not referenced on Uncyclopedia:Policies and guidelines and Uncyclopedia:Policy. They're a couple of useless pages. I can try to make them useful and point at something, or leave them as is. I'd delete them completely were they not referenced all over the site.
But please, let's not lie to ourselves and pretend that we're good, pure, and not like the evil twin brother, en.wp. People are creating new "policies" around here, whether they choose to label them as such or not: the new rules on VFH & VFP, Kakun's Place, and Uncyclopedia:Special_Rules, to name a few.
If it makes us all feel better to leave Uncyclopedia:Policies and guidelines policy-free, but pull out the various official and non-official pages when it's convenient to slap people with them, just so we can continue to coddle ourselves with the illusion of being "better" or "freer", that's fine. It was just an idea. But if people are seriously concerned about us getting too political, then our own actions recently are hypocritical, and the policies being made are also being used by some of the most vocal "anti-policy" people we have. --T. (talk) 01:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- Not that I really count, but I think having a centralized, well done set of user guidelines would be good. Doesn't have to be rigid, but including some precedent would be helpful. I think it would also be nice if the page did a little explaining of how the admins and the site operate so that people can be understanding when an admin deletes something they like. Having a "the admins are scary and evil, don't piss them off" stance is funny, but maybe not the most productive. Anyhow, I say go for. And if you want help I will volunteer my time. ---
Rev. Isra (talk) 02:50, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
My original plan was not to have any sort of strict policies, but a set of guidelines. However, as the site gets larger, it might be necessary to draft up, well, actual policies. The things in place are hopefully engineered for the concept of:
- 1. Funny, not stupid
- 2. Don't be a dick
As noted earlier. Pretty much, anything that is in place is to help assist these two guidelines.
However, it is true that our "official" policy pages are a bit of a confusing jumble. Should I kinda clean the thing up?
--Chronarion 03:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- Huff it like you got a cat shelter for Christmas. BURNINATE! BURNINATE! - David Gerard 04:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Having been pointed to Uncyclopedia:Ban Policy for the first time, I'd like to spout off about it: Once you place rules in stone, you need to follow them. While it may seem easier or better, it's not. With blanket-rules, we will inevitablly run into the two situitations where someone does something incredibly major, but it falls into say, a one-week-ban category. Then someone does something incredibly minor, and it falls into a one-week-ban category. Now we have two bans of the same length, for vastly different offenses. If the users raise a stink, we spend time defending the categories. Or we vote to change durations. What this all comes down to is another layer of beurecracy and irritation that we don't need.
While I can understand your need to have a quantitative guide to banning, I don't want to deal with the crapstorms I think it's prone to. In addition, if it's "Not an official policy" it should be in a subpage of your userspace, not in the Uncyclopedia space. Like my ban-cheat-sheet.
Having spouted off on Uncyclopedia:Ban Policy, let me spout off on Uncyclopedia:Special_Rules: These spawned directly from violations of Rule #2, and were an attempt at finding an alternative to banning people for a long time. If our official policy is "simplify the rules", we lose a mechanism like this to give users who struggle to be good citizens another chance.
What I'm sensing from all the discussion above is that we need a concensus on what our top priority is:
- Helping users grow into good writers and good citizens
- Keeping boatloads of crap off this site
If we're helping users grow, we need to coach and cajole them along - we need to flex and bend, and give them second, third, and fifth chances.
If we're keeping boatloads of crap off this site, we need to simplify the rules, and boot any user/articles which spew crap.
At the moment, it seems that our top priority is being user-friendly, as our crap piles are growing ever higher. If that's our collective choice, we accept that we do what we can to keep troublesome users around, and ignore the crap piles.
Personally, I'm an evil hard-ass and would like to purge a lot of crap. Tough love makes for a better end-product. 
Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 15:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- First, let's be clear that the quantitative need stemmed from Carlb's legitimate complaint about the arbitrary nature of bans. I'm a "do" person, so I took his complaint and assembled a framework. Others volunteered their ideas, and now we have the beginning of something workable. I created Ban Policy in the Uncylopedia namespace because it was intended to evolve into an actual policy. I suppose I could have omitted the "Not an official policy" line and just threw it up there like other rules around here, but it seemed presumtuous.
- It need not be designed to be overly punitive to those who don't deserve it. I don't think it is. It has steps (warn/ban) and variable lengths for severity. Its only purpose is to add some absolute limits to power around here, so there's no room for "24 years because you slipped and I'm in a bad mood".
- It's not done, either. I've been asking for help, so please help. Or ignore it. Or delete it completely. Or move it to Carlb's userspace. Whatever is done with it, I won't undo. I'm resigning from further work on it because I don't have the time to argue with people anymore. I have another week's vacation and I intend to enjoy it doing things for myself, rather than try to help others. --T. (talk) 16:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- I guess to me, there is a huge difference between anon-IP and user with edit history. If you're a user who's edited a number of pages, and generally contribute moderately decent stuff, I'm way more likely to leave a note on your talk page about some issue. If you're an anon-ip and you have 5 bad/malicious edits in the span of 20 minutes, what's a note really going to do? Once your cable company assigns a new IP address, you'll never see that warning. In fact, it's likely that some other user will log on and be freaked out by it.
- I do see the reasoning behind the quantitative need for non-arbitarary ban-lengths. However, my concern is that there are so many variables that it becomes difficult to quantify every situitation which may arise. Really, if people could just follow Rule #2 (Don't be a dick), 90% of our bans would never happen.
- Regardless, thanks for being a "do" person, because it offsets me being a "sit on my ass and bitch about people doing stuff" person. Enjoy the vacation, and don't stress too much about Uncyclopedia - that's a sure sign you're taking it too seriously. Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 16:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- Regardless, thanks for being a "do" person, because it offsets me being a "sit on my ass and bitch about people doing stuff" person. Enjoy the vacation, and don't stress too much about Uncyclopedia - that's a sure sign you're taking it too seriously.
Just so you know, I'm going to continue to ignore any policies that I feel to be inconsistent with the actual purpose of this project. Which, I think, a few people may have lost sight of. This is supposed to be fun. The whole point was to just let people go and have at. If it's utterly bad, axe it. If someone does something stupid, the admins should use their own judgement as to what to do about it. if it's deemed as a bannable offense by an admin, they should also use their judgement as to how long the ban should be. Feel free to criticize me, but... when has it ever been neccessary to excessively explain to vandals why what they did was wrong? Tell them that it wasn't funny, or that they deleted things that shouldn't have been deleted, and let it go at that. If they truly need to talk to someone about it, direct them to me. I'll do my best to explain what's up. I might not edit or delete crap here anymore, but I still read and watch. Frankly, this setting down of concrete policy scares me, unless it is being used as a sporking from wiki. And that's my two cents. --PantsMacKenzie 14:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
- Yes + yes = yes. --KATIE!! 12:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)