Oh hai, what's this subforum?
I actually read all of this thread just now, after reading the forum guidelines last night. There were three changes in particular that irked me:
Any attempts to belittle other forum members for not agreeing with you will be treated in much the same way as a direct personal attack. Yes, you may find it annoying if someone is posting an argument that shows that they don't understand the topic under discussion as well as you do, but it's worth remembering that since you probably aren't a world renowned expert in the subject, there could be someone as annoyed at you. If someone is ignorant, it is your job to enlighten them, not make fun of their ignorance.
For the purposes of the discussion that follows, I'm terming this "the tightrope."
HLP is not your soapbox. That isn't to say we can't have political discussions on HLP, just that you shouldn't drag an existing topic around to your particular pet peeve/hot button issue. Especially if that involves talking about something completely off-topic. Discussion of wider topics than the original post is fine if it happens organically, but if a topic mentions religion in passing, that doesn't mean it should become a full scale atheist rant about the evils of religion. If it mentions sexism a bit, it shouldn't become a discussion women's (or men's) rights. If someone mentions US politics, that isn't a reason to make it a discussion of US fiscal policy and the evils of the democrat party/republicans.
Likewise, "the morph"
Do not backseat moderate. HLP has an established set of moderation staff. If we wanted your opinion on which threads need to be closed, who needs to be banned, etc, we'd have asked you to join it already. We don't want to see mob rule here, so we don't want to see forum users arguing that threads should be locked or people punished for certain posts.
Finally, "the disapproving look."
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I'm a member of a few forums, one that has existed since 1998. It is not moderated. At all. People can, and do, post whatever they like. The moderation takes the form of community approval - there are respected forum members, there are less-respected members, and there were douchebags. The latter category is inevitably driven out. We have never banned anymore. It is an exceedingly small community, and it does have rules - there are subfolders, there are certain things that you cannot post, and there are people who are able to ban spam accounts and edit threads and so all sorts of "moderation," but the forum is not explicitly moderated. It has led to some absolutely epic flamewars over the years, but things inevitably cool down and return to status quo. And like I said - an active poster (not spam account) has never been banned.
I'm not advocating that approach to HLP. This place is too big and too diverse for that, but I think it's important to bear in mind.
I share the concern that the new guidelines are too prescriptive. As a number of you know I actually work in law enforcement, and by far the worst pieces of legislation I deal with are prescriptive. The best are the ones that are short and simply state what is absolutely not allowed, while all other behaviour is subject to social approval.
The tightrope, above, is one that a number of the more active (and I suggest, more valuable) people walk in in the Off-Topic area almost daily. It's tied to the disapproving look too. Some of the most effective moderation I've seen in my couple-decades of Internet use and BB/IRC/forum use in particular uses this - and I'm not saying to be nasty, but there is a lot of benefit in allowing forum users to self-moderate based on social rules. Official moderation really should only be used as a last resort, in my view. It's far better for someone to receive an explanation of why their behaviour is bad, be the subject of social ridicule for that behaviour, and hopefully correct it based on the experience of being smacked by the general membership than be scolded by a single moderator. Formal moderation should be used as an option of last resort, where a temp-ban (or, for egregious idiots, a permaban) is more appropriate. HLP does this to an extent already, and moderators like The E, Mongoose, and karajorma have tended to warn people off with consequences implied publicly, which often corrects the behaviour (and for the worst offenders, they've been subsequently banned anyway). I really don't like the prescriptive nature of the tightrope and the disapproving look -killing guidelines above - and not just because they could land me in hot water.
The morph concerns me for a different reason. A number of the most interesting and valuable GD discussions come out when a thread on one topic morphs into another. While I understand that we don't want soapboxes, I'm concerned that this guideline impedes natural drift. I have a personal vested interest in this one too, because I often precipitate some natural drift.
What I'd like to see is the tack that I've taken in other online communities and server moderation, which is essentially the following:
Rule 1: Don't be a douchebag.
Rule 2: See rule 1.
Rule 3: For the particularly obtuse, the definition of douchebag includes, but is not limited to, the following: racist language, homophobic language, attacks on a person's character (as opposed to post behaviour or content), linking or posting of illegal content, linking or posting to explicit content, spam, stream-of-consciousness/blog posting, or other consistently-obnoxious behaviour.
That's it. Violate Rule 3, which explicitly says the not-allowed things, and the result should be a temp-ban for a week, followed by a perma-ban for a second offense. That stuff is easy. Violate Rule 1, the more general-catch-all, and you start with a warning, then a temp-ban, then a perma-ban, depending on the nature, frequency, and severity of the behaviour. This allows you to ban the High Max / Liberator types on the forums quite quickly, and still reign in your more valuable posters who occasionally step out of line. And furthermore - all warnings, temp-bans, and perma-bans and their reasons should be public. That doesn't mean up for debate, that means public - bad behaviour should become deterrence.
Trying to write a massive rulebook on guidelines is an unforgiving, thankless exercise that will not only bite the moderation team in the ass, it'll bite some of the more intelligent-but-exasperated posters in the ass too.
One final complaint: Having been the subject of a recent temp ban, I can attest to the frustration of NOT BEING ABLE TO PM THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE. This is a problem. I creatively managed to use the report feature, but for Pete's sake, that's brutal (especially as it has a character limit). You need a proper appeals function/section, especially if you persist with the new prescriptive guidelines.
That's all. I cannot emphasize enough how bad the idea of a prescriptive (and LONG!) rule-set is.
