Octavia
09-01-2008, 04:47 AM
Final draft version, yes? Can KWSN put this up for voting now?
TALK RATIONAL! CHARTER
Statement of Purpose
This discussion board provides a virtual meeting place for enjoyable, interesting, and informative discussion of a wide range of topics; from philosophy to politics, from science to religion, from tragedy to comedy. TR was founded by a largely skeptical, freethinking and nonreligious online community, but it is open to all, of any belief, who want to teach, to learn, to socialize, or to engage in open and fair debate. Anything is subject to inquiry and discourse, to evidence and logic. No belief, position, or opinion gets a free pass just because it's a religious belief, or it's thought to be sacrosanct, or most of the people here hold it. Above all, we aspire to rationality, in thought and speech, although not to the exclusion of other values.
TR! supports many ideals which will serve our community: tolerance, truthfulness, courtesy, cooperation, kindness and reason. It is also recognized that people have emotions, passions, idiosyncrasies, and hot-button issues, and that discussion that arises from them, though sometimes heated, constitutes a valid and important part of social interaction. However, anyone whose posts consistently undermine or oppose our ideals and disrupts our community will find themselves at odds with the overall philosophy of the board.
Board Governance
Talk Rational! is structured as a consultative Republic. This allows TR! to include community input, lessens the chances of any minorities being abused, and avoids many of the other problems with pure democracy. It is also designed to prevent takeover by any individual or clique against the will of the community, and the intent of this Charter.
Within the scope of the Charter, staff make independent decisions as to how TR! is run. To maximize open government, staff decisions about how TR! is run will be in the form of public votes, which are recorded for future reference. Any member is free at any time to start a straw poll in the TH to help give an indicator of the general feelings of the membership as a whole.
Forum moderators are chosen by staff from member volunteers; administrators are nominated by the staff, then offered to the membership for election. Members who have previously served as mods at TR!, who left their position in good standing (i.e. were not recalled), but who are not currently serving as mods, are eligible for admin election. System admins are chosen by staff on the basis of technical ability, and do not take part in other administrative duties.
All staff are subject to recall at any time by the members. The result of a recall cannot be over-ridden by a staff vote. Staff can also vote to remove mods or admins from the staff.
Disclaimer
TR! in no way endorses or supports the views of its members. It only fosters a place for the free expression of ideas.
Posting Etiquette at Talk Rational!
At TR! we realize that rationality is best served by arguing the post and not the poster. We also realize that it's unrealistic to expect people to hold themselves to this level of behavior all the time, that people sometimes need a place to blow off steam, but that persistent obnoxious insults can rise to levels that make the board unpleasant for the majority of members.
Attempting to maximize free speech while minimizing unwelcome obnoxiousness, TR! divides individual fora into the following zones.
ZONE 0 THREADS: (This applies to "support" threads only). Members are requested to not engage in personal insults at all, and are further requested to make sure that what they post is helpful or supportive to the person requesting support. Posts that do not do this will very likely be moved to fora designated for that purpose, and may be locked.
ZONE 1 FORA: When in a debate, members are requested to argue the post and not the poster at all times. Likewise, when not involved in debate, members are requested to not engage in personal insults at all. Posts that do not do this will very likely be moved to fora designated for that purpose, and may be locked.
ZONE 2 FORA: Members are permitted to be more robust in their arguments and posts. However, as above, posts that are predominantly insults are likely to be moved to fora designated for that purpose, and may be locked. Individual fora under Zone 2 may have differing degrees of tolerance for explicit and implicit insults.
ZONE 3: The Zone 3 forum is a special case at TR! It is visible only on application to an admin, who will then put you in the user group that can see the forum. Similarly, application to an admin can remove you from that user group at any time. The only moderation that will take place in Zone 3 concerns posts that put TR! at legal risk, and those that contain malware (viruses, Trojans, etc.) and links to malware. Otherwise, don't bother complaining to staff, we won't care. No posts will be moved into or out of Zone 3. No arguments from Zone 3 will be permitted to spill over into other fora - if you get into an argument with Bob in Zone 3 and insult him because of it in Sciences, staff will not care that you were provoked. If you can't handle it, don't remain the user group.
The staff will decide which forum falls in which Zone and a sticky will be placed in each forum accordingly.
We do not edit or move posts for swearing.
Appeal System
Members have the right to appeal any permanent banning or any suspension greater than one week. This right does not apply to spammers, sockpuppets or hackers.
The appeal is overseen by a Council of Umpires. The appeal must be initiated by or seconded by a TR! member other than the member affected before the Council is convened. Umpires are chosen randomly from a pool of willing members. Members are free to decline if they feel they cannot be objective in the case in question, and in this case additional Umpires will be selected.
Once the Council is established, the affected member and one representative admin will have the opportunity to make arguments before the Council. The Council will then vote to ratify or disallow the proposed staff action. Votes are public. The Council may also suggest an intermediate measure be adopted. The Council's decision is binding.
Finances
To handle the donations and expenses of the board, a Treasurer and Secretary will be selected by unanimous approval of the administrators, and presented to the membership for ratification. The people selected for these positions should be long-term, well-trusted members of the community, and will be required to give their actual names and locations to the administrators.
The Treasurer will open a bank account, and get a credit or debit card associated with the account. These are to be used exclusively for the business of the TalkRational! board. The Treasurer will have sole access to the bank account, with statements from the account being sent to the Secretary, who is responsible for verifying all transactions made by the Treasurer, and publishing these transactions in an agreed-upon manner on the board.
Funds will be collected by an annual or bi-annual donation drive, which will be overseen jointly by the Treasurer and Secretary. These funds will be deposited directly in the TalkRational account, and the ongoing balance in the account will be published on the board.
Expenses, including but not limited to coverage of server costs, will be paid by the Treasurer. Methods of payment will be decided at the Treasurer's discretion, as will such matters as bank and credit card selection, with the approval of the Secretary and the administrators.
Any expense not directly related to the continued running of the board must be approved by a unanimous vote of the administrators, and announced to the membership of the board.
Member Rights and Responsibilities
Fostering the community at TR! is a necessary and desirable goal. To further this, each member of the community is understood to have the following rights and responsibilities.
The right to anonymity
Each member has the right to retain their anonymity - specifically their real name and contact details. You should not post or link to these without specific permission from the affected member. While members may choose to waive that right for themselves when interacting with others, they may not expose other members or third parties without their permission. Members realise that the right to waive their anonymity may be limited if the member is a known minor.
The right to contribute to policy-making
Each member has the right to offer suggestions and to contribute to policy-making in the Town Hall. While the final vote rests with the staff, it is the staff's responsibility to solicit input from the members before any substantial decisions are made. At a minimum, this solicitation will involve discussing the proposed decision in a public forum and allowing members to start threads commenting on the discussion and decision. While staff will advertise via announcements important issues like recall votes, members are responsible for checking the Town Hall regularly if they want to give input. The TH is an integral part of TR! and cannot be shut down, and individual members cannot be "pested" from TH - any member not under a suspension/ban may post in TH.
The right to recall staff and elect administrators
Each member has the right to start a motion to recall any staff member and to vote in that motion. Collectively, the member consensus of a recall motion cannot be vetoed by staff. However, members have the responsibility to follow recall procedures.
Members have the right, and the responsibility, to vote to elect new administrators, from nominees offered by the staff.
The right to know how decisions are made
While decisions on how TR is run are made by staff (excepting Charter amendments), members have the right to know who voted for what and why. With a few exceptions where an individual's privacy needs protecting, such as votes whether or not to sanction an individual member, staff votes are to take place in the open staff forum, and all polls are to be public.
The right to equal treatment
Members have the right to be treated equally by staff. Members have the right to come to TR! under a "clean slate" policy- but if they begin to exhibit disruptive behavior which may have characterized their posting on other boards, staff will not ignore the pattern. Members are expected to understand that different standards may be applied in different fora, and that prolonged ill-behavior will damage their standing within the community, and may result in official sanctions.
The right to freedom of speech vs the right to protection from personal insults and harassment
TR! does not support unlimited free speech. There are some things, for example, that expose us to legal risk and these are not permitted. Along with posting spam, links to malware, and attempting to hack the board software, posts which pose a real legal risk to TR! may be removed without warning, and the offending poster banned or otherwise sanctioned.
TR! realizes that freedom of speech is an important part of any freethought community. TR! also realizes that the community can be fractured if insults and harassment constantly poison discussion. It is TR's position that rational discussion is best served by addressing the post and not the poster. TR! realizes that no-one can be perfect all the time, but it is the responsibility of members to practice self-control, and avoid unreasonably offending other posters.
Members do not have the right to be protected from every last insult of every kind of severity. However, members have the right to be protected from harassment - this includes following another member around with old arguments (whether from TR! or other boards) and targeting them in your signature, avatar, location or profile.
However, members have the right to not have their posts, or any part thereof, deleted. Exceptions are permitted to delete spam, remove malware or links to sites with malware, insert hide tags for NSFW images, remove material which may cause copyright problems, remove double posts, and to excise personal data by request of the adult poster, or on sight when the poster is a minor. This protection does not include having posts remain where they were originally posted; at staff discretion posts may be moved to another forum.
Members have the responsibility of ensuring that their posts stay out of The Charred Remains by doing their best to ensure a high signal to noise ratio. Members are responsible for realizing that one or two cogent points in a post that is primarily insults is not sufficient to keep their post out of TCR.
Members are expected to defend the positions they assert for the sake of productive discussion, and if they show a repeated unwillingness to back their positions when others willingly defend their own, they may reasonably expect to be repeatedly challenged or criticized for this refusal if they continue to assert the disputed position.
The right to defend a place within the TR! community
Members have the right to defend themselves from long-term or permanent revocation of posting rights. This right does not apply to spammers, hackers, or sock-puppets.
Subject to procedures, a member may be suspended for up to a week without prior discussion with staff. Upon resumption of posting privileges, the affected member has the right to contest the validity of the suspension in public or private.
Members have the right to discussion with staff before they are suspended for longer than one week or permanently banned, in order that a compromise position might be reached. The affected member also has the right to call for designated non-staff representation with the power to over-rule a staff vote for sanctions; see 'Appeals' in the 'Board Governance' section.
The right to financial transparency
TR! needs donations to run. Each member has the right to know where their money is going and who is handling it.
Retention of copyright
Members retain copyright on their own posts, but allow TalkRational the right to quote, move, and sometimes edit those posts. For more on this, ask in the Town Hall, or consult an administrator.
Moderator Rights and Responsibilities
Normal member rights
Moderators are members, which means that all the member rights and responsibilities apply to them.
Moderation of threads and posts
Moderators are responsible for looking after the fora on a day-to-day level. Specifically, most moderators will be assigned to a particular forum (or sometimes more than one) and act as "gardeners" in their forum, tending to threads that may need derails splitting off and making sure that arguments don't get too heated.
In order to fulfill this responsibility, moderators have the right to split threads and move posts from thread to thread and forum to forum, and the right to lock threads temporarily or permanently. They also have the right to edit the posts of others, but are only given a mandate to remove what others have said in extreme situations such as the posting of illegal content or spam.
Edits, splits, merges, and deletions should be clearly marked as such, and links to other relevant threads should be included whenever possible.
Although moderators are assigned to a particular forum and only have a mandate for that forum, they retain the technical ability to moderate anywhere on the board and to give emergency temporary suspensions to spammers.
Setting policy
Moderators are also responsible, along with the admins, for proposing and voting on policy decisions. Such decisions should be discussed and made in public, so that members at large can follow the process and provide feedback on it.
Interaction with staff and other members
Moderators are recruited from the members at large by a staff vote, although the appointment of a moderator can be vetoed by the admins if a candidate is not considered suitable.
While moderators are expected to handle low-level disruption to their fora by talking to members and splitting or locking threads, they are expected to refer higher level disruption of the community and the board to the administrators.
Moderators have the responsibility to serve as a resource to members, and to assure that Talk Rational! remains a place where people want to be. Tyranny in any form is not welcome.
Responsible moderation
Moderators have the responsibility to strive to act professionally and should not allow their personal feelings to seep through their mod hats. Mods should lead by example.
Moderators should strive to be fair and impartial. When participating in discussions in their forum, moderators should be aware that moderating actions performed in those discussions could be construed as a lack of impartiality, and should recuse themselves as seems appropriate. However, this does not remove the right of moderators to participate fully in the fora that they moderate.
Moderators should not deliberately misuse administrative features.
A moderator may be removed from their position by a successful recall, either by staff or by members.
Moderators have the responsibility to try their best to be responsive to the needs of the members, and should ensure that the interests of their forum are represented in policy discussions.
Moderators should be proactive as the hosts of Talk Rational! forums. That includes promoting discussions by splitting off interesting tangents, starting new discussions when things slow down, and participating in threads.
Monitoring performance
Moderators have the responsibility to monitor the actions of other moderators and admins to ensure that they adhere to the member guidelines as well as the moderator guidelines listed herein.
Moderators are expected to monitor the In Confidence forum, and are expected to respond (if only by signifying agreement) to posts concerning their forum; they may also offer opinions on other reported posts. Moderators are also expected to participate in relevant threads in the open and private staff fora.
Discretion and complaints
Recognizing that written rules cannot cover all possible questionable situations and that the rules are more like firm guidelines rather than mechanical filters, in questionable situations moderators have the right to exercise judgment to moderate in a manner consistent with the spirit of the rules and the goals of Talk Rational, subject to the review procedures that are available.
Moderators have the right to expect complaints and suggestions be offered in a reasonable and rational manner, and they have the responsibility to respond in kind. They have the right to expect admins to enforce this.
Administrator Rights and Responsibilities
Administrators are members of TR! and therefore have all the rights and responsibilities of members.
Administrators do not usually involve themselves in day-to-day moderation of fora (unless temporarily covering the absence of a moderator). The exception to this is the Town Hall, which is specifically moderated by the administrators.
The main responsibility of administrators is dealing with high level disruption of the board. Normally this will involve talking to the members involved and persuading them to act in a less disruptive manner. However, if such talks are not productive then administrators are responsible for escalating the matter to either temporary or permanent exclusions from part or all of the board in the form of suspensions, bans or pestings. Any such escalation should be done by majority administrator vote. To aid the administrators in this, they are given a mandate to check IP addresses and registration email addresses in order to discover such actions as multiple-account trolling and circumvention of bans.
A secondary responsibility of administrators is to handle complaints or grievances that members may have about the actions of moderators, and administrators have the ability to overrule the decisions of moderators based on these complaints.
Administrators are nominated by vote of the entire staff, then elected by vote of the membership, with the existing administrators being given veto power over such a vote. Admins can be recalled from their staff position by either a majority member vote or a majority staff vote.
Admins are responsible for the overall health of TR. Their specific duties include:
Approving new registrants
Banning spammers and sockpuppets on sight
Moderating the Town Hall
Overseeing the reported posts in In Confidence, making sure that the forum mods respond to them and moving them to completed when complete
Mentoring new mods until they're up to speed
Keeping TH stickies updated
Overseeing suspension and ban processes on non-spammer/socks
Making sure that the overall goals of TR are represented in policy discussions
Adding, removing or editing new fora as needed
Ensuring all fora have adequate staff coverage and removing moderators that are unable or unwilling to perform their outlined duties.
Coordinating and representing staff views to any convened Council of Umpires
System admins are responsible for:
Updating board software as required
Fixing technical problems as they occur
Seeking out and implementing useful hacks
Other duties and responsibilities may be added under rules and procedures, as the staff sees fit.
Charter Ratifications and Changes
The original Charter, and any subsequent changes made to that Charter, must be ratified by the Talk Rational! community. The original Charter must also be ratified by a staff vote, although subsequent alterations do not.
A quorum of either 100 members, or 25% of active members (whichever is larger) is needed to ratify or make changes to the Charter. For the original Charter, a simple majority is needed to ratify each section. That majority will be recorded and inserted into the Charter for purposes of record-keeping.
This Charter may be changed or added to, if the community of TalkRational! so desires.
For changes to policies which are directly addressed in the original Charter, an exact statement of the relevant section of the Charter, with the proposed change highlighted, must be offered in the Town Hall. The number of members voting for it must be a majority, and must exceed by 1% the number of members who originally voted for ratification of that section; alternatively, any vote of over 90% is sufficient to amend the Charter. Upon which the proposed change is added to that section, noted as a numbered amendment, and any superseded parts of the original Charter will be removed.
For policies which are not directly addressed by the original Charter, a plurality of voters must approve, whereupon the new policy becomes part of the Charter, and added as a numbered amendment in the Amendments section.
At no time will any amendment to this charter, or to the general rules, policies and procedures, take effect retroactively.
TALK RATIONAL! CHARTER
Statement of Purpose
This discussion board provides a virtual meeting place for enjoyable, interesting, and informative discussion of a wide range of topics; from philosophy to politics, from science to religion, from tragedy to comedy. TR was founded by a largely skeptical, freethinking and nonreligious online community, but it is open to all, of any belief, who want to teach, to learn, to socialize, or to engage in open and fair debate. Anything is subject to inquiry and discourse, to evidence and logic. No belief, position, or opinion gets a free pass just because it's a religious belief, or it's thought to be sacrosanct, or most of the people here hold it. Above all, we aspire to rationality, in thought and speech, although not to the exclusion of other values.
TR! supports many ideals which will serve our community: tolerance, truthfulness, courtesy, cooperation, kindness and reason. It is also recognized that people have emotions, passions, idiosyncrasies, and hot-button issues, and that discussion that arises from them, though sometimes heated, constitutes a valid and important part of social interaction. However, anyone whose posts consistently undermine or oppose our ideals and disrupts our community will find themselves at odds with the overall philosophy of the board.
Board Governance
Talk Rational! is structured as a consultative Republic. This allows TR! to include community input, lessens the chances of any minorities being abused, and avoids many of the other problems with pure democracy. It is also designed to prevent takeover by any individual or clique against the will of the community, and the intent of this Charter.
Within the scope of the Charter, staff make independent decisions as to how TR! is run. To maximize open government, staff decisions about how TR! is run will be in the form of public votes, which are recorded for future reference. Any member is free at any time to start a straw poll in the TH to help give an indicator of the general feelings of the membership as a whole.
Forum moderators are chosen by staff from member volunteers; administrators are nominated by the staff, then offered to the membership for election. Members who have previously served as mods at TR!, who left their position in good standing (i.e. were not recalled), but who are not currently serving as mods, are eligible for admin election. System admins are chosen by staff on the basis of technical ability, and do not take part in other administrative duties.
All staff are subject to recall at any time by the members. The result of a recall cannot be over-ridden by a staff vote. Staff can also vote to remove mods or admins from the staff.
Disclaimer
TR! in no way endorses or supports the views of its members. It only fosters a place for the free expression of ideas.
Posting Etiquette at Talk Rational!
At TR! we realize that rationality is best served by arguing the post and not the poster. We also realize that it's unrealistic to expect people to hold themselves to this level of behavior all the time, that people sometimes need a place to blow off steam, but that persistent obnoxious insults can rise to levels that make the board unpleasant for the majority of members.
Attempting to maximize free speech while minimizing unwelcome obnoxiousness, TR! divides individual fora into the following zones.
ZONE 0 THREADS: (This applies to "support" threads only). Members are requested to not engage in personal insults at all, and are further requested to make sure that what they post is helpful or supportive to the person requesting support. Posts that do not do this will very likely be moved to fora designated for that purpose, and may be locked.
ZONE 1 FORA: When in a debate, members are requested to argue the post and not the poster at all times. Likewise, when not involved in debate, members are requested to not engage in personal insults at all. Posts that do not do this will very likely be moved to fora designated for that purpose, and may be locked.
ZONE 2 FORA: Members are permitted to be more robust in their arguments and posts. However, as above, posts that are predominantly insults are likely to be moved to fora designated for that purpose, and may be locked. Individual fora under Zone 2 may have differing degrees of tolerance for explicit and implicit insults.
ZONE 3: The Zone 3 forum is a special case at TR! It is visible only on application to an admin, who will then put you in the user group that can see the forum. Similarly, application to an admin can remove you from that user group at any time. The only moderation that will take place in Zone 3 concerns posts that put TR! at legal risk, and those that contain malware (viruses, Trojans, etc.) and links to malware. Otherwise, don't bother complaining to staff, we won't care. No posts will be moved into or out of Zone 3. No arguments from Zone 3 will be permitted to spill over into other fora - if you get into an argument with Bob in Zone 3 and insult him because of it in Sciences, staff will not care that you were provoked. If you can't handle it, don't remain the user group.
The staff will decide which forum falls in which Zone and a sticky will be placed in each forum accordingly.
We do not edit or move posts for swearing.
Appeal System
Members have the right to appeal any permanent banning or any suspension greater than one week. This right does not apply to spammers, sockpuppets or hackers.
The appeal is overseen by a Council of Umpires. The appeal must be initiated by or seconded by a TR! member other than the member affected before the Council is convened. Umpires are chosen randomly from a pool of willing members. Members are free to decline if they feel they cannot be objective in the case in question, and in this case additional Umpires will be selected.
Once the Council is established, the affected member and one representative admin will have the opportunity to make arguments before the Council. The Council will then vote to ratify or disallow the proposed staff action. Votes are public. The Council may also suggest an intermediate measure be adopted. The Council's decision is binding.
Finances
To handle the donations and expenses of the board, a Treasurer and Secretary will be selected by unanimous approval of the administrators, and presented to the membership for ratification. The people selected for these positions should be long-term, well-trusted members of the community, and will be required to give their actual names and locations to the administrators.
The Treasurer will open a bank account, and get a credit or debit card associated with the account. These are to be used exclusively for the business of the TalkRational! board. The Treasurer will have sole access to the bank account, with statements from the account being sent to the Secretary, who is responsible for verifying all transactions made by the Treasurer, and publishing these transactions in an agreed-upon manner on the board.
Funds will be collected by an annual or bi-annual donation drive, which will be overseen jointly by the Treasurer and Secretary. These funds will be deposited directly in the TalkRational account, and the ongoing balance in the account will be published on the board.
Expenses, including but not limited to coverage of server costs, will be paid by the Treasurer. Methods of payment will be decided at the Treasurer's discretion, as will such matters as bank and credit card selection, with the approval of the Secretary and the administrators.
Any expense not directly related to the continued running of the board must be approved by a unanimous vote of the administrators, and announced to the membership of the board.
Member Rights and Responsibilities
Fostering the community at TR! is a necessary and desirable goal. To further this, each member of the community is understood to have the following rights and responsibilities.
The right to anonymity
Each member has the right to retain their anonymity - specifically their real name and contact details. You should not post or link to these without specific permission from the affected member. While members may choose to waive that right for themselves when interacting with others, they may not expose other members or third parties without their permission. Members realise that the right to waive their anonymity may be limited if the member is a known minor.
The right to contribute to policy-making
Each member has the right to offer suggestions and to contribute to policy-making in the Town Hall. While the final vote rests with the staff, it is the staff's responsibility to solicit input from the members before any substantial decisions are made. At a minimum, this solicitation will involve discussing the proposed decision in a public forum and allowing members to start threads commenting on the discussion and decision. While staff will advertise via announcements important issues like recall votes, members are responsible for checking the Town Hall regularly if they want to give input. The TH is an integral part of TR! and cannot be shut down, and individual members cannot be "pested" from TH - any member not under a suspension/ban may post in TH.
The right to recall staff and elect administrators
Each member has the right to start a motion to recall any staff member and to vote in that motion. Collectively, the member consensus of a recall motion cannot be vetoed by staff. However, members have the responsibility to follow recall procedures.
Members have the right, and the responsibility, to vote to elect new administrators, from nominees offered by the staff.
The right to know how decisions are made
While decisions on how TR is run are made by staff (excepting Charter amendments), members have the right to know who voted for what and why. With a few exceptions where an individual's privacy needs protecting, such as votes whether or not to sanction an individual member, staff votes are to take place in the open staff forum, and all polls are to be public.
The right to equal treatment
Members have the right to be treated equally by staff. Members have the right to come to TR! under a "clean slate" policy- but if they begin to exhibit disruptive behavior which may have characterized their posting on other boards, staff will not ignore the pattern. Members are expected to understand that different standards may be applied in different fora, and that prolonged ill-behavior will damage their standing within the community, and may result in official sanctions.
The right to freedom of speech vs the right to protection from personal insults and harassment
TR! does not support unlimited free speech. There are some things, for example, that expose us to legal risk and these are not permitted. Along with posting spam, links to malware, and attempting to hack the board software, posts which pose a real legal risk to TR! may be removed without warning, and the offending poster banned or otherwise sanctioned.
TR! realizes that freedom of speech is an important part of any freethought community. TR! also realizes that the community can be fractured if insults and harassment constantly poison discussion. It is TR's position that rational discussion is best served by addressing the post and not the poster. TR! realizes that no-one can be perfect all the time, but it is the responsibility of members to practice self-control, and avoid unreasonably offending other posters.
Members do not have the right to be protected from every last insult of every kind of severity. However, members have the right to be protected from harassment - this includes following another member around with old arguments (whether from TR! or other boards) and targeting them in your signature, avatar, location or profile.
However, members have the right to not have their posts, or any part thereof, deleted. Exceptions are permitted to delete spam, remove malware or links to sites with malware, insert hide tags for NSFW images, remove material which may cause copyright problems, remove double posts, and to excise personal data by request of the adult poster, or on sight when the poster is a minor. This protection does not include having posts remain where they were originally posted; at staff discretion posts may be moved to another forum.
Members have the responsibility of ensuring that their posts stay out of The Charred Remains by doing their best to ensure a high signal to noise ratio. Members are responsible for realizing that one or two cogent points in a post that is primarily insults is not sufficient to keep their post out of TCR.
Members are expected to defend the positions they assert for the sake of productive discussion, and if they show a repeated unwillingness to back their positions when others willingly defend their own, they may reasonably expect to be repeatedly challenged or criticized for this refusal if they continue to assert the disputed position.
The right to defend a place within the TR! community
Members have the right to defend themselves from long-term or permanent revocation of posting rights. This right does not apply to spammers, hackers, or sock-puppets.
Subject to procedures, a member may be suspended for up to a week without prior discussion with staff. Upon resumption of posting privileges, the affected member has the right to contest the validity of the suspension in public or private.
Members have the right to discussion with staff before they are suspended for longer than one week or permanently banned, in order that a compromise position might be reached. The affected member also has the right to call for designated non-staff representation with the power to over-rule a staff vote for sanctions; see 'Appeals' in the 'Board Governance' section.
The right to financial transparency
TR! needs donations to run. Each member has the right to know where their money is going and who is handling it.
Retention of copyright
Members retain copyright on their own posts, but allow TalkRational the right to quote, move, and sometimes edit those posts. For more on this, ask in the Town Hall, or consult an administrator.
Moderator Rights and Responsibilities
Normal member rights
Moderators are members, which means that all the member rights and responsibilities apply to them.
Moderation of threads and posts
Moderators are responsible for looking after the fora on a day-to-day level. Specifically, most moderators will be assigned to a particular forum (or sometimes more than one) and act as "gardeners" in their forum, tending to threads that may need derails splitting off and making sure that arguments don't get too heated.
In order to fulfill this responsibility, moderators have the right to split threads and move posts from thread to thread and forum to forum, and the right to lock threads temporarily or permanently. They also have the right to edit the posts of others, but are only given a mandate to remove what others have said in extreme situations such as the posting of illegal content or spam.
Edits, splits, merges, and deletions should be clearly marked as such, and links to other relevant threads should be included whenever possible.
Although moderators are assigned to a particular forum and only have a mandate for that forum, they retain the technical ability to moderate anywhere on the board and to give emergency temporary suspensions to spammers.
Setting policy
Moderators are also responsible, along with the admins, for proposing and voting on policy decisions. Such decisions should be discussed and made in public, so that members at large can follow the process and provide feedback on it.
Interaction with staff and other members
Moderators are recruited from the members at large by a staff vote, although the appointment of a moderator can be vetoed by the admins if a candidate is not considered suitable.
While moderators are expected to handle low-level disruption to their fora by talking to members and splitting or locking threads, they are expected to refer higher level disruption of the community and the board to the administrators.
Moderators have the responsibility to serve as a resource to members, and to assure that Talk Rational! remains a place where people want to be. Tyranny in any form is not welcome.
Responsible moderation
Moderators have the responsibility to strive to act professionally and should not allow their personal feelings to seep through their mod hats. Mods should lead by example.
Moderators should strive to be fair and impartial. When participating in discussions in their forum, moderators should be aware that moderating actions performed in those discussions could be construed as a lack of impartiality, and should recuse themselves as seems appropriate. However, this does not remove the right of moderators to participate fully in the fora that they moderate.
Moderators should not deliberately misuse administrative features.
A moderator may be removed from their position by a successful recall, either by staff or by members.
Moderators have the responsibility to try their best to be responsive to the needs of the members, and should ensure that the interests of their forum are represented in policy discussions.
Moderators should be proactive as the hosts of Talk Rational! forums. That includes promoting discussions by splitting off interesting tangents, starting new discussions when things slow down, and participating in threads.
Monitoring performance
Moderators have the responsibility to monitor the actions of other moderators and admins to ensure that they adhere to the member guidelines as well as the moderator guidelines listed herein.
Moderators are expected to monitor the In Confidence forum, and are expected to respond (if only by signifying agreement) to posts concerning their forum; they may also offer opinions on other reported posts. Moderators are also expected to participate in relevant threads in the open and private staff fora.
Discretion and complaints
Recognizing that written rules cannot cover all possible questionable situations and that the rules are more like firm guidelines rather than mechanical filters, in questionable situations moderators have the right to exercise judgment to moderate in a manner consistent with the spirit of the rules and the goals of Talk Rational, subject to the review procedures that are available.
Moderators have the right to expect complaints and suggestions be offered in a reasonable and rational manner, and they have the responsibility to respond in kind. They have the right to expect admins to enforce this.
Administrator Rights and Responsibilities
Administrators are members of TR! and therefore have all the rights and responsibilities of members.
Administrators do not usually involve themselves in day-to-day moderation of fora (unless temporarily covering the absence of a moderator). The exception to this is the Town Hall, which is specifically moderated by the administrators.
The main responsibility of administrators is dealing with high level disruption of the board. Normally this will involve talking to the members involved and persuading them to act in a less disruptive manner. However, if such talks are not productive then administrators are responsible for escalating the matter to either temporary or permanent exclusions from part or all of the board in the form of suspensions, bans or pestings. Any such escalation should be done by majority administrator vote. To aid the administrators in this, they are given a mandate to check IP addresses and registration email addresses in order to discover such actions as multiple-account trolling and circumvention of bans.
A secondary responsibility of administrators is to handle complaints or grievances that members may have about the actions of moderators, and administrators have the ability to overrule the decisions of moderators based on these complaints.
Administrators are nominated by vote of the entire staff, then elected by vote of the membership, with the existing administrators being given veto power over such a vote. Admins can be recalled from their staff position by either a majority member vote or a majority staff vote.
Admins are responsible for the overall health of TR. Their specific duties include:
Approving new registrants
Banning spammers and sockpuppets on sight
Moderating the Town Hall
Overseeing the reported posts in In Confidence, making sure that the forum mods respond to them and moving them to completed when complete
Mentoring new mods until they're up to speed
Keeping TH stickies updated
Overseeing suspension and ban processes on non-spammer/socks
Making sure that the overall goals of TR are represented in policy discussions
Adding, removing or editing new fora as needed
Ensuring all fora have adequate staff coverage and removing moderators that are unable or unwilling to perform their outlined duties.
Coordinating and representing staff views to any convened Council of Umpires
System admins are responsible for:
Updating board software as required
Fixing technical problems as they occur
Seeking out and implementing useful hacks
Other duties and responsibilities may be added under rules and procedures, as the staff sees fit.
Charter Ratifications and Changes
The original Charter, and any subsequent changes made to that Charter, must be ratified by the Talk Rational! community. The original Charter must also be ratified by a staff vote, although subsequent alterations do not.
A quorum of either 100 members, or 25% of active members (whichever is larger) is needed to ratify or make changes to the Charter. For the original Charter, a simple majority is needed to ratify each section. That majority will be recorded and inserted into the Charter for purposes of record-keeping.
This Charter may be changed or added to, if the community of TalkRational! so desires.
For changes to policies which are directly addressed in the original Charter, an exact statement of the relevant section of the Charter, with the proposed change highlighted, must be offered in the Town Hall. The number of members voting for it must be a majority, and must exceed by 1% the number of members who originally voted for ratification of that section; alternatively, any vote of over 90% is sufficient to amend the Charter. Upon which the proposed change is added to that section, noted as a numbered amendment, and any superseded parts of the original Charter will be removed.
For policies which are not directly addressed by the original Charter, a plurality of voters must approve, whereupon the new policy becomes part of the Charter, and added as a numbered amendment in the Amendments section.
At no time will any amendment to this charter, or to the general rules, policies and procedures, take effect retroactively.