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Rule 8. Politics. Gone. For good.

Discussion in 'Announcements and Rules' started by tehelgee, Feb 7, 2017.

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  1. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    Aaaaand my concerns are right back.

    No, really. They'd been largely addressed, but this again changes things.

    Politics is everywhere in various ways. This has the effect of effectively banning pretty much any realistic depiction of life in modern times. That's a very bad thing for a fiction board, especially one specifically created to give us a place to write without having to police ourselves.

    The average character will have political views and opinions about current issues. They will inform his or her behavior and relationships. Forbidding any involvement of politics is... beyond absurd. Yes, that includes the "current" codicil -- just for a simple example, imagine me trying to write a character getting pregnant under these rules, especially if they're not sure they want to keep the baby.

    On top of this, it's becoming rather clear that the mods have no real agreement between them as to what this rule actually means. That means that enforcement will likely be inconsistent at best, and so the most expansive interpretations will effectively rule the day (plus, well, chilling effect).

    Throw in the fact that the rule wasn't created in response to any sort of issue in the story threads, and you start to see why I increasingly think that it's an overbroad rule created as a kneejerk reaction to an admittedly real problem. I am increasingly reminded of an old legal maxim which applies here.
     
  2. Cherry Lover

    Cherry Lover Well worn.

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    It's not so much political fics as incidental political content in other fics. As Aleh says, "real current politics" could be interpreted to include basically anything in modern life, and it is not clear that the mods intend not to do so.
     
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  3. Threadmarks: Rule 8 and Fics
    ultima333

    ultima333 Happy Sunflower Time Administrator

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    The main purpose of Rule 8 is to reduce the huge shitstorms that came with it. As tehelgee has said before, QQ is a place for lewds and fun, not insulting each other based on political beliefs.

    If it's politics in a fic, but absolutely no one is bothered by it, and no insults are flung, then really, there'd be no reason to invoke the rule. But because the userbase has proven to be unable to be civil and polite about it, the rule was created to clamp down on the topic, and to stop people from posting topics that will inevitably incite rage and unwanted behavior.

    alethiophile has already spoken on this, as well:
    In summary: If there's no trouble caused by politics in fics, there's no problem. Only if there's a shitstorm caused by it or something, will it be reviewed, and the staff will ask the question "were the politics in this the cause of the flamewar/shitstorm/argument?" If the answer is no, then there's no issue with the fic.
     
  4. Conu

    Conu Dazed and confused?

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    Instead of hypotheticals, how about we just ask if the staff has a problem with Oops ( NSFW https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/oops-worm-taylor-amy.3277/). A Worm fic where pregnancy and weed use, both topics debated in politics, are brought up. Also the most popular fic on QQ with more than 300 likes per post.
     
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  5. Cherry Lover

    Cherry Lover Well worn.

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    This sounds worryingly like it could turn into "if you don't like a fic, you can start bitching about some political topic and get it removed". Aside from that, though, it seems fair enough. I just think you need to be very careful to avoid putting the blame on the author where it rightfully belongs on the person actually causing the shitstorm....
     
  6. ultima333

    ultima333 Happy Sunflower Time Administrator

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    That's why I said the staff would review whether or not the fic was the cause of the argument.
    If a user is trying to get a fic in trouble by bitching about politics, then they'll be the ones getting hit, not the fic's author.
     
  7. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    ... ohkay...

    Well, as noted, it doesn't have to be reviewed for the rule to be an issue. There's a reason I keep mentioning chilling effects.

    Secondly, whether the politics were the cause of the flamewar/shitstorm/argument is a really, really poor criterion for this sort of thing. In almost all cases, the obvious answer will be yes: the political elements would at least be the argument's proximate cause. This gets back to the "chilling effect" thing -- making it effectively against the rules for someone to involve politics at all due to having to be concerned about other people's reactions to it.

    So, in other words, this does nothing to reassure me.
     
  8. tehelgee

    tehelgee The stern gaze of justice. Administrator

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    I'm starting to think nothing will reassure you, because you seem to interpret everything in the worst possible way.

    Current events =! current politics. If you intend to slap a thin coat of paint on Trump, Milo, Hillary, Bernie, etc, then try to call it sacrosanct because fiction... you're not gonna have a good time with Rule 8. If you want to write a story about a young female President of the United States having a harem of catbois... that's gonna be weird as fuck, but not fall under Rule 8.

    I'm tired of arguing hypotheticals. Give specific examples.
     
  9. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    I have, with links at several points -- RHJunior's works, for instance, or this part of the Pokegirls backstory. I've also specifically described several plot elements (both backstory and future plot points) of a story I'm working on. None of those are hypothetical. Of them, only the Pokegirls backstory element has been addressed, and the standards have changed depending on which mod is answering.

    That said, the hypotheticals are actually critically important. I don't have time to remember or search out examples of each issue I might want to explore -- thus things like my pregnant mother example.
     
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  10. tehelgee

    tehelgee The stern gaze of justice. Administrator

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    I'm familiar with Pokegirls, and there is nothing in it that falls afoul of Rule 8. The other link you gave me, other than being about MLP, has nothing wrong with it that I can see.

    Let me ask you in turn: what makes you think either of your examples COULD have gone against Rule 8?
     
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  11. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    Pokegirls deals with the aftermath of a feminist activist breaking into a mad scientist's lab and blackening his reputation in a manner markedly similar to modern webshaming. The fics routinely deal with dystopic sex relations, and two groups (the Limbec Pirates/Mao Shin Mao and the "extreme" elements of the league) are active, if incompetent, deconstructions of the extreme feminist and men's rights groups, respectively.

    In RHJunior's case, he's politely describable as an extreme right-winger who routinely works versions of real-life conflicts into his stories -- either by having his characters describe how fucked up our world is (see Example One) or by making fantastic versions of them central to his conflicts (see Example Two).

    So, to take a few of the more extreme examples, we have this from Chapter 18 of The Rise of Darth Vulcan:

    And while detailing a plot arc would take too long, The Great Alicorn Hunt features one which deals explicitly with thinly varnished depictions of the disability rights movement, the deaf culture movement, college protest movements, college liberals, and so on. This gets... quite explicit, such as in this exchange in Chapter 48:

    (This quote covers a number of things, but a good bit of it is a thinly-veiled discussion of the social and cultural models of disability and their alleged implications.)

    Of course, these were just the first two examples that came to mind -- his habit is longstanding, and even shows up in his relatively well-known webcomics.
     
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  12. Graypairofsocks

    Graypairofsocks THIS IS A TITLE!

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    Didn't you used to have more ribbons under your username?
     
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  13. ultima333

    ultima333 Happy Sunflower Time Administrator

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    Subscriber and Donator ribbons have been replaced by changing the user's name color.
    Since the color for Administrator overrides the colors for Donator and Subscriber, they don't show up and are basically hidden.

    Read more about that update here.
     
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  14. tehelgee

    tehelgee The stern gaze of justice. Administrator

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    The Pokegirls example wouldn't be against Rule 8. Like I said, I'm familiar with that setting. I think I ran the first Pokegirls quest on the board. There's no current political stuff in it.

    The other example, yeah, that would trip over Rule 8 because that's a lot of contentious current stuff. Also, those aren't so much fics as they are soapbox rants with a skin of fiction over them.
     
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  15. Snake/Eater

    Snake/Eater Myth Maker of the North

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    What about Battlestar Galactica? The show has politics relevant in the show as the President of the fleet and the Cylons are a stand in for religious extremism.

    And I wanted to write a fic about this show before rule 8.

    Random poster: "and nothing was really lost...."
     
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  16. 1986ctcel

    1986ctcel Connoisseur.

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    Uh BSG doesn't have much religion beyond MORMONS! IN! SPEHSSS! The Cylons were more snarky terminators who reused plots from old westerns and war movies like the Guns of Navarone and........oh you meant the cruddy remake instead of the original.

     
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  17. tehelgee

    tehelgee The stern gaze of justice. Administrator

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    Did you not recall the example I gave a few posts ago about a fictional female President being okay to write about? If your President isn't recognizable as Trump/Hillary/Bernie/real person in current politics, then it will be okay.

    You realize that seemingly everybody else gets the rule? I don't know if you're being willfully obtuse about it as a means of protest or not, but cut it out and use your head.
     
  18. january1may

    january1may Versed in the lewd.

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    I think I've stated it pretty succinctly at the bottom of page 7: West Wing is fine (just), South Park is not, ask the mods for anything that comes in between.
    Is that right, or did I misstate something again?
     
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  19. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    I picked the most extreme excerpts out of more than a hundred chapters (between the two stories) to quote. I can assure you that the fics in question are both legitimate pieces of fiction. That said, there's a reason why I picked his works as examples.

    Namely, while he doesn't comment on modern politicians or specific political events, he does comment on issues and movements. I'll have to take your statement as a resounding statement that yes, you are applying the rule to depictions of, well, movements and issues... which gets back into the whole point that characters exist within the context of social movements and have opinions about issues.

    To step back a bit, however:

    The thing is, that's exactly how you interpret laws and rules when judging their quality or looking for issues -- potential or otherwise. You don't assume that the rule will only forbid what the people making it intend it to; you look at the problems it could cause.

    You won't be the only person enforcing the rule, and even if you were, nobody's judgement is perfect. Every person who's doing so will have their own views, and their own interpretations, of it. Every person will make their own mistakes. This fuzziness gets worse when the "were the politics in this the cause of the flamewar/shitstorm/argument?" criterion is added in, as this means that I could be held accountable for what someone else does in response to my depiction of a character or a story event.

    I've noted repeatedly that I think that the rule, as written, is poorly conceived and overly broad even as I've been getting at its boundaries. I suppose I should illustrate by subjecting it to an actual legal test... well, modified somewhat to deal with the fact that this is a forum and not an actual government, and we have a purpose for the forum rather than an actual constitution or the like.

    When evaluating a law, the (American) courts use three types of tests, depending on the circumstances: the rational basis test, intermediate (or heightened) scrutiny, and strict scrutiny. The first is used most of the time. The second is used when a suspect classification and an equal protection claim is involved. The third is used when a fundamental right is implicated.

    In a forum analogy, the second would apply when the rule is questioned as being unfair to a specific group. When the forum's very purpose is involved, the third would be the relevant test.

    To pass strict scrutiny in court, a law must be three things:
    1. It must be justified by a compelling interest.
    2. It must be narrowly tailored to achieve the rule's goal or interest.
    3. It must use the least restrictive means to achieve that interest.
    Now, obviously these aren't requirements here. This is a forum, not a court. Still, it's as good a starting point as any.

    I understand that the general clusterfucks you've been dealing with are enough to bog down the moderating teams and threaten the forum; thus I concede that your rule serves a compelling interest.

    It is not, however, even remotely narrowly tailored. Simply put, your statements make it pretty damned clear that there's neither need nor extant cause to extend the rule into fics and quests themselves... which, as I've mentioned several times and provided examples about, is really thorny territory.

    It's not the least restrictive means to achieve that goal either. While the above overbroadness is the reason why I regard the rule as bad, this is why I think it's a kneejerk response -- it, the multiple revisions since you posted the original version of the rule, the various often-differing interpretations in this thread, and the general fuzziness of the rule itsenf generally show a marked lack of thought and consideration.

    And no, I don't mean thought and consideration about whether you should do this -- I believe you did put in that thought. I mean thought and consideration about what you should do and just what the new rule should be.

    And I keep mentioning the "chilling effect" bit for a reason. People will avoid things that even touch on politics or political issues. You write to ask the mods... but people often don't do that and simply alter their plans instead. Having to ask the mods is a pain... and, as noted, the interpretations of the rule are somewhat... variable.

    As things stand, I wouldn't be comfortable writing a teenage mother on this board -- they'd probably be considering or at least thinking about abortion, and abortion is very much a current political issue. I wouldn't be comfortable writing someone from a family of illegal immigrants. I wouldn't be... well, you get the idea.

    I think that's a very bad thing for this forum, given its purpose.
     
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  20. alethiophile

    alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher Administrator

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    Aleh:

    This forum is not the US government. Nor do we have SV's fetish for lawyer role-play. Quoting standards from American law at us is not likely to do anything except annoy us.

    Fundamentally, this forum, like all forums, is an autocracy. We endeavor to be reasonable, and it seems have generally succeeded. But by being a member of this forum at all, you are already trusting us to enforce the rules in a reasonable manner.

    We are also not bound to setting down the letter of a law which will be interpreted by someone else. The people deciding how to apply Rule 8 in any particular case are the same people who instituted and formulated it. We will, in fact, endeavor to apply the rule in a manner that effectively fulfills its purpose while not catching harmless things.

    Write your fic, whatever it may be. Don't write fics just as a way to sneak in political points. And if some problem appears, trust us to act like reasonable people. Don't extrapolate the rule to its most unreasonable possible application and assume we're going to do that. We aren't going to start blanket-banning worthwhile content because of one small part of it, even if we decide the author stepped over the line.

    Most of all, stop nitpicking. This isn't a court, and you aren't a lawyer.
     
  21. gibbousmoons

    gibbousmoons Well worn.

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    All this lawyer roleplay does is make me grumpy. There are rules. Follow the rules. If you can't understand a simple to understand rule after it's been explained multiple times then that's not our fault.

    Or to be snippy because somebody started the lawyer RP and now I'm irritated, that sounds like a personal problem.
     
  22. Snake/Eater

    Snake/Eater Myth Maker of the North

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    So does that mean the Mods are going to start a mafia Rp?:D

    "It's a nice active status you got there, it would be a shame if something were to happen...."

    Maybe you have a point and the rule Eighter Haters could be making a stink to troll you.
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2017
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  23. Seru

    Seru Lodissian Cross

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    I believe the way our glorious admin phrased it, his intent is to treat the material like this:

    10: Fic begins a shit storm.
    20: Begin analysis on fic after silencing shit storm
    30: Ascertain if the fic is 1. FICTION with a dash of POLITICS or 2. the Inverse
    40: IF 1: hand out punishments to Users for being morons
    50: IF 2: Punishments to Users and Writer for creating said problem.
    60: Go To 10
     
  24. snthsnth

    snthsnth Versed in the lewd.

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    My understanding is that it would be: 30 Ascertain whether the fic is 1. Fiction with politics -or- 2. Political commentary disguised as fiction for the purpose of evading the ban on politics
     
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  25. Seru

    Seru Lodissian Cross

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    I am trying to avoid an assumption of Malice in my flowchart. But that is also a valid reading of the information.
     
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  26. Snake/Eater

    Snake/Eater Myth Maker of the North

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    But Malice from who, The Writer, The Mods or The Readers?
     
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  27. Seru

    Seru Lodissian Cross

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    Any Malice. I do my best to embody the hypothetical Illuminati Death Bots that would be perfect Moderators if I provide information like this.
     
  28. snthsnth

    snthsnth Versed in the lewd.

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    The issue with that is that the mods have pretty much directly said that malice is required. They are looking at intent, as far as politics in fiction.
     
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  29. Seru

    Seru Lodissian Cross

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    Indeed. But I am taking the most benevolent view I can of the situation, which should hopefully be the most common occurrence of the issue.
     
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  30. snthsnth

    snthsnth Versed in the lewd.

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    That would actually be a more malevolent result. You could, under my interpretation, write a nBSG fic focusing on the politics of the twelve colonies, as the cylons infiltrate to destroy them. Under yours, that theoretical fic couldn't be written.

    You flowchart is a blanket ban on real and fictional politics if the work focuses on them, while mine is banning only thinly veiled political speech, and it's clear about the distinction.
     
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