I am against adding too many rules. I have a short set that I rarely change. However I do have an etiquette thread which is site policies and guidelines and every new member recieves a PM asking them to read it. I'd like to share it. Feel free to use something similar in your own community. I have it as a sticky in my News, Feedback forum. The responses it recieves are great. I think it sets a standard for conduct that other forums lack. It's one thing to have rules it's another to expect a certain behavior.
Well, posting etiquette is a part of my rules: As you can see, I've tried to make them friendly as opposed to "DON'T POST IN THE WRONG CATEGORY OR BUMP YOUR THREADS! GRR!"
I never read the rules either. I never really expect my members to, but they can't say it's not there. My member-base is that of an older generation, so they are wise enough to take the time to read rules. If I left them simple, they wouldn't understand what I mean. So I've explained it in a nice way.
I've found I have to define spam; some of my users are older and don't understand why we forbade canned luncheon meat.
If topics are allowed to be derailed and turned into spam like this I am not sure I want to participate here. Is this site a free for all just to raise activity?
No, the site isn't a free-for-all. In the beginning of our existence (three weeks ago) threads continually got hi-jacked and went off topic (just like this one did). Since then, I've tried to keep it to a minimum (and it has decreased) but as you can see, it happened again. I really was getting fed up in the beginning that all threads were going off topic, so I know how you feel. I will clean this thread up right now and move the posts to the Miscellaneous forum.
I am moderater (and sysadmin) for 2.5 years on a phpbb board that has been around about 3 years and has just over 1000 members. Only one rule...behave like ladies and gentlemen. As Moderater I have stated that the board cannot be run as a democracy and so it will be run as fairly and equitably as I can but I do have bad hair days and occasionally I stub my toe when getting out of bed, that's life. If I am getting it wrong then there will be complaints to the site owner (not me) and I can be replaced. 30 months later I am still there. I post my opinions alongside everyone elses. If I need to speak as moderator I preface it with "moderator hat on". Not saying this is the correct way to do things just that it works for us and my type and numbers of membership
Personally, I have a "Terms of Service" and a "Privacy Policy". These are the legal governing documents of my site. They are often required if you're going to accept money from people. Even if you're not going to accept money for services or donations, your country might have laws that require similar documents. In short, they aren't are bad idea for any site. Aside from those, I have a Community Guidelines document that people agree to follow when they register at my site. It is less formal and spells out the etiquette that I expect from people. All three documents are linked to in my footer and in the "Help" dropdown in the site's main navigation.
I have rules for my forum, that members get redirected to and can't move on for 1 minute (Cyb - Advanced Forum Rules) and they have to accept them - that way if they break them I can say - "You agreed to the rules on [state date] and you have broken such and such a rule" It is mainly to ensure that everyone is dealt with equally. I got rid of an administrator for breaching forum rules - something they are meant to uphold.
