bxdcherri wrote:

So just to make sure I’m understanding this correctly, if you run and win the only rules are:

Highlighting this for clarity. I’m not asking about the current state of the site, I’m asking about a hypothetical future if SweetAsNuts wins the election, as I’m quite interested in his viewpoints x

And what about those forum rules? Will they also change Miss Bimbo? Will free speech be maxed out or can we still expect some kind of dignity and respect?

I (Sweetasnuts) will present my manifesto to you soon 

We are going to open it up so that all senators can stand as long as you have been a senator for 3 months.
So yes I please encourage you to stand for election

Yes at the moment my intention is to open it up from Feb. I hope this will encourage democracy in Ximboland. Lets see

I think moving forward, the below changes should be considered for implementation if the aim is to foster democracy:

A fair impartial moderation system

• Rules need to be clear and detailed. Subjective interpretations should be minimised and there should be a focus on being as objective as possible. These should be clearly communicated with the users
• Punishment thresholds should be clear and communicated and outlined in relation with the rules. Iowa's graded system for jailing makes perfect sense. Any jailing reasons should then refer back to these rules and outlined punishments
• Moderators should be impartial and unbiased and should not let their personal feelings cloud their judgement.
• Moderating should be communicated in a professional manner with the aim to deescalate and ensure the established rules are stuck to.
• There should be clear guidelines on when material should be removed.
• Records need to be kept to hold the moderation team accountable. This is also important because if somebody questions their treatment, you should have an accurate record of what they did and why moderators intervened.
• Moderation should be actively undertaken by several people with clear communication steams, this will help balance bias and differing viewpoints
• Punishments should be consistently given so there are no double standards. Follow the protocols outlined in the rules and outlined punishments
• Terminology regarding the current punishment system and information should be clearly communicated so new users should be able to easily establish how things are running. The terminology currently used is confusing as it is different to other websites. Define your terms and be patient when people ask for clarity regarding this.
• Users should be provided with a fair way of appealing. The current rule where nobody can discuss moderator intervention combined with the inconsistent applying of the rules is oppressive and opaque.
• All of this can apply to the minimalist rules sweetasnuts proposes, the rules can be set as needed but the application of the rules needs to be clearly defined and they need to be robust or else you run into issues further down the line.

Implement better features and improve site functionality

• If we're going to foster a community of free speech and minimise input from moderators, you need to better empower users to protect themselves. It's not just about having to endure abuse, trolling, hurty words etc, it's the fact that people's enjoyment of the site is affected by a select few whose sole purpose seems to be making everybody else miserable. This is annoying and people should be able to block people whose content they don't want to see. This should hide content from view and stop the blocked person also viewing content. That way any "censorship" is done at a personal level. Literally every other social media app has this feature.
• Timestamped edits on forum posts - at present it's really easy to post something and then edit it after posting it. I've never encountered a forum that didn't timestamp edits or denote that a post was edited. It's too easy for people to clean up and change narratives. Let people edit their posts but timestamp it with a note it was edited.

Better transparency and communication with the community

• It might make sense to you, Chris but the website political structure is not intuitive and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It would be helpful to have an easy to find guide on how this place runs. The wiki is outdated and there's lots of little pieces of information people have to pick up as they go. This being clearly described and outlined would help
• Clearly established roles and responsibilities. People running for Prime Bimbo need a clear description of what the role entails, same for state minister. It needs to be clearly defined. Same for fashion police and any of the other roles.
• Jargon and abbreviations - it is confusing to read this place if you're a newer player. Everybody uses jargon and if you ask questions they're not always met kindly. There should be a list of commonly used terms and abbreviations to signpost players to. It's alienating to newer members. Chris, even you ran into problems because you had a differing idea of what the term "Pink House" referred to.
• Better communication with regards to planned changes on the website. Regular lists of changes so the userbase know what has happened. Not only that but planned changes and features should be regularly communicated to users. This would further encourage people to actually invest in playing the game as they know what's ahead and the game is actively being worked on and improved. It would also give players a better appreciation for the behind the scenes work.
• At present, the userbase make recommendations/suggestions and then they vanish into the ether and we don't hear back. Engage with your userbase and speak to them about what is possible, what features are being prioritised, what is and isn't possible.

Coding responsibilities

• I think you've stated Mariolka is under your employment so things work differently there, however it would be useful for the userbase to have an understanding of his remit, roles and responsibilities. He has previously entered threads threatening to ban people. Is it his job to enforce the rules?
• A true democracy would require the coder to remain impartial. He needs to work effectively with each government. He's also unelected so his influence in terms of the politics and enforcement of the rules ought to be minimised for the sake of fostering democracy.
• There seems to have been some drama regarding shop workers with regards to Mariolka, if his role, remit and responsibilities were better understood, then any potential issues could be dealt with more effectively.
• Does anybody have overall input and sign off on what coder resource is used for in terms of implementing features? Features should be prioritised based on their impact with regards to the site owner's legal obligation, improving the site and driving more site traffic and revenue.
• How will longstanding projects and features be managed between governments? What is the average time between the initial scoping of the idea and it being implemented in terms of a site feature? This needs to be ironed out, especially if the aim is to shorten thr PB length.
• There needs to be a clearer definition of what is the site owner's decision, what falls to the coding team and what is the Prime Bimbo's responsibilities. Until this is done, you're going to have a hard time being hands off as you wish.

Blecky posted about these things happening Post here. People in this thread was told moderating was happening. And yes it was agreed to moderate whole thread between Blecky and Chris.

if someone (or two people) seems to do literally nothing but antagonize other users to the point of driving them off the site is it not appropriate for the good of the community to remove them? or at least give them an ultimatum? even if we look at it from the perspective of money, if they intermittently buy senatorships while actively driving people away from the community, that is still a loss. that is a loss of traffic on the site and a loss of potential senators who might have otherwise paid were it not for those users. if two people are almost unanimously and universally hated and have shown time and time again that they do not care about following the rules or respecting other users, they are a parasite to the community. democracy isn't just a process, it is a social contract, and bad actors refusing to abide by the same rules as everyone else threatens the entire structure.

To answer Heydi’s previous question about “parody”, the answer is:

Parody is legal, approved, and encouraged by Miss Bimbo, her admins, and her government (Pink House).
Miss Bimbo
the Fashion Police
the Ximbo Mailman.
State Ministers
Senators
Citizens
Legal Aliens

no one is exempt from any parody…
especially OUTFIT PARODY, OUTFIT CRITIQUE, AND OUTFIT MAKEOVER CONTESTS.

Want to see the proof?  You’ll have to look outside the forum to find it.