Owing to the past few replies in this discussion, I feel I had ought to clarify the intent of the phrasing further. To reiterate what I stated in the OP:
- These rules are intended to encapsulate instances in which actions by a user off-site could cause undue harm/distress to another user in on-site interactions, such as targeted bullying of a user or non-consensual, sexually-connotated interactions. These rules aren’t intended to encapsulate instances of off-site bantering/teasing of a trivial or friendly nature, respectful criticisms, or feuds between friends.
- These rules are intended to encapsulate instances in which actions by a user off-site could be reasonably construed as inconducive to the safety/wellbeing of another user, such as threatening violence against someone on the basis of their race, stating intention to mistreat a particular religious group, or partaking in a known LGBT hate group. These rules aren’t intended to encapsulate instances of saying the n-word in a casual server on Discord, partaking in taboo fetishes in a wholly private and consensual environment, or being a critic of a particular group of people with no harmful intentions towards them.
Importantly, I specified in the OP that I believe the rules speak for themselves. These examples are wholly for illustrating how these rules would be applied in practical, potentially contentious circumstances - if you examine the phrasing of the rules themselves, I believe you'll find that every example of a punishable/non-punishable offense here can be readily deduced from the rules themselves, without these illustrations added. Hence why I do not believe the examples need to be added to the rules themselves.
(As a side note: If others believe the intent of the rules could be confusing, I would be willing to adjust the proposal by adding the examples in some form, or by simply rephrasing them. I prefer to avoid needlessly verbose rule lists - they had ought to be concise enough for a regular user to read them and grasp the content, after all - but I'm willing to interject as many additions as needed for clarity's sake.)
I say all this, because some posts have implied certain actions - such as darkly humoured jokes or decontexualised offensive terms - would be enough to have someone punished under these proposals. To make this as clear and unambiguous as possible:
no, neither of those would be. To restate the additions to the rules I am proposing:
- Off-site behavior is usually irrelevant except in cases of:
- Actions taken against another user off-site of such a nature that could reasonably cause undue harm and/or distress for the other user in on-site interactions. This includes, but is not limited to: harassment, threats of violence or similar harmful actions, unsolicited sexual misconduct, impersonation, hacking, and doxing.
- Actions made off-site that could be reasonably construed as inconducive to the safety and/or wellbeing of a user, or a denomination of users, in on-site interactions. This includes, but is not limited to: threats directed towards particular demographics (i.e.: racial, gendered, sexual, and/or religiously motivated threats to commit violent acts), obscenities of an implicative nature (i.e.: hate speech, sexual comments towards minors), and involvement with known hate groups.
I don't believe there is any reasonable angle in which you can suggest that a group of friends making dark jokes with one another (and by this, I mean
actual dark jokes, not "legitimate threats or implicative comments that are being framed as jokes as a poor attempt to void responsibility") is either a direct action taken against a user that could realistically cause undue harm to the person, or a general action that could be realistically construed as inconducive to the safety of our users. Similarly, a potentially offensive term could not realistically qualify for either without the addition of context.
And if you want to examine it on an even more fundamental level, consider the principle of preferability again. Under the principle of preferability, to argue that dark humour off-site would be bannable would be to argue that
no one can use dark humour off-site. And... to what end? What does it mean for us if someone makes a taboo joke about 9/11 in their friend's group chat? To punish such a person is an infringement of their liberties that has zero tangible influence on the wiki. It's flagrantly unreasonable, and so would be an unjustifiable rule under the principle. A similar aspect applies to the use of potentially offensive language. Would we be banning our users from entering acting careers in which they might have to say the n-word as part of a script in one of their roles? No, that's obviously absurd; we care about offensive language to the extent that it makes our community 'unpreferable', not with the very concept of the words themselves. I believe the instances in which offensive language - among other things - could legitimately impact us on-site are already encompassed in the proposals.
So no - this will not be banning people from making dark jokes, nor will it be banning the use of an entire section of language. These proposals all tie back into what the realistic on-site impacts for actions could be, and the fact that we ought not to ignore legitimate threats to our user's safety and wellbeing on-site when it is a product of off-site misconduct.
