Ludeon community rules

[Tynan]

Welcome! This post lays out rules for the Ludeon community, and the guiding philosophy behind them. These rules apply to all official parts of the RimWorld community, including but not limited to these forums, Reddit, Steam forums, any official Discord or chat server, and Steam workshop discussions.

Philosophy:

Our goals with this community are (in no particular order):

• We want the Ludeon community to be enjoyable, informative, and inviting to as many people as possible, while also supporting respectful disagreement, unpopular views, the right to freedom of speech, and edgy content that is posted in good faith.
• We want each participant to have the same rights and responsibilities, and to have rules enforced the same way, regardless of identity, connections, or viewpoint.
• We want all participants to be able to predict what is allowed and what isn't instead of being subject to penalties based on standards that seem arbitrary, whimsical, personal, or invented on the spot.

In an open online community attempting to include people with wildly diverse experiences, tastes, worldviews, and cultures, creating and enforcing rules is very difficult. Moderation in such a context requires great personal maturity, a strong sense of responsibility, solid coping strategies when facing conflict and emotionally offensive material, and a dedication to introspecting one's own thought process to ensure it carefully incorporates others' views and judges evenhandedly. Nothing about this is casual. It requires emotional steadiness, a circumspect thinking style which considers different angles carefully and attempts to probe its own biases.

Moderation should be consistent. We want rules to be applied consistently over time, including by different moderators, and to be logically and philosophically consistent with each other. Moderators should enforce the rules, not make up ad-hoc judgments on the spot without reference to rules. This may mean that something apparently "bad" might not get immediately moderated, if there isn't a rule for it. That's expected and acceptable - it's better to have consistent principles and to take the time to think through how rules need to change, instead of wielding power arbitrarily, emotionally, and unpredictably. Many rules changes have second and third-order effects beyond the obvious impact, and these must be considered dispassionately.

Don't scar on the first cut. Local disturbances shouldn't get transformed into permanent, global rules changes too quickly. When there's a disturbance that might seem to need new rules, we should take our time in considering what those changes might be, wait to see how the community to adapts by itself, and let feelings cool on all sides before making permanent changes. Often, no change is necessary.

Each participant in the community has both rights and responsibilities (since rights are almost the same thing as responsibilities when seen from others' point of view). For example, while participants have a responsibility to be mature enough to not lash out destructively or post trollish, deliberately-provocative material, they also have a matching responsibility to maturely cope with challenging material or material that violates their personal moral beliefs. We must balance these responsibilities carefully.

Participants come from diverse background and have diverse interests and feelings, so many things will create a negative emotional reaction in somebody. We don't want to enforce rules against anything anyone finds disagreeable, because we'd have to ban huge swaths of discussions and much of our own games. So each person is expected to have and use coping skills when faced with challenging content. This community is an open space full of diverse people - it isn't a place to post in bad faith deliberately to provoke strong emotions, nor is it a space for mental health treatment (which we are not qualified to provide in any form). In a community of millions of players, with hundreds of thousands participating online, there will be rare individuals with extreme emotional fragility simply because of the numbers of people involved. We wish anyone suffering deep emotional issues the best and hope they will get the individual help they need. At the same time, exceptional cases like this are not by themselves accepted as reasons to lay restrictions on what the rest of those millions of people can talk about or enjoy, because the alternative leads to a sequence of perverse incentives that result in very negative outcomes over time. This community works on the principle that in general, people are anti-fragile, which means they benefit from challenges, the same way a bone grows strong over time under moderate load. We recognize that harmless contact with difficult ideas in a safe environment (like an online discussion about a video game, which unlike many of spheres of life is very easy to detach from) is healthy and generally beneficial, and support the rights of very diverse users to express themselves even if some others don't like what's being said.

Community-wide rules:

1. No personal attacks or criticism of individuals: Even oblique or implied personal attacks or criticism are disallowed. Limitation: Feel free to criticize a game, mod, idea, philosophy, viewpoint, religion, plan, social practice, company, or non-human entity. You can also criticize public figures. Discussion: We all have flaws; pointing them out may very occasionally be useful, but is so often destructive and so outside the purpose of this community that it's better to simply disallow criticism of individuals in any form.

2. Sustained hostile, resentful, derisive, or angry tone: This rule isn't so much about the content of what you say, but how you say it - you must express yourself in a way that doesn't feel persistently hostile, resentful, derisive, or angry. For example, there is a difference between criticizing a game mod constructively, and criticizing it derisively; doing so derisively is against the rules. Discussion: This doesn't mean everyone has to be happy or have good opinions of everything and everyone all the time - it means that phrasing complaints in constructive ways and without a negative emotional tone leads to much better results all around. We don't want a community where anger, resentment, derision, and hostility are behavioral norms.

3. Do not respond to rule violations: If you see behavior that seems out of line to you, report the topic/post using the report button. Don't make a fuss about it in the topic itself. Do not message or respond to people who you think are breaking rules. Simply report them, and move on.

4. No self-promotion: No promotion of your own channel/mod/product. Limitation: You can mention your product or channel in context of other discussions, as long as it's a non-forced mention.

5. No penalty evasion: If your account is penalized, do not create another to get around the penalty. Doing so will result in more severe penalties.

6. No doxxing: Posting personal information about anyone is prohibited.

7. No impersonation: No impersonating other people or forum users.

8. No piracy: No posting of game pirate links or material. No discussions of game piracy.

9. No porn: No posting or linking of not safe for work (NSFW), pornographic, or X-rated material. Limitation: This doesn't ban all possibly racy photos (though they will be off-topic in most forums), only specifically pornographic ones.

10. No sexualization of minors: No sexualization of minors in any medium, or linking thereto.

The following rules affect modders only:

11a. No copying someone else's content or code into your mod without permission: You're not allowed to copy and paste code or content from any other mod, or from an expansion, into your mod without permission from the original author.

11b. No linking code for users who don't own the product it belongs to: For technical reasons, all our code is packaged up and shipped together, but it's not allowed to make a mod that accesses expansion-specific code unless that mod requires the expansion.

• Q: What is expansion-specific code? A: Code belongs to the product that runs it. If a line of code never runs without the expansion (and without dev tools or mods), it's expansion code.
• Q: But I can see the expansion code. Does that mean I can use it? A: No, for technical reasons all the code is shipped together, as is common practice in many games. However, code belongs to the product that runs it.
• Q: There are expansion checks in the code. If a piece of code doesn't trigger one, does that mean I can use it? A: Not necessarily. These checks are just reminders - they aren't applied before every single line of expansion code because that would be impractical. The rule is as described above.
• Q: Can I use expansion content in my non-expansion mod, if it's disabled for non-expansion users? A: Yes, this is a good solution. You can disable expansion-specific content with conditional patches or code checks. For example, code can check ModLister.RoyaltyInstalled before calling any expansion-specific Ludeon code.
• Q: There's some code where I'm not sure it's part of the expansion or not. A: We're happy to resolve any ambiguities. Please just contact us with the class and method name you're interested in and we'll see whether it runs without the expansion or not.
• Q: Are there any exceptions? A: Code for gendered apparel and the class Sketch are arbitrarily excepted from this rule.

11c. No close copying of expansion content: Don't make mods with close design/artistic/text similarities to an expansion but which don't require the expansion. This rule applies even if you didn't copy/paste anything directly and didn't link our code. Discussion: If you wrote a book about a wizard boy who goes to Bogwarts named Barry Lotter you'd get sued, even if you wrote all the words yourself. You can still write about a wizard boy, but it's well-established in law that there is a line when you're copying even if you didn't actually use copy/paste on your computer. I intend to be as flexible as I reasonably can, but I think everyone understands that having no rule at all about this is an invitation to problems. Just talk to us if there's any question. This rule has never been enforced and is really just a guard against bad faith copying. Unless you're acting in conscious bad faith you're almost certainly fine.

12. No hostile incompatibility: Your mod can't treat any other mod or product in a hostile way. For example, it can't deliberately break another mod's functionality, or deliberately stop the game from working if another mod is loaded.

[Tynan]

Rules specific to these forums, but not necessarily other parts of the RimWorld community:

13. Stay on topic: Please try to stay on topic. Ask yourself: Am I answering the author of the topic? Does this relate to the title of the topic? If you want to discuss something else, make a thread! Limitation: Some topics can wander as the discussion develops. This rule is fairly topic-specific; some topics really need to stay on topic to be useful, while others are much more fluid.

14. Right forum: Post things in the right forum. Suggestion go in Suggestions, stories go in Stories, and so on.

15. No unnecessary self-replying: Do not spam repeated posts in reply to yourself. Use the modify button unless it has been more than 24/48 hours since your last post.

16. No content-free bumping: No posting of content-free posts in topics just to bump them to the top of the page.

17. Find existing discussions: Before creating a new topic, please invest some time into looking if it hasn't been discussed already. Use the search function.

18. English language: You have to write in English, except in specific topic about foreign languages (e.g. translation-related discussions).

[Tynan]

Other notes:

Unless otherwise noted, all rules apply both in public discussions and private discussions on RimWorld-related discussion platforms (e.g. Forum PMs on this forum).

An older discussion on the rules can be found on the old rules thread.

[Ramsis]

On behalf of the volunteer staff I'd like to say the rules themselves aren't too hard to follow nor are they so oblivious or outfield that they can be misconstrued. At the end of the day the rules I personally punish for the most are rules 1, 2, and 3. My idea on the matter is if you type a message and you think it might be taken in a hostile manner, just don't post it please. We're all friends here whether its from a love of the game, an enjoyment of Tynan's and Ludeon's efforts, or some random mod with 10k users and all the horrific ideas they come up with. If you see an opinion you don't like why not try either ignoring it and continuing on with the conversation without including it? Can't begin to tell you how often we get hailed to come stop slapfights, and most times if I have to get involved both parties are wrong.

This forum is our home, we all cherish it differently but at the end of the day this is one of the few forums that hasn't devolved into a massive cesspit. Staff can't take credit for that only as our userbase is flourishing and the folks around us tend to police themselves, still the odd bad apple but with the reports being made we're usually quick to rush in and take care of business.

Lot of you folks know me, I don't post much to the forums these days unless there is a ruckus I need to settle but many of you work alongside me either in the big ol' Discord or when you need someone to settle your disputes on Steam (dear lord there are so many of those these days..), it doesn't take much to be a nice person even if sometimes I am not the finest example when settling things. Respect yourselves, respect each other, goodness at least try to respect the staff!



Quick sidenote: REPORT WHAT YOU NEED TO REPORT. I can't begin to tell y'all how many times I've found out about an argument after it has gotten to slurs and abusive blows. We won't get mad at anyone for making silly reports, if you think it might be a problem hit that report button and let us take care of it for you. If your report doesn't make sense we might reach out to you or settle it in our own way/talk to Tynan for his guidance but please do not be afraid to report posts. I would rather get 30 reports a day and only need to work on two or three of them then only get two or three a day and have multiple fights break out.

Thanks folks, and thank you Tynan for giving us the opportunity to grow into a strong and supportive community over the years. 1.0 is on the horizon and we're all scared for Rimworld 2: Electric Boogaloo now with HD 3D Graphics, VR support, and realistic blood physics.

[Perq]

My idea on the matter is if you type a message and you think it might be taken in a hostile manner, just don't post it please. We're all friends here whether its from a love of the game, an enjoyment of Tynan's and Ludeon's efforts, or some random mod with 10k users and all the horrific ideas they come up with. If you see an opinion you don't like why not try either ignoring it and continuing on with the conversation without including it? Can't begin to tell you how often we get hailed to come stop slapfights, and most times if I have to get involved both parties are wrong.

This forum is our home, we all cherish it differently but at the end of the day this is one of the few forums that hasn't devolved into a massive cesspit. Staff can't take credit for that only as our userbase is flourishing and the folks around us tend to police themselves, still the odd bad apple but with the reports being made we're usually quick to rush in and take care of business.

I'd like to respectfully disagree on those. For few reasons.
First of all, if you think that way, there is very little you can say, because nowadays close to everything can be taken personally and/or as a personal attack. That way a lot of critique/responses/thoughts are lost in the process, just because someone might feel like the response is hostile (even if the message isn't directed at them, but their ideas).  I think that intents and attitude are important.
And this brings up (maybe a nitpick, excuse me if it sounds like that) the other point - we're not all friends here. And we don't have to be. But at the same time, there is no reason for us to be antagonizing each other. We're still a community of people who like RimWorld.
My point is - you can dislike somebody (and/or their views), but still value that they have other points of view. Points of view that may help you, if you're attitude is right.
Once you start thinking that everyone are your friends, you start viewing any sign of disagreement (snarky responses or heated discussions) as a personal attack or betrayal. We were friends, how could they do that to me?

Next - you cannot discuss ideas/opinions without addressing someone's ideas/opinions that you disagree with. Discussion is literally a slapfight. Each person is trying to prove that they are right. The point is, what intent and attitude they have - do they want to present their ideas and/or have a discussion or antagonize the other person, because they had some disagreement in the past. I think the latter should be punished - not the former.

Lastly, if you want to have good resource of various opinions and feedback, you more or less have to allow the place to become cesspit. Let people argue, let them get passionate about discussions. Not to a point they start throwing ad hominems, tho. The point you step in is where there is nothing to be gained from such discussions (for example, two people arguing without using real arguments, and instead simply throwing ad hominems at each other).

I gotta admit I have mad respect for Tynan for the attitude he shows towards opinions on forums and I think this is a way of doing things.
For the record, I'm a veteran shitposter of Path of Exile forums. I've seen a lot, I've taken part in quiet a few heated discussions. I love these forums just because staff only steps in when people get really personal (for no good reason). I think this is what Tynan is aiming for, and given the amount of activity these forums have, I think that it is good decision.

Ps. I disagree with you here, but I still respect that you're doing work as a staff member.

[Tynan]

I updated rule 2. No real meaning changes, but I clarified it and added resentment to the list of negative emotional additions as well as anger and hostility.

I very much don't want this rule to prevent people from expressing a message's content, even if it's negative (e.g. "I don't like the game"). But, it's not worth permitting a long consistent pattern of messages that are persistently infused with hostility, resentment, or anger in tone. The toll on the enjoyability of the forum, the likelihood of creating unnecessary conflicts, the drain on moderation resources, and the drain on my own psyche just aren't worth it.

[Bozobub]

Not in any civilized discussion, whether here or anywhere else.  Yes, racist terms WILL violate the above rules, obviously enough.

[Tynan]

Update: Rule 13 has been clarified.

[Tynan]

Update: Inserted Rule 14, no hostile mod incompatibilities.

[kfsone]

17. No content-free bumping: No posting of content-free posts in topics just to bump them to the top of the page.

What's the accepted way to give your support to a suggestion? It can be hella hard to tell what's a really cool idea nobody could give a rats ass about vs what's a tedious and dull sounding idea when you have to make the changes but every player on the planet would give an arm for you to do it

Because, the really good ideas often don't get any commentary unless people post "+1" and "yeah!". The hot-topic threads of hotly-contended ideas are usually the changes you're better off avoiding or quietly implementing sensibly and pretending you never saw the thread

[chomwitt]

Hi. I am new to the forum. I cant create a new post althougth I did create a new post some days before.

[GLONASS]

1. No personal attacks or criticism of individuals: Even oblique or implied personal attacks or criticism are disallowed. Limitation: Feel free to criticize a game, mod, idea, philosophy, viewpoint, religion, plan, social practice, company, or non-human entity. You can also criticize public figures. Discussion: We all have flaws; pointing them out may very occasionally be useful, but is so often destructive and so outside the purpose of this community that it's better to simply disallow criticism of individuals in any form.

2. Sustained hostile, resentful, derisive, or angry tone: This rule isn't so much about the content of what you say, but how you say it - you must express yourself in a way that doesn't feel persistently hostile, resentful, derisive, or angry. For example, there is a difference between criticizing a game mod constructively, and criticizing it derisively; doing so derisively is against the rules. Discussion: This doesn't mean everyone has to be happy or have good opinions of everything and everyone all the time - it means that phrasing complaints in constructive ways and without a negative emotional tone leads to much better results all around. We don't want a community where anger, resentment, derision, and hostility are behavioral norms.

But if another countries's translation team do these thing in other countries forums? How we can complaint them? Now this terrible things is happening!!!