- Joined
- Dec 6, 2014
- Messages
- 528
d) Chat spamming
Flooding the chat with the same message or with useless, unintelligible content that disrupt communication or are deemed otherwise irritating is forbidden. Additionally, refrain from typing in caps.
the bold part of that clause is probably the most enforced rule of #25, and I can imagine that it is on other servers aswell. I believe that this rule is enforced in an "anti-caps purity" kind of way that it was never intended for in the first place and that makes more harm than good. I'll explain:
What I have seen happening on #25 is when someone types in caps they get an immediete - almost bot like - response from staff to "Lay of the caps!". That's a pretty stern warning for something that's probably the most mild offense of the rules aswell as something many players intuitively think is okay. If I was a new player and I got warned like that for caps, I'd be annoyed, it definitely radiates an unfreindly - almost orwellian - atmosphere and it makes it look like admins are micromanaging every little miss-step.
The rule also is very vague, it really looks like a sentence added in passing and is very hard to interpet. I have always understood it as discouraging excessive use of caps while other people evidently see abolute zero tolerance for caps.
So what I suggest:
- For the sake of a friendly atmopshere on the servers; a more relaxed enforcing of the caps rule, instead of stern warnings, perhaps just give a friendly reminder of the rule? If it gets excessive ofc, then a warning is in place as usual.
- Change the caps rule to more clearly include what is and what is not allowed, I personally prefer a more relaxed attitude to caps but if the majority want to enforce the no-caps-policy atleast state it clearer.
/red