Site Rules Overhaul and Consolidation

[SAPPHOLYTE]

Would anyone know the reason that CS doesn't allow for the discussion of using real currency on the site? Like was it allowed at some point in the past and no good came of it?
Just interested in the history or thought process behind it.
Thanks!

[Guest]

Would anyone know the reason that CS doesn't allow for the discussion of using real currency on the site? Like was it allowed at some point in the past and no good came of it?
Just interested in the history or thought process behind it.
Thanks!

Discussion of real currency payment requires an exchange of personal information which would just break another rule, as far as I know it was never allowed, but if I’m wrong a boomer could correct me

x

[forest.]

Would anyone know the reason that CS doesn't allow for the discussion of using real currency on the site? Like was it allowed at some point in the past and no good came of it?
Just interested in the history or thought process behind it.
Thanks!

Discussion of real currency payment requires an exchange of personal information which would just break another rule, as far as I know it was never allowed, but if I’m wrong a boomer could correct me

x

wait does this count for art trades as well? i had no idea this was a thing. i’ve seen people asking for USD for their art in the past and now i’m wondering if i should have reported it.

[Burrito Bunny]

People can advertise their art for USD deals, but they must take the actual discussion to another website which allows that.

In addition to the reason r & l ✩ mentioned, we also disallow this type of exchange on CS because we can do nothing to help if the trade goes wrong and someone is scammed. We cannot make anyone give someone else USD. That is why art competitions are required to have a CS alternative for any USD prize now - so that there is a payment we can enforce if someone tries to rip others off.

[Azarath]

I'm confused as to why political statements are no longer allowed. Or were they never? It feels like silencing marginalized voices, like I'm glad CS says Black Lives Matter but stopping people from putting it in their signatures seems...odd.

[Guest]

I'm confused as to why political statements are no longer allowed. Or were they never? It feels like silencing marginalized voices, like I'm glad CS says Black Lives Matter but stopping people from putting it in their signatures seems...odd.

Putting BLM in your signature isn't against the rules.

Your profile should not contain information about your political affiliation, support of political candidates, or stance on divisive political issues such as abortion or firearms that have no relevance to Chicken Smoothie. Your own gender identity, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation and broad statements supporting human rights (such as stating Black lives matter) are exempt from this. Please be aware that some statements (such as All Lives Matter) are inherently anti-human rights and will be moderated accordingly.

[nickjr]

I'm confused as to why political statements are no longer allowed. Or were they never? It feels like silencing marginalized voices, like I'm glad CS says Black Lives Matter but stopping people from putting it in their signatures seems...odd.

Soooo this wall of text that I ended up building isn't directly specifically at you; it's directed more at your message

I'm 99% sure that actually political statements (not stuff like BLM!) were disallowed even before this year and that, just like the rant thread rule, it's a reactionary rule--one that was made in response to multiple heated inflammatory arguments that our veteran and retired mods probably still have nightmares about cleaning up.

I'm linking threads for evidence purposes only; please do NOT go after the users in these threads or any other threads you find for whatever they said years ago!! 4+ years is a long time. A lot can happen in that time.

For people who think CS never allowed political talk: There's literally a thread for the 2012 US presidential election. There are other entire topics political in nature (e.g. pro-life vs pro-choice--maybe not the best choice for an example of "political" talk, but I think you get the idea? that's also what I could find an entire thread dedicated to) that can be found if you search "politic*" (* is a wildcard, so this will pick up both "political" and "politics") or "president*" (will pick up "president", "presidential", etc) in various forums (particularly 18+) and sort the results in ascending date order so that the oldest posts come up first.

For people who think the rule was later put into place to stifle speech: I'm pretty sure that the 2016 US presidential election thread (yes, there was one; I remember that I personally visited it) got yeeted into moderator-land specifically because it got really bad (CS is still a big website with a lot of users! so the kind of crap that happens in YouTube comments and Facebook comments also happens on CS without these rules as a deterrent, unfortunately). Here is one remnant of whatever happened to it.

These are not preemptive rules designed to stifle speech or whatever (not saying you think that but I've seen some takes like that elsewhere)--there's evidence that we apparently need these rules and that unfortunately, enough users failed to be considerate without these rules in place.

Disclaimer: I've never been a staff member. But I say this based on my own personal observations from the last 12 years without even needing to take a peek "behind the scenes". My conclusion is that if strong feelings didn't lead more than a handful of people to name-calling, insults, curses, rumor-spreading, good ol' fashioned cyberbullying, etc. (I'm not even exaggerating) then we would be free to discuss a lot more on CS. (i.e. the rant thread and political statement rules are basically results of "bad apples"--both in the sense of "bad apples ruined it for the rest of us" and "bad apples rot the rest of the barrel").

For people who are skeptical that it can get that bad: People on CS can get mean just with trading, and some of you may have even needed to report some particularly nasty traders, right? Yeah, so no wonder that it also happens when it's not about trading but rather about real world issues with real world impacts.

[Azarath]

I'm confused as to why political statements are no longer allowed. Or were they never? It feels like silencing marginalized voices, like I'm glad CS says Black Lives Matter but stopping people from putting it in their signatures seems...odd.

Putting BLM in your signature isn't against the rules.

Your profile should not contain information about your political affiliation, support of political candidates, or stance on divisive political issues such as abortion or firearms that have no relevance to Chicken Smoothie. Your own gender identity, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation and broad statements supporting human rights (such as stating Black lives matter) are exempt from this. Please be aware that some statements (such as All Lives Matter) are inherently anti-human rights and will be moderated accordingly.

Didn't see this part, thank you!!!

[banned user]

Are political poems and song lyrics allowed on cs in the appropriate forms?

[Guest]

Are political poems and song lyrics allowed on cs in the appropriate forms?

I would assume that if the poems or lyrics allude to your political stance, then they wouldn't be allowed, but you might want to get a second opinion for clarification

Due to the nature of such conversations, we do not allow debates about real world topics (especially of a political nature). However, discussion threads for support and education are allowed in a limited capacity about such topics. These should be created in the Adults Discussion forum. Such topics will be moderated closely and if the discussion is deemed too inflammatory or trends toward debate the topic may be closed.

Your profile should not contain information about your political affiliation, support of political candidates, or stance on divisive political issues such as abortion or firearms that have no relevance to Chicken Smoothie. Your own gender identity, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation and broad statements supporting human rights (such as stating Black lives matter) are exempt from this. Please be aware that some statements (such as All Lives Matter) are inherently anti-human rights and will be moderated accordingly.

Oekaki drawings may contain political or religious themes in non-editable boards only with no discussion of those themes on the Oekaki thread.

Depictions of the Confederate flag are not allowed.