Fora Rules

[Hibush]

I'm not sure about the suggestion of adding "no links" to #6.  Does that mean no links to anything, like an article relevant to the discussion, from some other web site?  I don't recall any particular problems with links to other CHE articles or IHE ones in the past.

I agree that #6 should not be overly restrictive.

Advertising should be fairly narrowly defined. Links to all kinds of things encouraged to that we can engage with the rest of the world. We don't live in a pure ivory tower, isolated from the transactional.

"No advertising" should mean that we don't want

Our new version of Burlap is the best CMS ever. You can read about the new features at our website burlap.com

However, a user who is engaged in a CMS discussion should be able to post

We published a really good research paper comparing Burlap and Whiteboard's effect on how much time our adjuncts spent outside class.

While that link encourages people to read Friend's paper, and is self-promotion, it is not advertising.

[Juvenal]

And what should be the policy on salty language?  You know, the words that got, for example, a ! or a # or a @ embedded in place of a letter and everyone knew what the word was, of course.  Are we to be as tippy-toe here?  Yes?  WT*!

[Conjugate]

CONTENT WARNING: obscenity used below to test censorship software. Please skip this post if you don't like it.

I remember when the other fora were new; being a sneaky SOB, I figured a way to drop the occasional f-bomb without being caught by the software.

I'll try it out with a little obscenity:  Fuck fuck

Okay, it seems we don't censor the F-bomb.

(I remember when someone took offense at someone else's use of "assclown," resulting in that term being added to the naughty list. Then somebody tried to refer to a student being the "class clown," and a missing space caused much of the word to be *****ed out. Good times.  Here's to absent friends.)

[fast_and_bulbous]

I am OK with no censoring, we're supposed to be (highly educated) adults here. So long as it's not abused, and I think moderators could take care of that.

[Conjugate]

In addition, we do not have to consider the dignity and reputation of, say, the CHE; we will embarrass nobody but ourselves. So, yeah, perhaps we can leave profanity and obscenity to the judgment of the forumites.

[mahagonny]

Is there interest in having a rule against promoting illegal activity?

[fast_and_bulbous]

Is there interest in having a rule against promoting illegal activity?

Illegal to whom? This is an international forum.

[mahagonny]

Is there interest in having a rule against promoting illegal activity?

Illegal to whom? This is an international forum.

Illegal in the jurisdiction of the person who is promoting the activity and knows it's illegal, I guess.

[eigen]

Is there interest in having a rule against promoting illegal activity?

Illegal to whom? This is an international forum.

Illegal in the jurisdiction of the person who is promoting the activity and knows it's illegal, I guess.

I think there are really obvious cases of this that we can think of, but it also seems like it could become very murky to figure out someone's locale.

Do you have any examples you're thinking of?

[tuxedo_cat]

CONTENT WARNING: obscenity used below to test censorship software. Please skip this post if you don't like it.

I remember when the other fora were new; being a sneaky SOB, I figured a way to drop the occasional f-bomb without being caught by the software.

I'll try it out with a little obscenity:  Fuck fuck

Okay, it seems we don't censor the F-bomb.

(I remember when someone took offense at someone else's use of "assclown," resulting in that term being added to the naughty list. Then somebody tried to refer to a student being the "class clown," and a missing space caused much of the word to be *****ed out. Good times.  Here's to absent friends.)

Thank you very much for this 😆

[mahagonny]

Is there interest in having a rule against promoting illegal activity?

Illegal to whom? This is an international forum.

Illegal in the jurisdiction of the person who is promoting the activity and knows it's illegal, I guess.

I think there are really obvious cases of this that we can think of, but it also seems like it could become very murky to figure out someone's locale.

Do you have any examples you're thinking of?

In some cases, sure it could be murky and not worth the bother. And I understand this is not the CHE or the New York Times online or anything big. It's just a group of academics who want to converse, so it won't have the same concerns about liability. So it's really about values and reputation more than anything.
Where it's not murky: my peer group, adjunct faculty, are forming collective bargaining units in growing numbers. Retaliating against adjunct faculty for union organizing is prohibited by law. Yet I have witnessed it on my campus. It's a pretty big concern. This forum has one administration member who is on record saying they would do just that, and is also pretty expansive in comments about their ability to understand which rules are not really rules and do not have much bearing on how things really work. So I just wondered how something that might be approached around here.

[fast_and_bulbous]

Retaliating against adjunct faculty for union organizing is prohibited by law. Yet I have witnessed it on my campus. It's a pretty big concern.  This forum has one administration member who is on record saying they would do just that, and is also pretty expansive in comments about their ability to understand which rules are not really rules and do not have much bearing on how things really work. So I just wondered how something that might be approached around here.

Definitely falls under free speech in my opinion. It's like saying I regularly jaywalk to avoid waiting at an intersection, or move parking tickets to another vehicle and think that it's OK to do those things because they harm nobody (I do not do either of those things).

And you can exercise your own free speech in an attempt to exorcise their own toxic baloney. I would rather see someone use their arguments of persuasion and shaming (the argument, not the individual) against that kind of thing.

I think we moderators agree to taking a pretty soft approach and mostly spending our time squashing spammers. If things get out of hand (acrimony / ad hominem) I think that's where we would tend to step in.

Unless, of course, by "retaliation" you mean something overtly violent. And I'm pretty sure the terms of service we all agreed to when we signed up would cover that, and that person would be put in time out (banned temporarily, or permanently).

[mahagonny]

Retaliating against adjunct faculty for union organizing is prohibited by law. Yet I have witnessed it on my campus. It's a pretty big concern.  This forum has one administration member who is on record saying they would do just that, and is also pretty expansive in comments about their ability to understand which rules are not really rules and do not have much bearing on how things really work. So I just wondered how something that might be approached around here.

Definitely falls under free speech in my opinion. It's like saying I regularly jaywalk to avoid waiting at an intersection, or move parking tickets to another vehicle and think that it's OK to do those things because they harm nobody (I do not do either of those things).

And you can exercise your own free speech in an attempt to exorcise their own toxic baloney. I would rather see someone use their arguments of persuasion and shaming (the argument, not the individual) against that kind of thing.

Sure, but where's Richard Burton when you need him?

What happened on the CHE forum when someone lets it slip out that they would in fact retaliate against union organizing, it's not presented as an argument that one should do this. It's more like 'sure, I could see myself doing this' as in your example of the admission about jaywalking. You can't persuade someone the argument was wrong when there wasn't any, Especially if they are denying it later. The lack of scruples of of the poster are the story. If they have an big audience of fans on that forum, that's another story.

Unless, of course, by "retaliation" you mean something overtly violent. And I'm pretty sure the terms of service we all agreed to when we signed up would cover that, and that person would be put in time out (banned temporarily, or permanently).

Wow. These people aren't hoodlums. The silent, cowardly, hard-to-prove retribution or discontinuing one's employment is more their style.

Thanks for your answer. I was curious about the thought processes.

[fast_and_bulbous]

Thanks for your answer. I was curious about the thought processes.

I want to reiterate that I am only speaking for myself... I deal better in actual events than hypotheticals. I'm also not familiar with the specific exchange you are describing.

[mahagonny]

Thanks for your answer. I was curious about the thought processes.

I want to reiterate that I am only speaking for myself... I deal better in actual events than hypotheticals. I'm also not familiar with the specific exchange you are describing.

I get that in the land of tenure, education and the vast world of ideas freedom of speech should be a strong consideration.
I thought I was being specific enough without giving names, but I left one thing out. The information that that poster would retaliate against union organizing appeared in the one-off's thread, so was not really an exchange in the sense of the series of posts in a thread. So on the one hand, it is potentially an offhand comment, not intended to weigh in on the discussion or influence it. On the other, it is a potentially an under-the-radar effort to normalize illegal behavior. Grey areas.
Later, when I felt prompted enough by a related discussion to bring up the previous comment, the poster denied the statement, but I found it and reposted it. We never heard the argument for the practice. If there is one, it might be interesting to hear.
Obviously for people who aren't concerned about this issue as I am, this is tedious, but I think it's important. Skip it if you prefer.