In this thread on Forum Rules, we revised and revamped the rules for Cafe Society. While there are some general rules that apply to all of the Straight Dope Message Boards, there are different refinements and different guidelines that apply in different forums.
Please, read the new Rules.
I particularly want to call your attention to the section on resurrecting old threads, which is now more permissive in Cafe Society:
No, I didn’t forget to lock it, I figured to leave it open for a while… the more chance people have to express themselves on policy changes, the better.
I haven’t been around here very long, but I think this is an excellent policy change! I hope it works out – I know that things can get tricky when they’re allowed “sometimes,” but hopefully we’ll live up to the trust we’ve been given.
When I consolidated the Forum Rules, I forgot the one about thread titles… it had been in a separate sticky thread.
This has now been fixed, so a reminder that thread titles should provide descriptions of the topic, and not just be “Isn’t this great?” or “What do you think?”
It would be nice if nobody complained about “resurection” on any thread on any forum. So what if someone left? Life is for the living. Do we have to stop talking about SDI because Reagan is dead?
Well… it’s basically up to the moderators of each forum. There’s pretty sound reason why, for instance, the moderators of the Pit don’t want people re-opening old scabs. “Oh, look, I see that two years ago there was a great huge bit of excitement about a banned member, what was all that about?”
