Community Constitution

[Steve]

I have mentioned before about the need to make things clear where things like forum behaviour are concerned. As you will be aware, we already have the formal stuff covered by the site and forum terms and conditions, those are the ones that have to be there but nobody reads.

We need something else, something that lays down in clear language what we are about and the behaviour we should all expect from each other.

Looking at what other sites do (trading and non-trading) it seems that many of them go down the route of documenting everything that might happen and saying what will be done as a result. Personally I don't like this for two main reasons, firstly you can't cover everything and secondly if you need this many rules to police your community then you have the wrong people in it.

The other option is to keep things simple and clear, this is my preference and I'm now making everyone aware of the code of conduct that I want to see us all working to.

I have tried to cover all the main situations where it is important to have some sense of policy but there will be some areas that I will have missed. This will either be because I did not think of it or I had it in place then got rid of it, probably to keep the list as short as possible.

There are 12 of them and I think that's enough, i'll post them within the hour so you can take a look.

Most importantly this is your community and we need to make sure that we all work to consistent and workable rules together. So let me know what you think, do you want to include other things? Have I missed anything significant?

One final thing, I am working on a separate set of rules (rather than guidelines) for Vendors and i'll post these once they are ready.

 

[Steve]

T2W Community Constitution

The T2W forums are a place to share information, seek help and contribute to everyone's development as a trader. We are a community and should behave like one.

We want T2W to be a place where you can discuss trading free from nasty comments and people trying to sell you things.

Following these simple and obvious guidelines will make sure we achieve this aim together.

1. People have a right to be treated properly. Online forums are notorious for people behaving badly toward each other, hiding behind internet anonimity. We don't want this at T2W. If you don't agree with someone, don't like them, think their question is stupid or are just having a bad day then deal with your emotions in some other way and don't go on the attack. If you do then you can expect it to be dealt with.

2. Don't feed the trolls. Every community has a small but very vocal number of people who add nothing of value. They deliberately cause trouble and offence and clearly have little else to do with their time. Your job is not to rise to the bait. Ignore them and report them. They will soon get fed up and go somewhere else.

3. Don't post rubbish. This isn't You Tube, it is a site dedicated to Trading and should be treated as such. There are plenty of places where you can post whatever you like. We don't want it here unless it is about Trading.

4. No selling allowed. The community has to be a safe place, it can't be this if you are trying to sell your product or services, directly or indirectly. In any form of selling is discovered then the post should be reported immediately and it will be dealt with.

5. Vendors can join but they can't sell. Any vendor or vendor representative who is prepared to share valuable information, join in discussions or deal with questions about their services will be permitted to join. They must agree to the Vendor Rules and if any of their content crosses the line it will be dealt with according to those rules.

6. Don't be harsh with newcomers. Any community depends on newcomers for growth and development so please don't scare them off. Yes they will ask what appear to be stupid questions and will seem too lazy to conduct some basic research of their own, that does not entitle you to abuse them. Treating them harshly is against what we stand for so please don't do it.

7. This is not a freedom of speech site. We can be liable for what you post and this could cost us a great deal of money. We may have to delete things to protect us from this. So, if you want to campaign freely and be allowed to say whatever you like then you will have to find somewhere else to do it. This does not mean you can't express an opinion or expose what you believe to be important information for traders, just do it sensibly and within the rules.

8. Posting on T2W is a privilege not a right. This is a privately owned site and nobody has to pay to be here. Any inappropriate posts or any issues that take up a disproportionate amount of site resources, or make it a worse place to be, will be stopped at our discretion. We have to prioritise our spend and will not waste time and money dealing with things that do not warrant it.

9. It is about how you behave. We don't have the time to investigate why you might feel a certain way or who might be right or wrong in a given situation. So we will look at what you actually do, how you conduct yourself and we will react accordingly. No solution is ideal but if we have to step in and police things we will.

10. Don't abuse our team. We have a duty of care to all the people on the T2W team and will not tolerate any form of abuse directed at them. This is a zero tolerance policy. Also, we don't respond to aggression or threats. Stay sensible and you will be fine.

11. If you break the 'rules'. Depending on what you have done you may be warned, suspended for a short time or banned completely. This is regardless of how long you have been a member or what you have contributed. Don't forget we depend on you to report things that are wrong, we can't spot everything.

 

[new_trader]

3. Don't post rubbish. This isn't You Tube, it is a site dedicated to Trading and should be treated as such. There are plenty of places where you can post whatever you like. We don't want it here unless it is about Trading.

I was a member of another forum which was dedicated to UK house prices. The management pretty much banned any discussions related to Gold as they considered it 'off topic'. No matter how much the gold bugs attempted to reason with management and explain the 'bigger picture' relationship between house prices and gold, they were still forbidden. I no longer post there or even visit.

I hope T2W management isn't as narrow minded in their definition of "rubbish".

 

[wackypete2]

Hi Steve,
Welcome back. I hope vacation was restful!

How does #4 apply to the "For Sale & Wanted" forum? I'm guessing members can sell their collection of trading books but not a subscription to their website. One issue related to this is when people post in that forum it shows up on the "New Posts" and initially looks like someone just spamming

How will you relate #1 to #5. There will always be vendors joining up to sell or spam something. Sometimes it may not be clear right away and the members here call them out, sometimes rather colorfully. I don't think you want to negate that altogether but many times being forceful gets the message across.

Thanks,

Peter

 

[pboyles]

There's a lot of ridiculing in this thread

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/foyer/155528-good-true-2-per-day.html

But can you really say it's unjustified or indeed unfair? It was probably slightly upsetting for the OP but it probably caused him to look again and what he was doing and start questioning it. Perhaps he was even saved from more losses by this somewhat cruel treatment.

I can see how some people would say this was contrary to Article 1 of the Constitution.

 

[NVP]

Most stuff sounds good .......can we truly then get rid of all the non trading cr*p ?

I dont give a monkeys what someones favourite film is .....and every other piece of tedious minutae that gets posted here at T2W that is not focussed 100% on trading

The vendor statement is also still pretty vague but Iets role with it ........still think Vendors s/be allowed to sell directly ....just give them an area to peddle their wares

and I also think we need a Newbie thread probation area so they prove themselves before appearing on the main areas ....we then can perhaps chose to filter these if we want ?

thanks
N

 

[Lightning McQueen]

4. No selling allowed. The community has to be a safe place, it can't be this if you are trying to sell your product or services, directly or indirectly. In any form of selling is discovered then the post should be reported immediately and it will be dealt with

5. Vendors can join but they can't sell. Any vendor or vendor representative who is prepared to share valuable information, join in discussions or deal with questions about their services will be permitted to join. They must agree to the Vendor Rules and if any of their content crosses the line it will be dealt with according to those rules.

does this mean finally the end of the vendor used homepage linking? or at least the vendor badge/homepage link through will be decoupled? else rule 5 is a meaningless sham.

 

[the hare]

There are 12 of them and I think that's enough...

I'll wait until Steve publishes number 12 before commenting further, but I think Im quite safe adding to my t2w short.

A lot of ths stuff is ridiculously subjective. Steve really needs to ask himself some very simple questions, for example, why would a vendor write and submit an article for publication at t2w ? I think most would agree the answer is glaringly obvious.

We still have vendor badges linking to sites, vendors can solicit for email addresses, and they can still use the PM facility unpoliced (allegedly), how in gods name is that NOT selling ?

What exactly is rubbish ? Who gets to decide what's rubbish, and how are they qualified to make that decision ?

The site already has enough problems policing reasonably well thought through guidelines and rules. Policing this type of washy washy completely subjective policy which quite frankly looks like it was written in the car this morning is going to cause problems, and probably result in a lulz epidemic.

I am intrigued as to what rule 12 might be ! Perhaps he's saving the best till last

 

[Steve]

I was a member of another forum which was dedicated to UK house prices. The management pretty much banned any discussions related to Gold as they considered it 'off topic'. No matter how much the gold bugs attempted to reason with management and explain the 'bigger picture' relationship between house prices and gold, they were still forbidden. I no longer post there or even visit.

I hope T2W management isn't as narrow minded in their definition of "rubbish".

Absolutely not, I intend to keep this as wide as I can. I just want to avoid some of the senseless rubbish that bears no resemblance to anything trading related. I guess experience and time will tell on this one as I don't want to be too prescriptive, that's when you end up with the ridiculously long rule book that I want to avoid.

 

[Steve]

I'll wait until Steve publishes number 12 before commenting further, but I think Im quite safe adding to my t2w short.

A lot of ths stuff is ridiculously subjective. Steve really needs to ask himself some very simple questions, for example, why would a vendor write and submit an article for publication at t2w ? I think most would agree the answer is glaringly obvious.

We still have vendor badges linking to sites, vendors can solicit for email addresses, and they can still use the PM facility unpoliced (allegedly), how in gods name is that NOT selling ?

What exactly is rubbish ? Who gets to decide what's rubbish, and how are they qualified to make that decision ?

The site already has enough problems policing reasonably well thought through guidelines and rules. Policing this type of washy washy completely subjective policy which quite frankly looks like it was written in the car this morning is going to cause problems, and probably result in a lulz epidemic.

I am intrigued as to what rule 12 might be ! Perhaps he's saving the best till last

Oops, there is no number 12, I did not like it so scrapped it. And you are wrong, it was not written in the car this morning, I was on the train.

 

[Steve]

I'll be off for a while now as I have some more wishy washy policies to come up with. Please keep the comments coming in and i'll get them all answered tomorrow.

Thanks for the good wishes Pete.

More tomorrow.

Steve

 

[Lightning McQueen]

3. Don't post rubbish. This isn't You Tube, it is a site dedicated to Trading and should be treated as such. There are plenty of places where you can post whatever you like. We don't want it here unless it is about Trading.

"We don't want it here unless it is about Trading."

many forum communities have an off topic area for banter on any topic outside the core subject. so you intend to do away with the t2w foyer?? :-0

 

[the hare]

Not surprisingly, its all a bit of a mess. I've said it before, but threads like those are a waste of time really. How can anyone provide a meaningful response to Steve's post when we don't understand his true objectives ?

Unless the objective is to destroy the business, The problem at the moment isn't a lack of policies, or the lack of a constitution, its a lack of active participants, a lack of trading related content, an increase in low level vendors exploiting the site to market products and services that provide no income to t2w, and which results in a backlash from longer standing members who see t2w fiddling whilst Rome burns.

T2W's problems stem from the divergence that exists between the written policies, and what it's members experience in practice. This stuff has been discussed for years, its nothing new, but the divergence is getting clearer, and wider.

People have pointed out that some of the items on Steve's list are potentially quite contradictory. If someone is here to exploit the site, and defraud members, do they really have a right to be treated with respect ? Should they really be treated less harshly if they are new ?

The reality is this. If moderators are failing to spot these problems, the community will police itself, and vendors attempting to exploit membership will on occasions receive a robust response. Any attempt to penalize the membership for looking after their own (and t2w's) interests will probably backfire.

The acid test is going to come down to how the vendor issue will be handled. Steve's backed himself into a corner and limited his choices in publicly discounting the vendor cess pit option, and he's unlikely to make a U turn in the circumstances. A great deal of the traffic is currently created by vendor promoting products and services, and the backlash that creates. If Steve was honest enough to concede that vendors predominantly post to market products and services, practically all of those posts should never see the light of day, but that leaves them with a problem.... No posts !

Sadly they have no choice other than to turn a blind eye, and allow vendors to post (or more accurately sell) however by doing that, the divergence between what they say, and what they do become even greater, and it becomes more obvious, creates more ill will, more criticism etc and the situation gets worse than ever.

The only way out is strong leadership and breaking a few eggs, and getting rid of those on the team who don't actually share the vision. I doubt it will happen for reasons that should be quite obvious to many.

 

[Shakone]

These seem to start from the point of view of what you think needs to be done, to make a nice atmosphere, and not from what the community wants or thinks needs to be done, nor what is helpful in educating traders. Did the community ask for a vendor cesspit or not? If they did, is this going to happen? If not, then I'm confident something was requested to be done about vendors, and so a list of 11 guidelines for vendors might have been wiser to start with, since that's where at least one of the main problems resides.

"Vendors can join but they can't sell." What does this mean? To me it means nothing. Absolutely nothing. They are either members, or they are vendors, which by definition means they are selling. Everything they do - as a vendor - is selling.

You say posting at T2Win is a privilege. Why? There are dozens of trading forums which require just an email to sign up, what kind of special privilege is this? We're providing you with clicks, content, a community, making you money, helping newer members for free. Perhaps it is a privilege to have good members.

"Also, we don't respond to aggression or threats." But you do. You respond to all kinds of threats and delete threads and posts.

 

[timsk]

Oops, there is no number 12, I did not like it so scrapped it. And you are wrong, it was not written in the car this morning, I was on the train.

Hi Steve,
I have a suggestion for No. 12. How about . . .

12. You're either for or against us. We welcome constructive criticism to help make things right when we slip up. However, this is very different from having a completely anti-T2W agenda and needlessly and pointlessly finding fault (often where none exists) at every twist and turn. Anyone who clearly does not have the site's best interests at heart, along with that of it's members, can be expected to be shown the door.

I think that would solve quite a few of the site's problems quite quickly!

Tim.

 

[BeginnerJoe]

I can see where this is going. Eventually the paid advertisers' views are correct, all other views are rubbish.

I don't know where this CEO comes from. I certainly didn't detect his presence when I joined over a year ago. At the time I thought this forum was one of the best out there (of forums of any subject) because the mods were adult like and able to reason.

If you want to run the place like a 14 year old (I know you are not 14 but someone too old to have the mental agility to understand how a forum can flourish), it will be run into the ground. I have seen it happen elsewhere.

The main problem will be you don't understand what is the 'pay off' for posters. If you expect them to be donkeys toiling only for your benefit alone, you will find you won't have many donkeys.

 

[pboyles]

Hi Steve,
I have a suggestion for No. 12. How about . . .

12. You're either for or against us. We welcome constructive criticism to help make things right when we slip up. However, this is very different from having a completely anti-T2W agenda and needlessly and pointlessly finding fault (often where none exists) at every twist and turn. Anyone who clearly does not have the site's best interests at heart, along with that of it's members, can be expected to be shown the door.

I think that would solve quite a few of the site's problems quite quickly!

Tim.

You're either with us or against us?

Interesting you should quote George W Bush in the run up to the Iraq Invasion. What next, some Gadaffi logic?

I'm only teasing you by the way, don't want to be accused of abusing you.

 

[the hare]

Did the community ask for a vendor cesspit or not? If they did, is this going to happen? If not, then I'm confident something was requested to be done about vendors, and so a list of 11 guidelines for vendors might have been wiser to start with, since that's where at least one of the main problems resides

This is a difficult issue. In public at least, there seamed to be a consensus amongst members who expressed an opinion that a vendor cess pit was wanted. It's possible Steve was lobbied privately by a great many more who where against the idea.

One thing is for certain, Steve publicly announced that vendors would be allowed to post on the forums, he wanted inclusion rather than exclusion.

I'm in full agreement with you, by definition, a vendor participates to exploit sales and marketing opportunities.

I don't have a problem with Steve setting an agenda for what he personally wants to achieve, it's his business, and if he wants to dumb the place down and decorate it for floor to ceiling with ads for dodgy forex brokers its his call, he'll reap the rewards or his P45

At the moment theres far too many mixed messages and contradictions, and every time he posts these are immediately seized on. His problem is that the remaining membership really does not want what he's offering (if they did, they'd be reading baby pips) the potential target market that he's aiming for arnt here because a) content isn't right, b) existing membership don't want them here. I could write a great deal more about that problem but I have no intention giving them any clue

I think there's a real opportunity to cause some lasting damage if the vendor policy is mishandled, and until they actually sit down and work out what they are trying to achieve, there's not a chance of getting this right just by luck.

Mr Socco was rarely wrong but his comment "this is a place for grown ups, not a nanny state" was definitely wide of the mark

 

[Hakuna Matata]

It's my forum and everyone will enjoy it whether they like it or not. Those are the rules.

 

[BeginnerJoe]

It's my forum and everyone will enjoy it whether they like it or not. Those are the rules.

A bit dry. As much funnies as an insurance salesman.