Added a Serious Offence forbidding 'discussing, mentioning, or referencing suicide.'

 

It's usually unnecessary 99% of the time and it often serves as a trigger to those who have dealt with it in some way in the past. For referencing things like certain creature actions, better terms can be chosen. If you're feeling depressed, MD is NOT the support forum that you'd need when it comes to getting help. While some of us might be trained to deal with such things, others, like myself, are not. There are helplines and forums, and although some of them might not be the best, they'd likely be better than MD.

 

Joking about it is not okay. It's far worse than swearing, which is also a serious offence. Note that 'referencing' also means talking about the same thing in different words.

 

If anyone has any issues with this rule, see here: http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/16047-latest-forum-rule-addition-debate

Edited December 31, 201411 yr by Burns
link added

The above rule has been removed due to it being deemed to be technically unnecessary along with it having potentially negative consequences. The rule was suggested and implemented in reaction to uncertainty around a certain post as to whether or not it was breaking the rules. Some of us were for making it certainly against the rules (this way users would know it was certainly against the rules too) and there were no objections to this.

 

Why the rule was technically unnecessary (as many have pointed out) was that anything that violated the rule could also be considered to violate a serious offence. Serious offences are removed when detected.

 

Having general rules like this is often good because things like context can be taken into account. The problem is, with such subjective rules, people are bound to disagree on what breaks them. The above rule didn't take context into account, which is why it had some negative consequences. However, then people would know that they're breaking the rule if their post involved discussions of said topic. With the removal of the rule, we're back to subjective interpretations on if such a topic is offensive/etc., or not. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are bound to be disagreements.

 

So, as a reminder, if your post is dealt with by a mod for some reason, a mod will contact you and you can ask why the action was taken, say that it shouldn't have been taken, and so on. (However, note that the rules apply in PMs as well--it is not a place where you can swear or post other things that break the rules).

 

Also, keep in mind that you can post here to suggest changes to the rules. Thanks.