Board Thread:Voting for New Rules/@comment-24808864-20151218183248/@comment-24808864-20151222045129

OK, here we go (again).

In chat, I like to leave a little flexibility for “lying” in the form of role-playing, just making an accidental error, or other “fun” forms. For example, someone coming in and saying “I am batman!” is obviously lying, but someone coming in to say “I am going to beat you up” is also lying, but in a different way (although this should be covered by the abuse clause).

You may consider the above example to be extreme, but there have been instances of people on this wiki that took the letter of the law so literally that they would actually try to get someone banned for saying something like “I am batman” and then, if I did not block the person that said “I am batman” they would claim that the rule was therefore invalid and would push it to crazy extremes.

I could share examples, but I do not want to so publicly, because most of those petty and small individuals are generally gone from our community. I am so thankful for this fact, that I do not wish to open up any other opportunities for people who wish to injure an educational forum such as this.

However, on the other hand, if someone is doctoring photos and trying to get someone in trouble, this is obviously dishonest and malicious. This is specifically the reason why I will NEVER trust an image that I have not witnessed personally.

Back to the “truth clause” proposal, in fact, a truth clause would be especially appropriate in the General Policies where we say “Thou shalt not impersonate another user.” I think this could be easily extended to include not allowing users to change information to get others in trouble in some kind of honesty clause.

I am posting this now just in case I lose it all again (otherwise I might get myself banned for inappropriate language).