@timemachine777 wrote:
I believe it is long past due about having a major community discussion about revamping the Community Guidelines as they are very Draconian, and many of the individual rules are ambiguous and vague at the least. We as a community are affected by these rules that have little interpretation. And any appeal process is pretty well none exist.
So too protect members there should be checks and balances, or some measure of a stop gap, to prevent over reach and an abuse of power. These rules have shed the boards of many good members in the past, and just sends them to post on private forums about eBay issues and out of the reach of any retaliation due too their unwelcome views by a few.
Posting accounts should not be able to be severed due to minor back and forth squabbling, baiting into and argument, joking around, etc. They should be only for severe offenses. Like blatant none stop stalking of members, disgusting and filthy posts that are blatantly vile and vulgar in a more extreme context. An not from a basically tasteless and or contentious position.
Because, if the latter were truly the rule of thumb here, then I could cite close to a 1000 recent posts over the last couple of months that would qualify for removal, and board banning. It just seems that all is not equal when these ambiguous rules are applied or executed. There needs to some form of semblance.
Great examples of Ambiguity and Draconian measures:
4. Be respectful. Content that is harmful, hostile, threatening, abusive, baiting, vulgar, defamatory, harassing, or includes hate or racist speech, name calling or profanity will be edited or removed. Read more about our Profanity policy here; information on our Threats of Bodily Harm policy is available here.
7. No naming and shaming. We will not tolerate posting about listing or member violations. Item numbers, auction links, negative/neutral feedback scores, other members ID or contact information posted for the purpose of shaming another member will be edited or removed. Read more about this policy here. (Note: The wrong link is embedded here. The link is in relation to "contact info".) http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-contact.html
10. Do not discuss or post about moderation actions. Discussion of moderation actions, reposting of deleted posts or discussion of suspended or no longer registered members. It is not permitted to discuss or repost removed content. It is inappropriate to talk about others who are suspended from the community or eBay.
These are the primary topics though the other rules have issues within their group also. I just wanted to highlight the ones that affect the most posts here. If all these rules were enforced equally on these boards. There wouldn't be any members left to post. We'd all be banned forever in less than a month, as the violations would stack up in a good day of posting here, or one good argument,which happens all the time.
There really is no definition as too how any of rules even apply to the context of a typical post. Nothing is defined. Example: Content that is baiting...Define baiting. Same with harmful, hostile, threatening, abusive, vulgar, defamatory, harassing.There are all levels of these examples from minor to extreme that are passed over in loads of posts, by both members and mods, without a care less. Is what defines which terms violate the rules and in what context?
We need to remove the draconian heavy handedness elements of these rules and the ambiguity surrounding the implementation rules and punishment and the terms themselves. I can't even find a reference as to the time frames for each ban in succession.
If a new member or one just not familiar with site gets banned they can't even access the guidelines in the link provided within the ban, nor the announcements pages, which everyone should have 24/7 access too, regardless of being currently banned from posting. The announcements can effect members business choices at the moment of release, and should have no connection with board usage.
Hi @timemachine777
We completely rewrote our guidelines in October 2016; there are no current plans to rewrite them again.
I wouldn't agree that they're "draconian." We have thousands of active users in our Community each day who do not experience post removal or moderator action.
Our team has a duty to keep all users in the Community safe, and posters in the Community have a duty to ensure that they adhere to our usage guidelines when posting.
The eBay Community Team regularly meets with the Lithium moderation team to review all moderation action taken.
We do not enjoy moderating, but having a safe and enjoyable environment is very important to us.
If you ever have concerns with moderation action taken on your ID, you can contact me via Private Message, and I will personally review the situation.
Thanks.
Alan - eBay Community Manager
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mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
