Pls do not start geopolitical threads or flame wars in EDMW

[cranthir]

EDMW is a place of casual chit chat and sharing fast moving news and we want to keep it that way.

It's not a forum for you to conduct proxy information wars on behalf of foreign countries, we do not want to see your fighting and intolerance of other users views anymore.

EDMW have a talk fast talk loose culture that is not suitable for serious geo-political debate, if you are easily offended by sentences taken out of context, then we recommend you stay away.
Likewise, EDMW have a very high traffic volume and we do not want you spreading your hatred of other countries or promoting foreign narrative using our traffic.

Type of flame bait threads or post that we do not encourage.
- Content from social media and internet sources pushing particular political agendas that only serve to start flame wars or toxic discussions.
- News regarding issues of foreign countries that only serve to start flame wars or toxic discussions.
- Adding provocative commentary of your own view after news article to make it as if that those views are factual and in the news article.
- unverified sensational reporting
- Post that politicize non related topic will be considered as derailment and deleted

As such, going forward, we reserve the right to shut down such kind of threads, pban those who actively and regularly make or have made provocative, trolling and denigrating comments toward other members' political views,

Similarly, those who make frivolous reports and cannot conform to the light hearted EDMW culture will be deemed unsuitable and removed from the forum. We will not change the EDMW culture to cater to over sensitive minority who cannot handle mild trolling and nonsense replies and make many frivolous reports, These reports will not be entertained.

For serious and thoughtful geopolitical discussions, you may do that at Current Affairs Lounge, where the culture and rules are more stringent based on the same no-nonsense policy outside EDMW.

Likewise, because a news or a piece of info is factual doesn't mean you can mouth off and over generalized however you want, pls be sensitive,
Just because you have been warned doesn't mean we have to accept whatever reports you make.
Lastly, we will not tolerate any undue pressure along the line that supporting a country, or an ideology entitled you to immunity to all forum rules and justify you labeling the moderation team as IBs or foreign agents,

You are welcome to continue to share the latest news and your personal opinion, but we reserve the right to thrash them if they degenerate into flame wars.

Thank you for you kind understanding guys, and Happy Easter weekend.

TL;DR version – Nothing new; everything has been covered in the TOS and in the existing stickies. This is more like a reminder. Dun overgeneralize a race, a nation or a culture, dun mini mod and demand moderators to censor others in the name of "fake news" or because u are supporting a "just cause", Dun engage in ad hominem and personal attack. Dun post wild unsubstantiated claims. Dun act like or accuse others of being foreign agents.

 

[cranthir]

Addendum:
There has still been some confusion about what is allowed and not allowed.
To be clear, all geopolitical threads should not be in EDMW, that is why you will noticed such threads being in CAL or deleted,
There are a small minority who have continued and they are doing this on a very frequent basis and are still continuing despite multiple warning and notifications. Please start the threads at the right forum.

If you want to fight, go to a MMA gym (CAL) where we have stricter rules in place, if you go to a kopitam (EDMW) to fight, then you are a public nuisance.

Persistent starter of geopolitical threads outside of CAL will be banned.

As a special concession, Breaking News of public interest are allowed to be in EDMW for a limited period of time. Such threads will be moved back to CAL in a couple of days when interest has died down. This is similar to what we do for drama threads.

However this is conditioned on no bickering, should we noticed an uptick in fighting and reports, This privilege will be taken away and even Breaking News will be moved to CAL.

Stick to 1 breaking news thread instead of starting 101 threads.

1. How to argue?

For Ad hominem and name-calling, its instant 6 points.
Persistent offenders will be banned.

2. Comment on content, not on the commentators.
Using someone's affiliations or a label as ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views is strictly not allowed, whether in EDMW or CAL.

If you are using labels, then that is name calling,
It doesn't matter to say you are not directing label at anyone, obviously its directed at someone.
Do not weasel out by saying its not directed at anyone unless its explicitly stated at people of concern in the thread topic and not thread participants.

below is a non exhaustive list in **[IMPORTANT] EDMW Must-reads!**

It has come to our attention that there are users that love giving labels to specific races, nationalities, religions, beliefs, etc. On their own, these labels are seemingly innocent. However they are often misused in unkind, inappropriate, discriminatory, and offensive ways on our forums. This is unacceptable.

On a case by case basis, based on the context and degree of severity, Moderators will remove posts with such comments and may even give Warnings with infraction points to users for such behavior.

List (non-exhaustive) of these labels:
CECA
Warrior
Wumao
Putinmao
Snake
JHK
Religion of peace and harmony
***** (y a l a m)
************** (a l o h a s n a c k b a r)
Motherland
******** (r a p e l a n d)

The HWZ team reserves the right to update this list to better serve members and the use of this forum.

Creative users who invent similar or new labels with the same inappropriate intentions to circumvent the above list will also be dealt disciplinary actions for such behavior.

other terms include woke, 乳滑, 1450, Little Pink, Clinton crazies, Trump derangement syndrome.
you can refer to this list below, they are however not exhaustive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Political_pejoratives_for_people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_slurs

3. Semantic Drift
Meanings of the words can change.
there is nothing wrong with the original meaning of some of the words above, but pejoration can occur and they can take on new meanings in the forum context.

We will take action based on the most commonly understood meaning of the word as understood by most of the forum based on the context of the thread and how the post is being phased and who it is directed. Please do not engage in literalism and word games to weasel your way out by denying what you mean. You only damage your own credibility, pls have some self-respect.

Similarly, pejorative words can undergo amelioration. Please do not just spam reports just based on literalism, look at the context of how such words are used.

4. Derailing / Mini Modding
If you are talking about anything beside the thread topic, then you are derailing.
We are much stricter on derailing in geo-political threads because topics tend to be more sensitive and have higher potential to be develop in fights.

Whataboutism or whataboutery, is strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation.
This will be considered both as derailing or ad-hominem, please refrain from such arguments.

However, please also refrain calling out ad-hominem / whataboutism or engage in any other form of mini-modding.
If you spot anything wrong, just report and put the offender in your ignore list, being baited into a fight is not an excuse.
Users who derail / mini-mod will be deemed as public nuisance and infracted.
Persistent offenders will be banned.

5. Distinguishing between misinformation, the unverifiable and opinions.
This is a discussion forum for the exchange and discussion of ideas and opinion. This is not a news site, Forum members are responsible for their own posts. Exercise your own critical thinking and do not believe blindly everything you read.

if there is a baseless allegation or false claim, pls rebut in the thread, you do not have to convince the moderating team. Quote credible news sources to support your point in the thread or report.

please read the tnc that you agree to:

1. You acknowledge that it is not SPH Media’s policy to exercise editorial control over, and to review, edit or amend any data, information, materials or contents of any User Content, posting, email or any information that may be inserted or made available on the Site by other users of the Services and that SPH Media does not endorse and shall not be responsible for any such content.

All User Content are not monitored by us. We do not pre-screen nor do we exercise editorial control over User Content, and are not responsible for the same. However, SPH Media at all times retains the sole discretion to:

• remove or decline to accept any User Content from the Site without assigning any reason whatsoever;

We will not tolerate anybody weaponizing fake news or foreign agent label to silence difference of opinion, this is also a form of mini-modding. Users who do so will be infracted and persistent offenders will be banned.

6. Regarding how to guard against misinformation or disinformation campaign,
Pls refer to https://www.gov.sg/article/singapores-fight-against-fake-news-what-you-can-do
https://www.mha.gov.sg/docs/default...on-disinformation-and-influence-campaigns.pdf

For selected topic of public interest, we may issue corrective warning and/or amend the thread title. Frequent starters of fake news will be banned.

For Breaking News that we allow to stay in EDMW for a couple of days, these are often developing stories which are ripe for misinformation / disinformation, please read whatever with a big pinch of salt, and please also share responsibly,

We allow the platform for discussion of breaking news, which by definition are often unverified and often speculative, so please exercise some common sense and do not come to the moderating teams with strange request like verifying whether the president of Ukraine is in Kiev, we are not the CIA and CIA themselves may not know. Just because an opinion is implausible and illogical doesn't equate to being fake news or misinformation. Point out the unlikelihood of the scenario or provide a credible news source to counter instead of throwing a casual insult or label, else you will be warned and banned.

7. For appeal and feedback
Given the nature of dispute in geopolitical threads, they can concurrently fall under Harassment / Derailing / Mini-Modding / Name-Calling / Racism, we may issue you the infraction under any one of the above, pls do not quibble over the actual offense name as the forum software does not allow us to check all of the above and give you 5x6 points, so please do not quibble. If you want to quibble, we can acquiesce and give you the 5x6 points.

Please refer to [EDMW Advisory] Reporting an offending post, and where to appeal against infraction & other matters and Feedback Forum Guidelines ***Please read before you post***

4) Our discretions are final
Be respectful of our discretions. You may disagree with our discretions, and we have the right to disagree with your actions on our forums.

Thank you for your cooperation as we strive to make HardwareZone a better platform for everyone.

 

[cranthir]

Any innocent threads like news about other countries' news like natural disaster, crimes or scams, products, economic outlook that get derail into another geopolitical fights, country bashing, or any sort of bigoted remarks will be ban or issued warning points immediately without any warning.

this post is the warning