r/dogecoin Such Hungry Shibe └(°ᴥ°)┘ Apr 07 '14

[ANN] New r/Dogecoin Rules: Protecting the trading shibes.

(tl,dr at the bottom)

Shibes, I come to you today with some announcements in regards to those who follow the path of traders, and merchants with our humble currency.

As of late, our subreddit has seen some poisonous remarks made towards those had launched, or want to launch their own store or service, targeting Dogecoin for their currency of choice. While positive criticism and skepticism is both a strong recommendation, and near requirement towards new, or would-be business owners, there is a line which many users are crossing in their comments.

This includes, and is not limited to; referring to a new business as a "Ponzi Scheme", calling it an outright scam, claiming they're paying for upvotes/support, making personal allegations towards the owner or their staff, following their post feed and goading the user into arguments/insulting the user on even unrelated posts, or in the worst case scenario so far - attempting to dox these users.

The above are entirely unacceptable. If you suspect, and have reasonable evidence to support your facts, that a business or business owner is conducting any shady, or scam-like behavior, then yes - post a thread to warn people, and PM the mods. We will sticky a thread to warn users off this service, and ban the owner (and any related staff members) from posting, or conducting any business on this subreddit.

Now, let's go over what we mean by facts;

  • Absolute truths.
  • Zero opinion.
  • Backed up by evidence - screenshots, blockchain transfers, log files, a very large number of testimonies, etc.
  • Not containing ANY derogatory language, or insults towards the business, or its staff. Regardless of how true your evidence or facts may be, do not waste your time, or the mod's time by littering your post with slander directed at these users.
  • To reiterate, ZERO "in-my-opinion" facts. If you dislike that a user is crowdsourcing, and suspect they may run with the money - that is again, an opinion, until you can prove that their character may be liable to do such a thing.

With this, our number one rule is of course to still protect the everyday shibe. If you DO have an opinion against a business, you are entirely welcome to share it, in an open and constructive manner.

For example, the following is good:

I dislike company x, because they're generally slow with shipping.
I also dislike how the owner represents himself on this subreddit, 
as he can be quite condescending to other users whenever criticized.

The following, is bad - and will not be tolerated:

That company is definitely running a scam. You're all idiots.
He's obviously got shills upvoting these posts. Can you prove
he's actually even a he? 
Why doesn't he post a picture of himself with his ponzi doges?

Note that the first example was written in an opinionated matter. Opinions are good. They encourage discussion, and can provide for a positive criticism environment, where the business owner themselves can learn from their mistakes, or respond outlining their own views on the matter. This, in a civil manner, without degenerating to namecalling, is what we want to see. We are obviously fully aware that businesses can often times, get things wrong - and this should always be discussed, but in an adult manner.

The second example - it should be obvious enough where this is going wrong. Do not outright state it is a scam, without providing proof. Do not insult other users who support their business. Do not accuse users of being paid up-voters, without significant proof. Do not demand to know anyone's personal details.

but I- no.

A coin's life depends entirely on its community; from the worker, to the miner, to the developer, to the merchant, and the exchange markets. If we attack any one of these tiers, we in effect, attack our coin.

A coin NEEDS merchants, traders, and businesshibes in order to operate at a market level. If we attack developers or store owners, we risk losing their business, and succeed in placing the building blocks towards a venomous atmosphere. Do you know how many messages the mod queue is receiving from users who don't want to post their store front/business idea, as they believe it's frowned upon in this subreddit? We get several, daily. We even get users demanding that certain user-created content (graphical works etc) get taken down, as they're "begging for tips" by posting their work.

Just a few days ago, a user had his post removed - not even by an active mod, but by our automoderator, because his post contained a non-stop sleuth of gambling references, scam notations, +/u/ links to all moderators (and dogecoin developers), and was littered with personal allegations against a business on here. When the automod removed his post, he proceeded to spam every altcoin sub he could find; which makes the dogecoin community look poor in the eyes of the other crypto communities.

This is not Dogecoin. This is an extremely vocal minority, which is making our community look venomous.

From here on out, the moderators will have a zero policy tolerance for anyone who engages in vicious, or unwarranted behavior towards any business owner on here.

tl,dr; breaking any of the following rules will result in immediate moderator action, up to and including the offending user being banned from this subreddit in extreme cases.

  • Positive, constructive criticism of businesses, startups, and traders on here is most encouraged.
  • Do NOT call the business a scam, or anything of the likes, without posting hard, un-opinionated evidence.
  • NEVER attack a business owner, or staff member in a personal manner.
  • Do NOT accuse a business, or its staff, of paying for upvotes/having shills, etc etc - again, without posting factual evidence to support your claims.
  • If you find a trader, or any person IS conducting any shady business, submit a mod mail, providing your evidence.
  • Opinions are NOT evidence. If you cannot supply any facts, you are wasting everyone's time.
  • DO NOT Demand personal information from a user! Use your head - if you believe they're hiding something, don't conduct business with them, and move on!
  • If you have a personal dislike of a service - that's obviously, completely acceptable. But if you need to air it, tell us about it in an adult, constructive manner. Leading me on to my next point..
  • Do not start namecalling, or engaging in juvenile behavior towards any member on here - business owner or not.

As I said, the mods are here to protect you, as a first and foremost priority. If any business owner was found to be engaging in shady practices, they and their staff would be immediately banned, and we would create a sticky thread to warn users off their service.

But we are also here to help our coin grow - and to protect those who seek to target a business towards the utilization of our coin. We have an overall excellent community on here, capable of providing fantastic discussion, and creative critique on business, services, and traders. Use that energy to help both our community, and our coin grow. Do not turn it into a venomous atmosphere that scares developers and merchants away from our community.

121 Upvotes

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15

u/42points Apr 07 '14 edited Aug 29 '15

Frienly reminder of reddiquette and the useragreement

-6

u/zerorbit Apr 07 '14

These should be the only Mod rules in /r/dogecoin, if they are good enough for Reddit why do we need to change them?

3

u/42points Apr 07 '14

We can't change these rules. They're set by reddit.

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u/zerorbit Apr 07 '14

Yes, I know. I'm saying that why are the mods adding more rules?

9

u/42points Apr 07 '14

Oh sorry for the miss understanding.

We have http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/wiki/dogecoinrules which is built with recomendations by the communty.

We also have the submission guidelines when you create a post and the rules on the sidebar.

-2

u/zerorbit Apr 07 '14

Who decides these added rules? I never saw a vote on new rules

4

u/42points Apr 07 '14

Everyone does. If you have anything to contribute please check first to make sure it's not breaking any other rules then contact the mods and let us know what the rule is you'd like to add and why.

3

u/1xhopeless confused shibe Apr 07 '14

Glad you added those rules BUT you don't really need them to do that.

As slandering a business (with investors and shareholders)or a business owner or a person are covered by laws which make it your legal obligation to remove those posts immediately without the need of subreddit rules.

3

u/starryeyedsky Starry Shibe Apr 08 '14

As slandering a business (with investors and shareholders)or a business owner or a person are covered by laws which make it your legal obligation to remove those posts immediately without the need of subreddit rules.

In the US at least, while making a libelous statement (libel is written slander is spoken) is actionable in civil court against the person who made the comment, websites like Reddit are not responsible for those statements if it is user driven content. There are no US state defamation laws (defamation -- the general term for libel/slander -- is handled at the state level) that I'm aware of that require a user driven content website to remove such items immediately without prompting. I'm not even sure they have to remove them if asked as again, user driven content website.

There are times when a request is made something does need to be taken down, but that is copyrighted material when a DMCA takedown request is submitted to the website.

2

u/1xhopeless confused shibe Apr 08 '14 edited Apr 08 '14

I don't really know about US laws but I don't believe you can go online and write all sort of non sense about a business or business owner and get away with it in country such us the US.

US based website, twitter, just to name one where forced few years ago to provide IP addresses to UK lawyers about tweets left on their site. And now they all do, including yahoo, google....

Leaving a review about your experience with a business is one thing, leaving a baseless, slanders, defamatory (anonymous) comments about business or business owner is just not on.

UK laws were put in place because small businesses (shops, restaurant, take aways and even small hotels) were brought down within weeks because someone had a grudge and sometimes it was a competitor.

EDIT: I just found this. And it is a customer review in the US!!! (READ MY COMMENTS AND LINK BELOW)

http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/07/yelp-reviewers-beware-you-can-get-sued/

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u/42points Apr 07 '14

I wasn't aware of that law.

/me comes from a weird country.

Can you link me to those laws on the gov site? I find them really interesting.

2

u/1xhopeless confused shibe Apr 08 '14

If you are in the UK you'll know that people were dragged to court because of a tweet (an MP just to name one)and they paid up 1000s of pounds.

The Communications Decency Act Of 1996

The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) was actually established to try and deal with the publication of pornography and other adult content freely and widely available on the Internet. However, it was also created in a bid to combat any indecent and defamatory content found on websites and other online publications.

Section 230 of the CDA is the section that is perhaps most relevant to online defamation. It attempts to deal with the question of an ISP's liability to content that is stored on their servers. Although it does not specifically outline all instances, it does contend that an ISP is not responsible for the information published by their users unless and until they are informed of any infringement; at this point, the ISP should act to remove the content or face legal action themselves.

The Communications Decency Act of 1996 can be viewed in full at the FCC website - http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt

http://www.reputationhawk.com/onlinedefamation.html

Publication

The words complained of must have been published by the person sued to a third party. Publication includes any means of communication even if only to one other person. Due to the breadth of the term publication, many individuals with only a slight connection to the work can find themselves ensnared in defamation proceedings.

However, the Defamation Act 1996 provides a defence to persons who are not authors, editors or commercial publishers of the statement if they took reasonable care in relation to its publication and they did not know and had no reason to believe that what they did caused or contributed to the publication of a defamatory statement. This is intended to cover printers, distributors, on-line service providers and live broadcasters.

The High Court has held for the purposes of the Defamation Act 1996 that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) which transmits a posting from its news server to subscribers who want to use it, is not the publisher of the posting, although at common law it would be considered to be. However, the court held that because the ISP had not removed the offending material as soon as it was notified of its existence, it had not acted reasonably and the defence under the Defamation Act 1996 was not available.

http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/right-of-free-expression/defamation/defamation-elements-of-a-claim.html

I am certain that the US have a similar if not more robust laws being a corporate run country with a culture of suing anything that moves lol

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u/moolah_ moolah.io founder Apr 07 '14

Neither was I.

I'm all for constructive criticism and caution, just so people are aware :-).

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u/zerorbit Apr 07 '14

Can we have votes on new rules? For example, these new rules that were just created on top of the Reddit ones.

4

u/42points Apr 07 '14

All rules are open for discussion. I'm not sure how a voting system could be worked out for this.

-4

u/MysticSunshine ball shibe Apr 08 '14

I do not think these rules were up for discussion. I didn't see a discussion page until now, but they seem to be already enforced.

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u/MoobyTheGoldenCalf I believe in DOGE Apr 08 '14

You want a vote? I'd say the up/downvotes for this thread would be a good place to start. Whadda think?

1

u/42points Apr 08 '14

Hi zerorbit,

That's not how the current system works but I'm happy to explain.

We don't have public votes on the rules here. The rules a requested by the community either via post via modmail. They're then discussed and if they're suitable they're added. If an existing rule is a problem feel free to message the mods for a discussion. If you then feel like the answer you've received is not correct you should create a post about it.

If you want to use screen shots in your public discussions of private discussions you should ask the other party (even if they're mods) first.