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by The Rosy Red Republics of Podria. . 288 reads.

Regional Message Board Etiquette Guide of The Leftist Assembly

Introduction


    Hello, comrade! Welcome to the Regional Message Board Etiquette Guide of The Leftist Assembly, we're so glad to have you! The Regional Message Board (RMB) is a public forum for all members of our region and our region's allies to use, and we hope that everyone is able to enjoy it. To facilitate maximal enjoyment, we, the Government of The Leftist Assembly, have set forth some guidelines to make the RMB an enjoyable, productive, and safe space for all. Think of it as our region's town square; it's fun to have some conversations and debates there, but not everything should take place in the town square. Want to get a little more casual and in-depth, hop on over to Link our Discord server (https://discord.gg/wem8K5z), and if you want to have one-on-one conversations with someone, you should do that via NationStates Telegrams or Discord Direct Messages. But without further adieu, here's the guidelines!

The Do's


DO:

  • Make posts with a purpose - Continuing with the "town square" analogy from before, if you're having a public conversation where everyone can watch it happen, it should be about something at least somewhat meaningful. The best posts are ones that can be responded to by multiple people and spark a true conversation. Short of that, we love seeing the "hello everyone! :)" and "I just outlawed meat in my country" type posts and really most anything you can think of. But, if it's general and long-lasting small talk, take that to the Discord, the format works much better for that. People going back and forth with "hi" "hello" "how was your day?" "good" "nice" "i don't like maths" "me neither" will clog up the RMB very quickly and is not something you would shout in a town square.

  • Make diverse posts, and often - We want our region to have plenty of fun discussions; talk about video games, culture, real life politics, in-game politics, food, art, nature, whatever! There are very few topics we're going to snuff out, but generally if you would say it to your barista, cool wine aunt, or history teacher, it's probably kosher. (we'll go more into detail later, keep on reading). I'd personally love to hear people share that they just hiked two miles or aced their biology exam or wrote a new song, that's perfect for the RMB!

  • Ask questions - Not sure about something? There's a lot of people in this region with diverse experiences and knowledge sets. Just to name a few niche topics we have experts on: Ancient Roman history, firearms engineering, wilderness survival, biochemistry, American sports betting, dinosaurs, and so much more. Your question absolutely doesn't have to be niche either. New to leftism? We have a lot of people who are quite experienced and with varied views and thoughts, they'd be glad to discuss just about any leftist topic with you. Have questions about LGBTQIA+ topics? I can just about guarantee that a queer person will read your post and will be glad to explain something to you. Don't be bashful, as long as you're being respectful and asking things in good faith we'll be glad to discuss with you!

  • Meet new people - The motto of The Leftist Assembly is "Unity in Diversity!" and we mean it. There are people of all races, creeds, sexual orientations, gender identities, ages, levels of education, walks of life. We have people from Quebec to Germany to Oceania; gay to straight to asexual, non-binary to cisgender to transgender, still in high school to trades trained to masters degrees. You name a quality someone can have, odds are it's here. Just follow the basics of online safety (don't tell people where you live, your name, or how old you are - and report people who ask that kind of question) and be respectful and understanding of anyone and you'll do great.

  • Have fun! - I hope I stressed this enough and didn't sound too up-tight in this stuffy rules document. We really don't mean to be the fun police or restrict open conversation, but the climate this document was written in was one of rampant spam and Regional Officers struggling to keep the RMB usable. What we really want to do is just what was said at the beginning - make the RMB an enjoyable, productive, and safe space for all. Tell us about what you enjoy! Talk about your nation's politics! Ask us about Marx or Kropotkin! The RMB is your oyster, just don't mess up other people's oysters, alright?

The Don't's


DON'T:

  • Spam or otherwise disrupt the RMB - The RMB is truly an archaic thing and hasn't aged well in the times of modern social media and instant messaging. This is your older sister's (or maybe even mom's) type of platform, designed in a simpler and slower time when computers sounded like they were summoning Satan every time they connected to the internet and being able to load a 5 second video was lighting fast internet. As such, the RMB is not modern social media nor instant messaging, it's a message board and you should treat it as such. Don't post multiple times in a row (the Edit button is very handy), don't have long back and forths between just a couple of people, and don't post really really long posts without using spoilers because just a few posts and you have buried old posts on the next page, which nobody looks at.

  • Be a criminal - In all senses. Obviously you cannot break the real law and sell cocaine on the RMB, that would be bad, but hopefully you know that. The laws we're talking about are the rules of NationStates and the rules of our region. Break the NS rules and the real moderators with site-wide powers will probably do something about it, really not our business. If you break our rules however, you're looking at anything ranging from a written warning to permanent banishment. The big ones are don't troll, don't engage with trolls, don't be a bigot, and don't be stupid.

  • Be offensive - As emphasised a couple of times, this region is diverse and the RMB should be a safe space for all. As such, being intentionally offensive to any group of people is not allowed and we will gladly show you the door. This includes the intentional stuff like being blatantly fascist, nationalistic, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, sectarian, whatever. If you make a faux pas and say something that you don't know is wrong, you're likely to be swiftly corrected and we'll leave it there. If you're open minded and willing to learn and correct your behaviour, we'll give you grace - if not, we'll give you the boot.

  • Go on the defensive - The flip side of "don't be offensive" is "don't get defensive." If you are corrected, warned, or even given a short ban, be civil and recognise that we're probably trying to help you and allow you to learn and grow. Try to correct your actions, feel free to ask questions, and don't retaliate. If you take things in stride, apologise, and make a change, that'll probably be the end of it. If you double down, throw insults, and repeat your actions, a permaban is in your future.

  • Encourage rule-breaking - Being an accomplice in a crime is just as bad as being a criminal; we frankly don't care who started it or who was "meaner" or whatever, we care that it stops and the rule breakers are taught a lesson. If someone is being overtly bigoted, don't quote the post, don't send a three paragraph long rebuttal, don't join in or defend the bigotry - just send a DM or telegram to a Regional Officer and it'll be dealt with. If someone is spamming, don't join the spam or spam messages telling them to stop spamming, let the Regional Officers take care of it. The jist of this one is don't fan the flames, and by God do not join the flames.

What can I do to help?


  • Be the change you want to see in the world - Model behaviour that is good. Tell us about your favourite TV show, engage in leftist discussions, tell us your lived experiences, ignore trolls and spammers, answer questions, welcome newcomers! If you really want to go the extra mile and keep up on the best discussion, join the Discord server - it's seriously much more fun than the RMB ever could be because it was designed over a decade after the RMB was.

  • Discretely report things to Regional Officers - There's no need to make a huge call out post or make wild accusations of spam, bigotry, treason, etc. Just send a telegram or Discord DM to any Regional Officer and it will be taken care of. While most of our ROs are quite active and the RMB is probably seen by an RO at least a few times an hour, there's hundreds of you and like a dozen of us. If you see something, say something.

  • Join the Discord! - Seriously! The Discord server is great, there's so much activity there and in addition to the main Discord server where you can have light chit chat and really talk about whatever you want, there are also Discord servers for our government, our regional alliance NSLeft, and our various embassy regions. It's a great bunch and really not that hard to figure out after the first five minutes. If you need help with that, feel free to send a telegram to a Regional Officer or post about it right on the RMB!

What happens to troublemakers?


    As long as you don't do anything to garner the attention of NationStates moderators (who do their own thing, they're above us and have way more power than the regional government), you're beholden to our regional Code of Laws, and specifically the Criminal Offence Act and Regional Moderation Act. With minor incidents we try to just be friendly about it, but if it's suppress-worthy it will be suppressed. If you get three posts suppressed, you can get an official warning; two of those and you could be prosecuted under regional law - which may include being banned from the region for up to one week, but we try to avoid that as much as possible. If there's a more serious issue going on, especially blatant trolling or repeated and unsolvable violations, you could see a longer sentence, typically up to a year but if you're really bad we're well within our right to permanently ban you from the region. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the RMB, in the Discord, or in a telegram to a Regional Officer. As long as you follow the rules the best you can, act in good faith, and cooperate with Regional Officers, you won't have to worry about regional law.

In Unity and Diversity,
Podria
Secretary and Co-Founder


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