How though? How are new members made compliant? That's where my problem with this concept ultimately stems from. It never seems to be through useful discussion... if it was, then there wouldn't be any need for rules to enforce it, I agree. It just never seems to actually be the reality when there isn't a rule.
By example. If you want to become a part of something, you try to fit in, by doing what everyone else does. People that come just to try and troll are ignored or made fun of in return. Another thing I noticed is that most people only stay belligerent for a little while. Afterwards they either give up and leave or get over whatever conflict they had with others and participate normally, which happens often enough.
It's very weird to see people riding a principle that failed to work as early as 1993 down in flames despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Whereas the regular September student influx would quickly settle down, the influx of new users from AOL did not end and Usenet's existing culture did not have the capacity to integrate the sheer number of new users
But it actually worked, exactly as I'm saying it would. Massive influxes of new users can ruin any community and cause shifts not just in the community culture, but in moderation teams, potentially leading to awful people getting the power to do far more damage than a bunch of rude users. If 10000 new people come to this forum and start breaking rules, will rules really save you? You will be overwhelmed and your options are either to quickly try and get more admins or disable registration. There is no clean way to deal with this.
Author
Topic: Why is it important to have forum etiquette/forum moderation? (Read 5295 times)