Maybe making it inter-modal would work better. Meaning you have to actually do a form submit with the title to get the page that has the message input box (and links). As it stands, people with javascript turned off would never see links.

From the site:
Wow... Best Quote Ever.

Brings whole new meaning to "can't see the forest for the trees".

I would agree with you but you left out 2 groups.

The sociopaths

and,

Everybody else who would be the majority...

As Texrat said this ain't a democracy it never was it has always been a private forum. It is publicly viewed however, hence the guidelines.

Along those same lines I just want to add that whether a post gets "Thanks" is not and indication of its merit. Just an indication of the thinking in an active thread at the time. Likewise comparing the thanks received by one post vs. another is not a very good way for anyone to make decisions or judge relative merit, IMHO.

I will sometimes thank posts months after they were first posted simply because I either didn't see them at the time or because my current interests now find the information they contain useful.

This I'm sure drives the OP nuts as he then sees his thanks count grow but has to go back through his thanked posts to find where it came from.

***

Back on topic sort of I guess:

Someone also said something about. "If no one agrees with your point of view at the time, repeating it in other threads over and over again is not going to change that."

How very true. To me it is like SPAM or repetitive TV commercials.

The one thing no one has mentioned is the "report this post" feature. Previously what were we reporting if we used it?

Now there is something to base a report on. I imagine moderators get an e-mail or other electronic notification when a post is
reported. These can be very helpful when they contain useful information. They are a humongous PITA when they are from the same two or three people reporting each others posts in a thread when they disagree.

Now with these guidelines there are specific reasons to report a post, if you are offended by it you can cite your reasons why.

I clicked "Thanks" on your post because I agree, YoDude

I have absolutely no idea what you are going on about.

It's been made very clear the rules apply to all.

I would hazard a guess that he is referring to people such as myself that challenged him as being the Mods' pets.
So... maybe should I click the "Report" button by my prior posts on my own and save abil_uk the trouble

Alright, let's focus back on the policy statement now, please. I have updated the OP with the two revisions i proposed as nobody has objected.

If you have a specific objection and/or a specific proposal for revision, please make it known.

I recall that there is the standard vBulletin disclaimer when signing up. Now, I would assume it would be a good idea to somehow have this FAQ/policy be part of the sign up process; perhaps by forcing the first post being in a specific subforum/thread signifying the new user's agreement? I don't know much about whether the software can automate this so I am just throwing that scenario out there.

I find this entire thread very amusing - all this angst about forum moderation.

This forum is yours, do with it as you wish - moderate, censor, ban, whatever - if you are the admin you have the right. So why all these "rules" that most (especially users pissed off at Nokia) will not even read ? If a user registers to vent, they will join and post - you think they are going to wade through the fine print ?

I also find this thread very amusing because some here believe such rules will "fix" and "cleanup" this forum, when the root cause of these issues has nothing to do with forum moderation or malicious trolls (paid by google/apple haha) who are out to "destroy" the community, but rather disappointed users who are geniuely pissed off at Nokia and have no other avenue to address their concerns.

But why should these users direct their anger at TMO ? They should go to Nokia forums right ?

The issue here is because Nokia forums/service support are CLUELESS/give canned responses and all the apps are from TMO respositories - N900 users come to TMO to download and browse apps and get fixes, not Nokia and the Ovi store, so for all intents and purposes TMO IS the defacto face of N900 support - regardless of whether this is "official" or not.

Effectively, the TMO forums have been co-opted (brilliant move by Nokia btw, all these unpaid tech support ppl working for free, I wonder how much money they save by doing this) to be tech support for the N900 and Maemo 5 and THIS IS THE REALITY, regardless of whether you like it or not. As with ALL tech support, you get abuse from unhappy users when they are disappointed.

And as with tech support users who cant take the abuse anymore, they quit the job, just like how some of the productive users are quiting positing now.

Putting in place stricter rules may allow you to gag some of the prolific complainers, but it will in no way stop new disappointed customers from venting their anger. All you are doing is putting a band aid on a gushing wound to make yourself feel better. You are not addressing the root cause at all - and that is TMO has become defacto tech support for n900 users.

So how to fix this properly ?

Only 2 ways to do this:
1. Get Nokia to address n900 user anger with solid communication and quicker fixes - but good luck that Hahahaha
2. Disassociate TMO from being defacto tech support for N900 and Maemo 5. Instead, make this an APP DEVELOPER/TESTER only board, and only registered app devs or testers (i.e. only those associated with a app project in progress will be allowed to register to post) allowed to post. Only technical/coding discussions to be allowed. On reading posts users will get the perception this is not general tech support, and "trolling" volumes will reduce/disappear.

As for the rules themselves - well I find it funny the starting threads expressing your disappointment with the N900 is considered trolling, but threads like "I LOVE MY N900 TO DEATH" or "MEEGO WILL DESTROY IPHONE/IPAD" are considered the opposite. When you have such bias/imbalances in the measuring stick used for censorship, well, claims of future even handedness in the enforcement of these rules are a bit of a joke.

That's looking at what's been proposed far too simply.

There is no such imbalance.

Yes, well, the suppression of overly enthusiastic posts by Maemo fans in the Maemo community forum was planned for phase two of this initiative, but since you've made the request, I suppose we can accelerate the timetable. And once that extra set of infraction rules is field tested, we intend to abstract and offer them to [local sport team]'s fan forum. No longer will [local sport team] fans suffer the pain of reading those horrible "This year [local sport team] is going all the way!" threads opened on their fan site in those heady moments following early-season victories.