The rules of Endless Sphere

neptronix

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 15, 2010
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Location
Utah, USA
Our #1 goal at Endless Sphere is to provide a low resistance environment for discussing DIY electric vehicles and other loosely related topics. This means that not only do we need rules, but to have fairness in the enforcement of them. Both sides will be detailed here.

(y) Basic rules of conduct

1. Do not repeatedly harass or insult a member across the forum.

If you are asked by the member or moderator to stop, you're required to stop. Some people have thicker skins than others, so what constitutes harassment is up to the moderator team's judgement.

2. Commercial activity happens in our online marketplace.
If you wish to sell or market a product, you need to clearly identify yourself as a vendor and post in the online marketplace. Guerilla marketing is not tolerated here.

3. Do not make false claims against a vendor.
False claims can unnecessarily hurt an honest business, and we don't want to see that.
On the other hand, a legitimately crooked vendor should be exposed; so have a good case before posting it.

4. Ad hominem attacks on members' unchangeable traits such as race, sex, etc are not tolerated.
We do not want a member to feel unwelcome on the basis of any aspect of their identity, whether they are a minority or majority.

5. Do not repeatedly flood, derail, or interfere with threads.
Having discussions that are worth reading is important. Those who have a long history of such may end up being reprimanded for getting in the way of that.

6. If you want to talk about something controversial, post it in the off topic section.
The off topic section was designed for members who have thicker skins and/or more open minds than average. A thread which is too controversial for the other parts of the forum may be moved there.

7. Do not repeatedly bait people into heated political debates.
Political activists have a tendency to shift every possible discussion into a political one. ES does not want to be part of that trend. Politics need to be discussed as objectively as possible and riling up of political affiliations should be avoided.

☢️🚨 Major violations of forum rule, aka nuclear no-nos.

1. Do not Expose a member's private information without consent.

This means posting PMs, emails, addresses, full names, phone numbers, or any other information a member does not consent to be posted.
In order for our members to have a safe experience here, we can't allow this.

2. Do not post links to, nor upload illegal content such as pornography, pirated software, data dumps, etc.
This just gets removed. Those who repeatedly post such things will be removed also. We can't afford the legal burden!

3. Do not spam the forum or use bots.
You will be instantly banned; and if you repeatedly do it, your internet service provider will hear about it.

4. Do not make threats of harm against anyone on the forum.
If you have problem with a member, a vendor, etc, please bring it to a moderator instead, or resolve the conflict yourself before you cross this line.

5. Do not create an unnecessary burden for the moderator team.
This means doing things like lying about another member's behavior to try to get them banned, lying about the actions of a moderator, interfering with moderation, flooding the moderation report queue, etc.
Our moderators are volunteers who give personal time and passion into keeping this place safe and useful. If you intentionally and repeatedly make their job difficult, this can result in a ban.

🔋⚡ How to receive the maximum charge from the Forum

1. When you can't help but zap some stupidity, be kind as possible in calling it out and explaining why.

We want this forum to be a great place to learn and share quality information. Newer members may come with misconceptions. Do your best to rectify the misunderstanding without insults, as when a person becomes defensive, the learning/listening typically shuts down :lowbatt: . Make a stupid discussion about facts, and someone might actually learn something :thumb:

2. If someone grinds your gears, please ignore them.
Some personalities just don't mix! The best course of action if you find someone intolerable is to ignore them. Our forum software has the ability to block a member in order to lower the friction they create!

3. Use the report button if you see a problematic post.
If a post violates our rules, let us know. Help us help you.

4. Useful information should be posted in public!
A question/answer type thread is best discussed in public so that other members can learn from it. Avoid using PMs for this purpose.

5. Search before posting!
We have both a google search function ( pretty good! ) and a PhpBB search function that's more specific. Please use them before posting to see if your question has already been asked; helping keep duplicate topics to a minimum.

6. Stay on topic!
When you reply to someone's post, consider yourself a guest in their house. The original poster wants an answer or discussion on the topic they brought up; others do too. Please do your best to stay on the topic they wish to discuss.

:es:👨‍⚖️ Moderator's duty to our members

1. We will delete posts only when necessary ( they are harmful, extremely off topic, illegal, etc. ).

We prefer to retain useful information or history whenever possible, and prefer to not censor.
Threads that are too stinky to retain are moved to 'the dumpster' so they can be read for a limited time to provide some transparency in the moderation process and provide examples of what NOT to post.

2. We will not moderate content based on our own biases, political affiliations, commercial affiliations, etc.
Our moderator team is intentionally hand-picked for a diverse set of views and backgrounds, and moderators are required to discuss internally issues with a post or member when the choice is unclear or bias is a factor.

3. We will set expectations and give warnings when a member is engaging in repeated bad behavior.
Some people act out because they're having a bad day. We prefer to work with people before using the ban hammer. But we do have a limit. 😉

4. We will be responsive to members who are being harmed or threatened by another member.
If someone has posted private details you don't consent to being shown, the offending user will be punished and the information removed from public view. It's critical to us that this forum is a safe and conductive environment.

5. If you have a complaint about our moderation, we want to hear why.
If you believe you are being treated unfairly by a moderator, we will hear your complaint. Please send a member of the moderator team a private message, instead of venting it on the forum. Be civil with us and we promise to be civil with you.

6. Moderators must follow the rules of the forum, and are also subject to protections the rules provide.
We do not believe in having separate standards of behavior. Moderators are expected to follow forum rules, and not abuse their position of power. Moderators also deserve the same protections that members are granted.

👨‍💼👩‍💼 Some advice for vendors

We may be a DIY forum but we welcome any vendor willing to provide products and support for products that are relevant to our interests.
When you join the forum, please identify yourself as a vendor and keep posts of a commercial nature to the online marketplace section.
Please alert a moderator if you are being harassed unnecessarily. We do to want to see that happen.
Also be aware that your account can be removed if you rip off or deceive our members if we conclude, after hearing both sides of the case, that you have repeatedly been in the wrong.🚨
 
Last edited:
I will allow an open comment period on these rules for the next couple weeks.
 
In the #1 Basic Rules of conduct, if possible, I'd like to see the word "repeatedly" removed.

In #4 Grave Violations, I think it would be wise to remove, "Rarely is there a legitimate reason for this." Off hand I can't think of any reason to threaten harm to a member.

IN #5 in the same section, I like to see the word "may" changed to "will".

These basic forum rules are very reasonable and nobody should have any trouble following them.

BTW, nice job drawing them up. I for one appreciate the time spent doing it.

:bigthumb:

Nick
 
I see that the moderators trust and respect the members of the forum. I appreciate this attitude.
This is an international forum, so sometimes people who communicate here through any translator may simply not understand what their phrase or written question looks offensive to other forum members and why.
 
neptronix said:
Our #1 goal at En~ only do we need rules, but to have fairness in the enfo~tailed here.


1. We will delete posts only when necessary ( they are harmful, extremely off topic, illegal, etc. ).
We prefer to retain

2. We will not moderate content based on our own biases, political affiliations, commercial affiliations, etc.






5. If you have a complaint about our moderation, we want to hear why.
If you believe you are being treated unfairly by a moderator, we will ~ Be civil with us and we promise to be civil with you.



3. Use the report button if you see a problematic post.
If a post violates our rules, let us know. Help us help you.


1. Do not repeatedly harass or insult a member across the forum.

2. Commercial activity happens in our online marketplace.
If you wish

5. Do not repeatedly


:warn: Grave violations of forum rule, aka nuclear no-nos.

1. Do not Expose a member's private information without consent.
This means posting PMs, emails, addresses, full names, phone numbers, or any other information a member does not consent to be posted. In order for our members to have a safe experience here, we can't allow this.


3. Do not spam the forum or use bots.
You will be instantly banned and if you repeatedly do it, your internet service provider will hear about it.


:thumb: Some advice for vendors

. open comment period on these rules for the next couple week




:bigthumb:


Dammit. I do miss ElectriGod. He was awesome-sauce


Lol.


:bigthumb:


aside:

ven·dor
/ˈvendər,ˈvenˌdôr/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: vendor; plural noun: vendors; noun: vender; plural noun: venders

a person or company offering something for sale, especially a trader in the street.
"an Italian ice cream vendor"
a person or company whose principal product lines are office supplies and equipment.
Law
the seller, especially of property.


.... I guess this means everyone whom sells any one thing on the forum? As in... everybody?

...'cause I am just a little guy and I could see how this wouldn't apply to me, but may because I do, do so much business.

Anyway. ight as well not fight right? I do not consider myself a vendor.

I have had alot removed from certain threads and forums b/c " off topic", that which, i personally did not think was "off topic" at all, but directly relevant to the discussion henceforth present. Removed without so much as a notice nor explanation. Along with all the knowledge it may/ may not present. For whomit may concern.. I do love this hobby and will present my opinions and Im sorry if it leaves me posting less. Truly sorry, for I wish I had more enthusiasm here sometimes.

I do love all yalll brothers and sisters, just a FYI. Now leave me alone. Lol.

Oh well. I think the truly interested were discouraged long ago. Who is to judge.

There is nowhere on earth with the diversity of Endless Sphere. Thank you all who work here with the passion we all do see. Keep up the good work.
 
Two suggestions:

"Do not make false claims against a vendor."

Recommend changing to - do not make false claims against another member. That way people can complain all they like about Microsoft, Trek, Strava etc, and only have that addition burden of validity if they are complaining about a member or a vendor on ES.com. (And false claims against other non-vendor members greatly decrease the signal to noise ratio as well.)

"Do not create an unnecessary burden for the moderator team."

Recommend changing that to something like "do not repeatedly violate the rules." Members who are regularly being attacked, and who report those attacks (for example) are certainly creating a burden, a burden that could be ameliorated if they'd only "complain" less. However I assume that you do NOT intend to send the message "don't take up too much of our time" since reporting attacks is a good thing overall for the forum.
 
nicobie said:
In the #1 Basic Rules of conduct, if possible, I'd like to see the word "repeatedly" removed.

I would like to grant that request but i think what constitutes insulting and harassing is very subjective depending on the situation, how members feel about things, etc. I don't want the rule to read like we're zero tolerance about that because it would give the impression we're overmoderating here.

nicobie said:
In #4 Grave Violations, I think it would be wise to remove, "Rarely is there a legitimate reason for this." Off hand I can't think of any reason to threaten harm to a member.

Done.

nicobie said:
IN #5 in the same section, I like to see the word "may" changed to "will".

Sorta like the first issue, i'd like to keep this rule loose and only reserved for people who are a huge pain in the ass and intentionally trying to get under the skin of a staff member.

nicobie said:
These basic forum rules are very reasonable and nobody should have any trouble following them.

BTW, nice job drawing them up. I for one appreciate the time spent doing it.

Thank you.
They're not all that different to what we are used to. Some rules existed without being named. I do hope it helps new members understand how things work here a bit better, since KnightMB's version wasn't so concrete.
 
What button do I press to indicate that I'm vending? I am not vending ATM but would like to vend in the near future.
 
DogDipstick said:
.... I guess this means everyone whom sells any one thing on the forum? As in... everybody?
...'cause I am just a little guy and I could see how this wouldn't apply to me, but may because I do, do so much business.

When i say vendor i mean someone who operates a business on a part time or full time basis, not a guy selling his used parts or a few items here and there.

DogDipstick said:
I have had alot removed from certain threads and forums b/c " off topic", that which, i personally did not think was "off topic" at all, but directly relevant to the discussion henceforth present. Removed without so much as a notice nor explanation. Along with all the knowledge it may/ may not present. For whomit may concern.. I do love this hobby and will present my opinions and Im sorry if it leaves me posting less. Truly sorry, for I wish I had more enthusiasm here sometimes.

I am not aware of specifics on that but have seen some logs.

I think in the future we need to be more transparent about our moderation decisions. Right now, our moderation style does not include much in the way of communication of what was wrong and how to prevent it in the future. When i came here 10 years ago, that was our style, and as a result, we did have our token nutjobs on the forum, but most people knew how to be a good poster. We need to get back to the moderation style and i plan to make progressive steps towards improving the quality of moderation.

DogDipstick said:
There is nowhere on earth with the diversity of Endless Sphere. Thank you all who work here with the passion we all do see. Keep up the good work.

I think i love this community for some of the same reasons you do. So many intelligent people from so many different backgrounds here.. i've never been part of any internet community this long. It means a lot to me that you guys appreciate it as much as i do. Cheers. :)
 
TrotterBob said:
What button do I press to indicate that I'm vending? I am not vending ATM but would like to vend in the near future.

We do not currently have a system for that, but i do plan to have something like that inside the Xenforo platform once we move to it. Don't worry about openly identifying yourself for the time being.. that 'need to identify yourself' is informal for the time being, and can be done on a for sale - new post for now. :)
 
JackFlorey said:
Two suggestions:

"Do not make false claims against a vendor."

Recommend changing to - do not make false claims against another member. That way people can complain all they like about Microsoft, Trek, Strava etc, and only have that addition burden of validity if they are complaining about a member or a vendor on ES.com. (And false claims against other non-vendor members greatly decrease the signal to noise ratio as well.)

I agree that the reputation and good standing of a member deserves some protection too. That's something i will consider figuring out how to do in the future. It would be a lot of work in verifying facts across parties to do this for everyone in our current system.

JackFlorey said:
"Do not create an unnecessary burden for the moderator team."
Recommend changing that to something like "do not repeatedly violate the rules." Members who are regularly being attacked, and who report those attacks (for example) are certainly creating a burden, a burden that could be ameliorated if they'd only "complain" less. However I assume that you do NOT intend to send the message "don't take up too much of our time" since reporting attacks is a good thing overall for the forum.

Thank you for this feedback.
I've updated the rules post to clarify what 'creating an unnecessary burden for moderators' is so that people are not discouraged from reporting posts. I certainly didn't want it to come off like that.
 
GreyVlad said:
I see that the moderators trust and respect the members of the forum. I appreciate this attitude.
This is an international forum, so sometimes people who communicate here through any translator may simply not understand what their phrase or written question looks offensive to other forum members and why.

You're welcome. Our members do self police fairly well compared to most communities, so they do deserve as limited rules as possible. I'd actually like to have less, but let's see how these ones play out. :thumb:
 
Question regarding the problems that the website has been having.... I am NOT criticizing, I love this site. But if this is some sort of routine maintenance it would be nice to know when it is coming and how long it will last.... or at least make a popup on the top level forum menu page which always seems to be accessible. But it has been very frustrating losing the threads on several active discussions for a couple of days. Thanks to the mods and sysops for al the hard work and I hope we are back up and running for good.
 
raylo32 said:
Question regarding the problems that the website has been having.... I am NOT criticizing, I love this site. But if this is some sort of routine maintenance it would be nice to know when it is coming and how long it will last.... or at least make a popup on the top level forum menu page which always seems to be accessible. But it has been very frustrating losing the threads on several active discussions for a couple of days. Thanks to the mods and sysops for al the hard work and I hope we are back up and running for good.

Hey, wrong topic for this post, but i'll field it since i'm the sysadmin.
The glitch you saw was unexpected and not part of maintenance.. when i am doing maintenance, expectations and timelines are set.

I'm sorry this has been frustrating for you; me too! i began doing all the logistics to switch us to a new hosting provider when this happened last week and plan to execute the move in a couple days so that this doesn't happen again.
 
Thanks for the reply and all your hard work! It got so bad I actually joined the Facebook group. And I wasn't even on Facebook before. I HATE Facebook and I am probably going to let that go at some point.

neptronix said:
Hey, wrong topic for this post, but i'll field it since i'm the sysadmin.
The glitch you saw was unexpected and not part of maintenance.. when i am doing maintenance, expectations and timelines are set.

I'm sorry this has been frustrating for you; me too! i began doing all the logistics to switch us to a new hosting provider when this happened last week and plan to execute the move in a couple days so that this doesn't happen again.
 
As both the person who started endless sphere facebook and also left it because i hate facebook to death, it hurts to know that you even spent a millisecond on that platform to get your DIY EV fix! :mrgreen:

Hang in here, we have some badass improvements to the forum coming this year :)
 
Oh don't get too excited, it's just a server move that will happen in the next couple days. :thumb:
 
Thanks for sorting it out! I work in IT and know how painful unexpected issues can become, especially when people are breathing down your neck asking how much longer is it going to be down...

IDK, I DID NOT PLAN THIS! :bigthumb:
 
Thanks! I have read!
So happy to be here, looking forward to share and learn something here.
Cheers!
 
Good attitude! welcome, and hope you enjoy :)
 
Just wanted to say, thank you. It’s appreciated. The work and time put into this forum. Every stupid question I ask and still it gets answered. Thanks.
 
You're welcome and i'm glad you enjoy this place!
 
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