First off - you all pretty much rock across the board! I come back day after day and there's always a new laugh, a new insight, a new struggle, and a new triumph. I enjoy the time I get to spend sharing life with you guys!
On a completely unrelated note, there has been a lot of discussion among the staff of the board - as well as PMs, chats, etc with many of you guys - regarding the overall level of civility on the board. Please remember that CAA is first and foremost a Christian Community; we expect our members to act in a courteous and respectful manner.
When you sign up for an account, you agree to follow the rules of the board. Among those rules are the following: "At CAA, we require all members, regardless of belief system to abide by our board rules and treat others with respect." We also explicitly forbid flaming in the rules (in the same sentence where we forbid trolling, to give you an idea of how strongly we feel about this.)
CAA strives to be a safe place for Christians who like anime. We recognize that we are not a church, but we are also not a sleazy bar. There are differing levels of courtesy and conversation that should be appropriate for different places. If you are hanging out with your friends behind the gym at school, you will likely use different language and treat each other differently than you would, say, the school principal or the pastor at your church.
In the VAST majority of instances, you guys have shown yourselves to be mature, well-meaning members of the community. Our goal of being a safe place for people to come and discuss anime (and arguably the rest of our lives, too) is only achievable because you guys genuinely wish to keep things friendly and polite; for the most part, we've been content to simply expect this behavior would continue. Lately, however, there has been some escalation that many feel does not adequately reflect the loving behavior of a group of Christ followers. If you want to act like a jerk when you're with your friends, that's fine; but we expect you to behave while you're here.
As a quick reminder, CAA does not allow discussions of Theology, Politics, and a few anime titles. We are frequently asked why theology discussion is not permitted on a Christian board as well as why certain anime are "off limits." You may be familiar with the DND list. ( http://www.christiananime.net/showthread.php?t=4946 ) For the users who have been here for a while, you're probably aware of WHY this is the case. After all, you've seen the evolution of the board with your own eyes. For the newer members, please allow me to explain. These are topics and titles that have caused bitter discussion that was not appropriate for this board. Good members caught up in bitter disagreement were flaming other members.
At first, we closed down these threads and told people to behave themselves. Eventually, the same topic would come up again, with similar results. The infighting was not appropriate behavior for a Christian community. The Do Not Discuss list was created, and we placed titles there which we observed always devolved into fights. The discussion of theology and politics were also eliminated from the board for similar reasons. Our rationale was this: We'd rather ban a topic than a member.
This thread is a continuation of that rationale. When you post on the board, we expect you will treat other members with respect. We expect you will be polite and courteous. We expect you will follow the rules of the board, and interact with each other as loving members of the Body of Christ. We recognize that not everyone here is a Christian, but we *do* expect you to respect our rules and our beliefs, and to treat each other with kindness, compassion, and courtesy.
As always, posts the staff deem to be flames (please see the FAQ/Rules section at the top of the page for a definition of "flaming") will be removed and, if appropriate, strikes may be awarded. We will also continue to post the occasional "be nice: play well with others" types of messages that have shown up from time to time. As a follow up, if we feel your post is over-the-top rude, we may mod-snip and link offending posts back to this thread. Note that it is our intention that this will not happen except in rare circumstances. We are not intending to outlaw humor or sarcasm or teasing between friends. We *are*, however, intending to hold everyone accountable for how they treat each other.
We also request you hold the staff to this same standard. If you ever feel like someone on staff is being rude to you, please PM us and let us know.
Thanks for reading... This was not an easy thread for me to make, so please bear with me if it didn't come across the way it was intended. The purpose of this thread is raising awareness of (and keeping you in the loop regarding) this growing concern among the membership in general and the staff as well. Thanks again, and God Bless!
- Mithrandir and the CAA Staff
Please sticky this.
:hug::hug::hug::hug::hug: