Too Many Rules

[adb22791]

Do you ever come to a point with your community where you look at your rules list and wonder, "how did we get here and why is this thing so huge?".

I think most communities don't just add rules for fun. Every rule probably has a purpose, and every rule was probably precipitated from some problem or behavior that many community members found intolerable. But, as a community grows and its member base changes (as well as the topics discussed), shouldn't the rules also grow and change to adapt to the community?

I'd be interested to hear if others have made large scale changes to their forum rules. Also, if you have, did you have to face repercussions from your members? And, did you find you had to re-implement some rules that you thought were useless after people started abusing them?


Alex

[Scott]

I would agree rules aren't really added just for the fun of it but the idea of making considerable changes is interesting.

I would be quite keen on informing the community early on in the process and hearing their views. I would expect a lot of people wouldn't really understand the need. That said, if you came up with a working draft it might generate some useful discussion.

[FS - Mike]

A forum I used to run we had a verbal agreement with all members. One day, when some new members signed up as a group, an argument started between themselves and another group over past differences and an old post we had on the forum.

After some time, it was resolved but it meant we had to implement contractual rules when people signed up. We held everyone to these, even some of the admins and had to recruit a moderating team. Really, it was time that could have been spent elsewhere which was disappointing.