User Guidelines

User Guidelines

1) Operate with ethically sound principles.

  • Be honest and truthful.
  • Respect others life, liberty and property.
  •  Respect others' copyrights, intellectual property and contracts, per legal standards. Limit fair-use posting of copyright material to the lesser of four paragraphs or a quarter of the writing.
  • Work to promote a peaceful, freedom loving, compassionate society.
  • Posts should not promote negativity in collectivist mindsets that view humans as members of groups rather than individuals. Such forms of collectivism include sexism, racism, antisemitism; they will not be tolerated here.
  • Operate within established morally sound laws.

2) Maintain good etiquette by treating other people with respect.

  • No insulting, antagonizing or personally attacking other users.
  • No posting of anyone's personal contact information or members personal details.
  • Ad hominem attacks on any individual or groups is strongly discouraged, use proper names.
  • Be respectful of others' religion or lack there of.
  • See the "Being respectful" section below for fine point details.

3) Support the Cause of Liberty.

  • No promoting agendas that counter spreading the ideas of freedom.
  • Non-functional criticism of site supported candidates or politicians is outside the scope the site’s purpose.
  • No content that is overly distracting and disruptive, such as topics that focus on gratuitous violence or strong sexual material.

4) Be orderly with the content you share.

  • Post topic in the best fit forum when starting new thread topics.
  • Topic titles should be descriptive and not use unverified information, vulgar language or otherwise be sensationalist.
  • Posts should respect the intent and desires of the Topic Starter.
  • Controversial informational claims should include a verifiable source of the information or note that the information is "unverified".

5) Be courteous and respectful of readers.

  • No rude, disruptive or disorderly behavior, including excessive low value posting.
  • The regular use of vulgarity should be avoided and not be gratuitous.
  • No posting of images that are graphically offensive, grotesque, sickly, have distorted human images or the like, including within the use of avatars. If any such material is functionally necessary in pursuant to our Mission Statement only links should be used, with warnings messages next to the link.

6) The promotion of businesses, other sites, fundraising efforts and related promotional content are necessarily limited to maintain the integrity of the site.

  • All promotions must be in-line with the sites Promotion Policy and support the sites Code of Ethics.
  • All users promoting anything they have an interest in must disclose this interest.
  • No efforts intended to permanently divert the community to other sites.
  • No efforts to mass collect member information by having people sign up for lists or other personal pages.
  • Personal websites can only be linked to when the link contains original content.
  • No fundraisers from unvetted individuals.
  • Any venture that requires a level of trust may be limited if that trust has not been established.
  • Acceptable promotions can have limited posting volume as determined compatible by the Site Staff. For more details see our Promotions Policies.

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Effective Organization with Dissent:

Making advancements in the promotion of liberty in an atmosphere of differing oppinions can be a very complex matter.  The best paths forward will often only be revealed with an open discussion from many conflicting ideas, thoughts and opinions. This independent, critical thinking is the lifeblood of our community. At some points however, individuals will come to a crossroads with the opportunity to take action on specific project, idea or campaign, which they must evaluate and decide on a path. In no case will two members ever agree on the same course of action as there will never be a perfect solution with the advantages and flaws of any target path being subjective and based on one’s personal analysis.

Therefore A Call to Paul has the following objectives:

  • Provide a site where all pro-liberty opinions are welcome. There will always be room for criticism, differing thoughts and ideas.
  • Provide a means where supporters of a particular project, candidate, or idea can have a place to effectively organize without having to deal with constant disruptions that can make the signal-to-noise ratio low and thus make the ability to organize ineffective.
  • Do not foster any sub-environments that leave no room for dissent.
  • Maintain a high level of intellectual discourse by not having debates devolve to the lowest common denominator but rather appeal to who can construct the best arguments.
  • Be patient with newcomers and help guide them toward understanding liberty ideas.

Functional Debate Principles

The site has established debate principles To help achieve productive discourse, A Call to Paul asks you to keep in mind these debate principles:

 

  • Follow the site's Usage Guidelines, taking particular care not to use ad hominem attacks and insults against others. This means don't say "You are a [some derogatory term]"
  • Debate only in proper context; start a new thread if necessary.  Hijacking threads is highly frowned upon.
  • Present your position in an intellectual manner, provide reasoned supporting details.
  • Maintain a respectful disposition.
  • Do not claim something to be true/false without presenting proof.
  • Work to get along with other participants, ask clarifying questions before casting negative assumptions.
  • Use extreme care to not misrepresent what you are arguing against. Ask clarifying questions before casting potentially inflammatory misrepresentation.
  • Remember to be respectful.  There is always room for debate on any issue, however criticism should not be inflammatory, off-topic or lacking in substance

Manage your response to repeating contentious issues

Some issues of debate can become very contentious with two strongly opposing views. While it is of great value to have these opposing views hashed out, it is equally problematic for these debates to get carried over to many threads where the same debate points get rehashed over and over.

In such cases members will be asked to limit the debate or present their primary argument on the topic in one thread or a personal blog post. That thread can then be referenced elsewhere as needed, or a link can be put in one's signature for added exposure.

The Art of Being Respectful

Maintaining a proper decorum is essential for any group, and is critically important for online political forums, being respectful of others is an important part of that and required by the Site Usage Guidelines. Here are some examples of being respectful vs. not:

General Discourse:

  • "You're an idiot for thinking that." -- not respectful since you statement is based on an insult.
  • "Here are the problems with your line of thinking..." -- respectful, you don't have to agree and can present logical counter-arguments.
  • "Troll" -- calling other members a troll is not respectful and implies you know the intent of the member.

Religious context:

  • "God does not exist" -- not respectful since you are declaring others' religious doctrine wrong without a proof.
  • "I disagree with your beliefs" -- respectful, you don't have to agree, but you can still be amicable about it.
  • "Your church services are stupid" -- not respectful, you can certainly think they don't have value, or think they are not at all of interest to you, but they may be important to others and there's no point in demonizing them - no public policy will change.

Dealing with Conflict
If you take issue with another member:

Do:

  • Debate them on the issues. By all means, attack bad ideas and questionable information.
  • Report the user to the staff if they are breaking guidelines or being overly disruptive
  • If a user keeps rehashing the same debate, call for a singular debate thread on the issues.

Don't:

  • Call other members names such as idiot, troll, liberal (unless self-labeled) or other names.
  • Antagonize other members by calling them out in thread titles.
  • Hunt down random posts by a user to apply negative reputation points.
  • Use PM's or rep messages as a backhanded way to break the guidelines.
  • Attempt to rally a negative campaign against the member.

Policies on Multiple Accounts

Individuals are nominally allowed one account. In certain exceptions individuals may have a legitimate value in having a second account that is mutually beneficial to our Mission Statement. Cases include:

  • A site member obtains employment within a political campaign, political office or political group and it would be problematic for them to have their current account mixed with their new employment. (Note: this is effectively a substitute to a disclaimer of 'my views do not represent my employer.')
  • You can legally represent a business or political campaign and wish to have an account for the sole purpose of providing such representation. Note: Promotions Policies still apply.
  • Other cases reviewed and approved by the site staff on an individual basis.

If you are interested in a second account please contact the site staff and explain the situation.
 

Having your previous account banned is not a valid reason for an additional account.

In no cases should anyone who is controlling two or more accounts:

  • Violate any of the Usage Guidelines.
  • Use both accounts to cross support each other.
  • Have both accounts post in the same thread.

If you suspect another member of having a second account please privately contact the site staff and explain the situation.

About the author

"Do not neglect your music, it will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you."  Thomas Jefferson