Rules

[Jos Boersema]

In short: If you are honest and decent, regardless of your opinions, you likely will not need to read this page.

Rules:

1. Style: Do not use common swear words (example: as*h***, bull-s***). Political characterizations do not necessarily count as swear words (example: Fascist.) It is highly valued if you write in a civilized way. If you do not write in a generally friendly or at least neutral manner, you risk your posts being moderated, also - or especially - if you argue in favor of the proposals at market.socialism.nl.

2. Opinion: It is certainly allowed to argue against the proposals provided on market.socialism.nl. This is less appreciated on the Action forums, which are more about the right to assemble and achieve something, than about freedom of speech to have an insightful debate about abstract matters.

3. Law: It goes without saying that no illegal material may be posted here, under Dutch law. That primarily means that you may not threaten to hurt anyone, destroy property, etc. Propaganda for explicit Naziism is forbidden, links to Nazi sites is forbidden, calls for the extermination of defenseless minority populations are forbidden, etc. Although this forum is publicly available, it is not public space.

4. Topic: Please keep to the topic at least most of the time.

5. Language: You can try asking for another language on the Forum itself forum.

6. Administration: It must not be assumed the administration is available to read and check all postings.

7. Identities: Only one identity may be used by one person.

8. Competition: It is welcomed to advertise newly created forums and places about Market Socialism.

9. Use: It is conceivable that what you write here may be quoted somewhere else, to illustrate an argument. If you wish to disallow this, than you could mark your posting or profile as such.

10. Enforcement: Hopefully it will be enough for the administration to ask if people improve their posting if it is required. Improper postings may be moved to the in the bin forum, as a collection of precedents and to not hamper freedom of speech too much by the forum rules. The bin can be used to proceed a discussion as normal, or be used to communicate another venue. The bin postings will have a shorter lifespan as the bin might be emptied from old postings sooner then all other forums.

These rules can change, affecting pre-existing material, due to the unpredictable nature of this forum.

[Jos Boersema]

Tips:

1. It can prevent frustration to safe a copy of your writing on your computer before submitting it to the forum, in case the posting somehow fails on the forum. For example in a typical browser: right-click, select-all, right-click, copy.

2. If you like to test the forum functionality, you may do so in the In the bin forum, or to be purged forum.

3. If you like some advice on style, you may consider these style rules, which seem to all boil down to the same point: being of friendly behavior, regardless of what one is confronted with.

• When discussing common issues in public, consider the person you reply to is ideally only a fraction of the people who (should) read your posting. The person you reply to is - as it where - a stage prop, as you should be to the other person, for both to use as an opportunity to show their argument to the general public. There is hence no reason to be upset when the other person does not change their mind thanks to your arguments or evidence pointed to, or if the other person resorts to less then admirable writing styles.
  
• People who write on forums almost never change their minds, and this may even be a general rule with people. The most chances exist with people who are merely reading the postings, some of which might be on the fence looking for something good to belief in. Try to make your postings look good for those people, both in content and in style, if you are dealing with characters who write in less then admirable styles. The audience one should aspire to have favors decent, even friendly responses, to the most bitter tirades laced with personality attacks. The one who resorts to bad tactics is the one without a meaningful argument to do the job.
  
• Every time you use an aggression in your posting, you loose a decency point. It seems that many - perhaps most - people in the public do not respond to logic very well, or just aren't interested in thinking deeply about economics or the State. Regardless of intelligence, most all people react strongly to social stimulus. Most people are keenly attuned to detect all forms of social behavior and their tricky nuances. It is therefore critical to always be on best behavior, so that people who have not much of an idea about what is being discussed, or who are faking their understanding in order to remain socially acceptable, are at least emotionally comfortable with the side of 'Market Socialism.'
  
• People who do like to engage in some thinking effort also tend to shy away from meanly delivered arguments, or endless petty squables, not only because it is violent and therefore hopeless and because one should not want to associate with such a group, but also because it usually contains little of interest.
  
• Some common pitfalls may include: writing in all capital letters (which is often considered as being a form of SHOUTING and therefore rude); assuming the readers already know what someone is writing about or the meaning of jargon words and abbreviations; or writing too long and repetitively as seems to be done in this very posting.