the recent discussion of the violence in Gaza certainly hasn't seemed very productive.
The problem is when you forbid exactly one side of the argument. Forum rules that allow criticism of a Israeli attack on Gaza but that don't provide the ability to defend it, can lead to trouble when some people find their views unfairly censored.
On the other hand I think the incident that lead to us having a rule against advocation of violence is not covered in the provision of "personally".
"Violent crime, abuse, or fraud", then.
Though I'd note that when you're discussing a war or violent political conflict, supporting any acts of any side can be construed as supporting violence, so this doesn't look too politically slanted. It bars advocacy of aggressive war, terrorism, or violent revolution, but given that this isn't a politics board trafficking in expansionist nationalism or exotic revolutionary ideologies, and that one of the fastest ways to mindkill someone is to advocate physically killing them or their buddies, I'm okay wi...
Since the episode with Eugine_Nier, I have received three private messages from different people asking me to investigate various cases of suspected mass downvoting. And to be quite honest, I don't want to deal with this. Eugine's case was relatively clear-cut, since he had engaged in systematic downvoting of a massive scale, but the new situations are a lot fuzzier and I'm not sure of what exactly the rules should be (what counts as a permitted use of the downvote system and what doesn't?).
At least one person has also privately contacted me and offered to carry out moderator duties if I don't want them, but even if I told them yes (on what basis? why them and not someone else?), I don't know what kind of policy I should tell them to enforce. I only happened to be appointed a moderator because I was in the list of top 10 posters at a particular time, and I don't feel like I should have any particular authority to make the rules. Nor do I feel like I have any good idea of what the rules should be, or who would be the right person to enforce them.
In any case, I don't want to be doing this job, nor do I particularly feel like being responsible for figuring out who should, or how, or what the heck. I've already started visiting LW less often because I dread having new investigation requests to deal with. So if you folks could be so kind as to figure it out without my involvement? If there's a clear consensus that someone in particular should deal with this, I can give them mod powers, or something.