Good morning everyone. Some of you may have noticed probably late yesterday evening but for those who did not: The magazine now has new ownership!
Long story short: The kbin dev finally added the means to transfer ownership on magazines which are deemed 'abandoned' which, unfortunately SquaredCircle technically was (i.e. the owner being AWOL for 1mo+).
Given this meant anyone could apply and gain control of the community within hours, after talking to Tellum and Neon (and having AKittyCat's blessing), I am now the owner of the magazine.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU, THE COMMUNITY?:
Nothing, idk lol.
So with that all out of the way: A question:
Our rules. How things are 'done around here'. The magazine itself.
What are your thoughts?
Is there anything you would wanna see change? Relax any rules? Change anything? Implement anything new? Want everything to stay 100% the same? Either way, sound off below so we know how ya feel and can get a discussion going. For non-kbin users, I'll include a comment below with the full rule list as it currently stands since you folks can't see the sidebar.
For non-kbin users who can't see the sidebar: These are the current rules for the community :
Be Civil
Users are expected to be civil and inclusive towards one another at all times. Remember the person on the other side of the screen.
Hate Speech
Hate speech, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other inflammatory language is prohibited.
Trolling
Posting to bait, incite, or inflame another user is prohibited. Anyone can post any opinion about anything related to wrestling, but provoking readers into emotional responses (about anyone or anything) is prohibited.
Derailing a Thread
Attempting to derail, hijack, or spam a thread is prohibited. If you want to talk about something other than the subject of the original submission, create a new post or find a relevant thread. Excessive thread derailing is subject to a ban.
Meme / Low Effort Image / Screenshot
Memes, superfluous image/link posts, screenshots or images from non-wrestling contexts, and other "mildly interesting" posts are prohibited.
Low Effort Text Post
A text post should have sufficient text in its body to either strengthen the title, create discussion or add more information. Yes/No questions (e.g. "Should Promotion ABC sign Wrestler X?" / "Did John Cena ever wrestle Ric Flair?") are prohibited. Questions with one correct answer ("Let Me Google That For You questions") are prohibited.
Repost
Non-text posts (gifs/streamables, videos, links, tweets, etc.) that have been posted within the last 180 days will be removed. Text posts that have been discussed recently will be removed and redirected to the relevant thread at moderator discretion.
Not Related to Wrestling
All text posts, and submissions must be about wrestling or wrestling personalities. Posts with a tenuous connection to wrestling (e.g. an action performed by a wrestling personality with no relation to wrestling, eating a burger or going to see a movie) may be directed to the Daily Discussion thread. Posts with an extremely loose connection to wrestling (e.g. a photo of McIntyre Family Plumbing as an allusion to Drew McIntyre) will be removed.
Spoilers
You may not post spoilers in the title, or in threads without a [SPOILERS] tag, for 24 hours after an event has aired.
Vague/Editorialized Title
You may not editorialize the title of your submission. Your comments on the content of the submission must be posted as a comment, rather than in the title.
Sexualized Content/"Plot"
Posts and comments focused on sexual content are prohibited. Please use other subreddits for this content.
Split Interview/Article
There can only be one thread about a particular news story or interview/podcast. The thread must link to the primary source whenever available. The post or the link must contain the entirety of the available interview. (e.g. a Seth Rollins interview with Chris Van Vliet will only have one thread linking directly to the interview, rather than articles summarizing parts of the interview.) Interviews and news stories cannot be segmented across multiple posts.
Secondhand Source
There can only be one thread about a particular news story or interview/podcast. The thread must link to the primary source whenever available. Secondhand sources summarizing primary sources are not allowed.
Banned Source
Due not necessarily to the content of their reporting, but to their harassing and doxxing our users, the following news sources, journalists, and content creators are not permitted to be posted on /m/SquaredCircle in any context - including direct links, articles, social media, and reports that cite only those sources.
WrestleVotes
RingSideNews
Brad Shepard
Billi Bhatti and "The Dirty Sheets"
Any post or article citing one of the above as a primary source.
The only issue I have with these rules is that they were originally written for a MUCH larger community in the form of reddit's SC, which had about 830k members, compared to this kbin magazine being around the 1k subscribers mark.
Do these rules maybe stifle interactions that could help us grow? With the much larger userbase, the lower effort content was basically spam, but here, it's actual engagement we might not have otherwise.
The first 6 rules are basically 3 rules, each repeated in a slightly different context and can be cut down and reworded.
Reposts - 5 months and we've had 1 that I've seen. Whether it needs to be a rule? maybe, maybe not, community call.
Not Related to Wrestling - Self explanatory.
Spoilers - Ditto
Vague/Editorialized Title - This one depends on the spirit of the terminology. An editorialized title is a title different than the source for any reason. Sometimes for clarity a title should be editorialized (i.e. "[PWI] Huge Surprise Coming On Wrestling Show" > "[PWI] Huge announcement coming tonight on AEW" and honestly the few times it does happen (even sometimes by me) none of us seem to care about it cause the titles are always clear and make sense. Maybe a re-write of the rule to just state to keep the title clear and sensicle?
Sexualized Content/"Plot" - Probably safe to leave this as is, no reason someone can't start a fediverse wrestlewiththeplot/wrestlewiththejoshi if they want it.
Split Interview/Article & Secondhand Source - Gimme ya'lls opinions on what to do with these.
As far as the Split Interview/Article section goes, It's all really dependent on the discussion around the secondary article IMO. If the article is just a clickbait summary, nah. If the article focuses on a certain topic discussed as part of a bigger interview, there could be merit to discussing it in isolation, but accompanied with a mandatory link to the full interview/thread? Mods discretion really.
I agree. We'll see what the community thinks, but personally, I wouldn't mind nixing the rules from derailing to reposts. In my opinion, we remove them and only re-introduce them if issues arise in the future. But those are just my thoughts, and I hope you all feel comfy enough to chime in with your own.