We can has rules - Menstrual Cups - Divacup, Mooncup, Instead, Lunette, Miacup — LiveJournal

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06 August 2008 @ 10:25 am

We can has rules

Hi all,

A note from your mod.

On a recent post, I've had to give out more warnings for rudeness than I have in my entire time here before put together. So, it looks like it's time for a reminder.

What are the community rules?

I'm so glad you asked.

They say:

No rudeness, no trolling. Comments that criticize others, are judgmental, posted to purposely start drama or are otherwise inflammatory ARE NOT WELCOME.

Believe me, I understand why the quote in that post raised everyone's blood pressure. And because it's not to his face, it might feel okay to call the guy who wrote it rude names. But, well, it isn't. And that's that.

I would like to particularly point out that male-bashing is no exception to the above rule. It is still rude. It is also desperately insensitive to the male-identified members of this community. And lots of us here have very supportive and enthusiastic male friends and partners, who we don't enjoy seeing insulted.

I've also added a new line to this rule to clarify something that has been bothering me for a while. It says:

...This includes being rude about other menstrual options such as disposable pads and tampons. While we are enthusiastic about our cup use here, there is no need to call other choices gross or irresponsible.

I mean it. You are welcome to say that you always found them gross, or that you find them gross now, or any other comments about your own tastes and preferences. But please remember that these really are your own personal tastes and preferences, and not universal.

Calling a choice that millions of women use (and some of them use as a choice, not because they're unaware of other options) 'gross' or 'disgusting' is not respectful, and it's not menstruation- and female-positive. Basically, it's no more acceptable coming from you than it is from people who disparage cup use.

Why were some comments warned and some similar ones not?

It's a judgment call, and subjective. I warned the comments that struck me as objectionable enough that I couldn't just leave them. If you think I missed one that was equally bad, or warned one that should not have been warned, please let me know.

Finally, this place is not your personal army.

As I see it, we are here to help out people who have questions about cup use. We are also here to discuss related issues, both practical and theoretical. We are not here to get enraged because someone is wrong on the internet. Believe me, there are thousands more like him. If you want to send people strongly worded emails explaining the error of their ways you're more than welcome to, but please, no calls-to-arms against individual bloggers here. (Companies and corporations are something else entirely).

I hope that clarifies things. Please feel free to chip in with any questions or comments. You can also always message me if you prefer to talk privately.

Tags: admin

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48 comments —

( 48 comments — Leave a comment )

(Deleted comment)

scien on August 6th, 2008 10:37 am (UTC)

No problem, it had to be done.

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princessy on August 6th, 2008 10:32 am (UTC)

Haha. xkcd reference. Nice.

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scien on August 6th, 2008 10:36 am (UTC)

Hehe :) Yes indeed. Bonus points available to people who spot the other two Internet Memes referenced in the post.

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agenda on August 6th, 2008 11:59 am (UTC) (Expand)

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scien on August 6th, 2008 01:50 pm (UTC) (Expand)

fairgoldberry on August 6th, 2008 02:04 pm (UTC)

I can no longer see any of the comments on the post. Were they all removed or is something wrong with my pageview of it?

If they were all removed, why? I can understand freezing replies and I can understand disallowing further comments, but not all the things said were incendiary. Why not leave the ones that weren't abusive?

As to the new rule, meh. Not that big a deal. It will be quite interesting, though, to see how 'no criticising others' parses out in a community of this size. Because criticism can actually be quite healthy. It is, in fact, what I'm doing right now, and I'd be sad to think that this comment violates the new rule, because it's respectfully written and the questions are sincerely asked.

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asetwoman on August 6th, 2008 02:54 pm (UTC)

Yeah, I commented on that post but now I don't know if I was warned or if what I said was objectionable. I don't see an email in reply to one of my comments to that effect, but I'd like to know if what I said was objectionable.

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scien on August 6th, 2008 03:26 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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asetwoman on August 6th, 2008 03:38 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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scien on August 6th, 2008 06:35 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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scien on August 6th, 2008 03:30 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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i_am_female on August 6th, 2008 03:50 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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fairgoldberry on August 6th, 2008 03:53 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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scien on August 6th, 2008 05:51 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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fairgoldberry on August 6th, 2008 06:03 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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scien on August 6th, 2008 06:34 pm (UTC) (Expand)

chicksupreme on August 6th, 2008 03:39 pm (UTC)

I'm not that active here. I have my cup (just one, the DivaCup) and its worked well the 4 years I've been using it. But I'm enthusiastic about cups. Mine and other folks. So that's why I'm a member.

Rules are great for a community to have, but I don't think that they should put a hold on folks emotions. I also don't feel that this community should be a particularly safe space for male non-cup users (according to that poll done awhile back there are a few male identified cup users who are members, I think.)

I just want to point out this post- http://community.livejournal.com/menstrual_cups/1243290.html
Where most of the comments are outright calling the OP creepy and acting like his desire to buy his daughter a cup is the worse thing ever. So this community only supports its male members when they sit back twittling their thumbs? But it protects a dude on the internet who badmouth something that they have no knowledge of?

That doesn't sit right with me.

Also:
"Calling a choice that millions of women use (and some of them use as a choice, not because they're unaware of other options) 'gross' or 'disgusting' is not respectful, and it's not menstruation- and female-positive. Basically, it's no more acceptable coming from you than it is from people who disparage cup use"

The "feminine" hygeine industry is one of the least female/blood/womb/cunt-positive entities in the universe.
I totally agree that "disgusting" and "gross" are silly and easy ways to disparage "traditional" pad and tampon use, but I think that this community should focus on more proactive critisisms of the industry and how its damn near brainwashed womyn in our society.

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scien on August 6th, 2008 04:05 pm (UTC)

Proactive criticisms are certainly welcome here. In fact, that stuff gets discussed very often. It's the comments that go for sheer grossout about how retch-inducing tampons or pads are that I think are disrespectful. Considering how angry and personally insulted we get here when people talk about cups that way, I don't think it's fair to disparage other people's choices in that kind of language.

Hey, you found the only other time I had to warn people for rudeness :) Are there any other particular comments there that you think I should also have warned? I thought he got a rather positive response overall (if you count, 'most' of the comments are actually of the encouraging and happy variety), and the comments criticising his phrasing were generally polite and constructive.

I think the amount of moderating I do of the conversation here is being overestimated. See my comment above for examples of the comments I considered to be unacceptable enough that I needed to step in. I don't think disallowing comments like that is 'put[ting] a hold on folks emotions', and I don't think the guy being posted about was 'protected' either. There were lots of comments disagreeing with him and calling him milder insults like 'idiot' or 'jerk' that I happily left up, many more and less polite than the responses in the post you link to. Of course, this is all more difficult to discuss when you can't see the comments in question.

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chicksupreme on August 6th, 2008 04:25 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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scien on August 6th, 2008 04:47 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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miriyaayanne on August 6th, 2008 07:14 pm (UTC) (Expand)

elenita83 on August 6th, 2008 04:21 pm (UTC)

Thanks for this. And thanks, especially, about the "new" rule because that bothered me, too.

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scien on August 6th, 2008 04:29 pm (UTC)

Phew! Was beginning to think it was just me.

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neurotic_orchid on August 6th, 2008 05:21 pm (UTC)

I appreciate this. Thank you.

I'd also love to see a rule against blatantly dissing and trying to turn off new members to certain cup brands, particularly with phrases like, "clearly an inferior design" and the like. It's really insulting to those of us who use and adore the cup in question. I have no problem with people giving their opinions about which cups may be best for people of certain ages, virgins, teenagers, mothers, etc. But to make a point to turn users off a particular cup (particularly when one has never "used" said cup) is both insulting and unfair to new members for whom the dissed cup may be the best match.

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fairgoldberry on August 6th, 2008 05:55 pm (UTC)
Trying again, LJ ate my last post...

Why require a rule?

Why not simply respond to those statements with the reasons you chose your own cup? New posters are smart enough to read multiple opinions and form their own.

We are not shrinking violets needing protection from every statement that might require us to state an opinion or defend our positions.

I am all for rules preventing personal attacks on individuals. But we're really getting close to running into "This opinion has enough of the magic 'in my opinion' words to pass muster, but that one didn't say 'Simon Says' so it's not OK..."

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scien on August 6th, 2008 05:59 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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amanita03 on August 6th, 2008 06:35 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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component on August 6th, 2008 07:00 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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dustedrose on August 8th, 2008 12:55 am (UTC) (Expand)

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neurotic_orchid on August 8th, 2008 02:34 am (UTC) (Expand)

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scien on August 8th, 2008 06:54 am (UTC) (Expand)

birthingway on August 6th, 2008 06:12 pm (UTC)

Heh. I love that xkcd. :)

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component on August 6th, 2008 06:52 pm (UTC)

Personally speaking, I love my cup, but I also still love pads. :) I use both now because they both have different advantages. While I'm not eliminating pads entirely, I have definitely reduced the amount I usually use, which is still very good, in my opinion!

Thanks for clarifying the rules in here!

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elenita83 on August 6th, 2008 07:02 pm (UTC)
Some thoughts, not necessarily

I just went back and reread the info and rules page in its entirety (refreshing my mind and all that), and this caught my eye:

Posts should be on topic. This is a support and discussion community about menstrual cups. Posts that are completely offtopic (about how to use LJ, for example) or not discussion-orientated (announcing that you have ordered your cup/that it has arrived/that it's working fine for you) aren't going to help any of the community members with their questions and problems, and therefore may be deleted

At the risk of being nitpicky, I've found the volume of "I just ordered my _______, and am so excited!" posts on the rise recently, and thus wondered where you stand on the issue of them not being "discussion oriented." I'm personally fine with those posts, and hasten to add that the above doesn't say those kinds of posts are prohibited. But if they're officially discouraged, I also haven't seen any evidence of that.

Since we're discussing rules here, I figured I'd bring it up.

Also, perhaps the thing about "comments that criticize others" could be rephrased to "comments with personal attacks?" Because that's how I'm reading the intent behind it (if not the wording), although others may disagree with me.

And, since I'm commenting here, I might as well go tangentially off-topic and say for the record that I appreciate that this community is lightly moderated. Hopefully any clarifications will only contribute to that, because I'd really rather not have to start dealing with chapter-and-verse rules.

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amanita03 on August 6th, 2008 08:00 pm (UTC)
Re: Some thoughts, not necessarily

I agree that the "I just bought my cup" posts have kinda gone up. Also...and I have no idea how this could be solved...there are a lot of, well, unneccessary posts. People ask things that would be answered by just looking at the tags (i.e. What's the difference between a Lunette and a Ladycup?) or are just annoying vague, like "I want a cup. Which one's the best? Thanks." I don't know where I'm going with this or if there's a solution.

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Re: Some thoughts, not necessarily -

scien on August 6th, 2008 08:52 pm (UTC) (Expand)

Re: Some thoughts, not necessarily -

scien on August 6th, 2008 08:51 pm (UTC) (Expand)

Re: Some thoughts, not necessarily -

bomega on August 7th, 2008 03:00 am (UTC) (Expand)

Re: Some thoughts, not necessarily -

misskitty_79 on August 6th, 2008 09:00 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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chamelion2 on August 7th, 2008 01:54 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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elenita83 on August 7th, 2008 03:23 pm (UTC) (Expand)

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losubres on August 10th, 2008 07:22 am (UTC) (Expand)

acrophilia on August 6th, 2008 09:36 pm (UTC)

A big thanks for keeping order. I didn't even realize it or think twice that what I or others were saying was inappropriate.

sorry to have contributed to the chaos.

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genericjanedoe on August 6th, 2008 10:42 pm (UTC)
Just curious/a point of clarification

When it comes to name-calling specifically (which you warned against on the post that sparked this entry) do you feel that a line is crossed when "foul" language is used? I noticed that in your comment on that post, you called the blogger from the article a jerk, but when someone said asshole, or dropped the f-bomb, you commented with a warning.

(I do not mean the parts of comments that include misandry, which we can all agree is a problem...just the parts with bad language that have been deemed name-calling.)

If it's the case that you think that cursing, as opposed to more innocent terms, crosses the line, (which I can respect) then maybe it would be a good idea to outline that specifically, when you write the new rules/info, to get everyone on the same page as to what will and will not be tolerated.. Not that I have any plans of throwing foul language around...Just a thought :)

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scien on August 7th, 2008 07:04 pm (UTC)
Re: Just curious/a point of clarification

It's rudeness rather than obscenity or namecalling, but you're right to pick up on that. I did notice that about my own reactions.

To me it felt like the milder terms were people expressing their annoyance with the guy and the rather patronising post he'd written. But crossing the line into calling him a dickwad or whatever is using language that is intended to be as hurtful and insulting as possible, which is much less acceptable.

My personal interpretation, and as I said in my post I'm open to hearing it if people think other comments were equally bad.

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kitikatz1 on August 7th, 2008 01:14 am (UTC)

Thankyou. I reguards to the father asking about cups and cloth pads. I must agree that the knee jerk reactions were a tad bit excessive. My thought was this was a very informed individual who was looking into any and all products in advance. On the other 2 references, I have no idea.

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cynthsue on August 13th, 2008 12:18 am (UTC)
thanks!

Sweetrush, thanks for the timely reminder and for your work as a moderator.

A couple weeks ago I almost left the community. Although I've never had a conflict with anyone, I was really turned off by some of the posts.

I look forward to a kinder, gentler discourse!

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scien on August 13th, 2008 08:36 am (UTC)
Re: thanks!

No problem, and I'm sorry about the recent kerfuffle with your posts. LJ is a bit of a strange system to learn to use, but it's lovely once you're in.

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