Molotov wrote:How well has your policy so far, served you? If I'm honest, I think moderation here has been a complete joke. IdioC did a reasonable job, so far as I can recall. He took things seriously, anyway.
Honestly? I think our policies have served us quite well. We've tended to take a reactive, rather than proactive stance, but that's not exactly been a bad thing - I feel there is something of an understanding hence between the playerbase and the moderator team along the lines of 'playerbase, don't do anything extremely stupid. 'k?'. This doesn't work so well at times in-game, but in terms of the OOC boards particularly, it seems to work - sure, debates get heated and forthright, but I'd rather have them heated and forthright than damp and flaccid.
IdioC's moderation was essentially stopping people descending into flurries ad-hominem attacks. We haven't exactly abandoned that policy now.
Molotov wrote:of being quite permissive in this regard
Has this been a good thing, generally? Has it attracted more players to the game?
Who can say, really? I think it's probably attracted more people to the forums, though.
Molotov wrote:and I don't see the privilege being abused systematically.
Not really the point. I don't think it makes Particracy look appealing, and people might judge a game its players, when certain rather nasty words (George) are used in threads directly pertaining to the game. We aren't children, quite right, that being the case we ought to require players to be mature. No swearing outside of the Off-Topic board. Let's take golf as our exemplar, better yet, snooker.
If a player can't look past the fact there are a few swear words in the post towards the content of the post, then there is something severely wrong there, and honestly, I don't want to encourage such Sancta-like types to join the game. George using 'fuck' a fair bit isn't going to scare anyone in their right minds off, frankly.
Also, I'd rather have to dispute this link you're making between swearing and maturity. People swear. They do it quietly as kids, they do it with friends as teens, and they do it everywhere where they're not wearing a white collar as adults. Swearing isn't a big deal in the slightest; it's just essentially a way to punctuate speech, or to add emphasis, etc. I hardly think that the fact people are swearing a fair bit makes them less mature.