Reflections on a dispute resolution system

[Larry Sanger]

Going on with my own brainstorming...

( 18 ) Craft a brilliant brief explanation of the whole dispute resolution system.  Possible question to focus the discussion: "How does CZ handle conflict?"

(19) As a way to avoid long, drawn-out arguments about piddling points, come up with some fair way of identifying "disputes that don't matter," and find a way to end them.  For example, remove the text; start a subpage; take a vote; select a third party to make a fair, preferably compromise, decision.

(20) Revive and, in the appropriate place in our dispute resolution scheme, set up the idea of compromise as an ideal.

(21) More carefully enumerate the powers of editors and when they can be exercised.

(22) Create a scheme whereby constables, or perhaps others, can say that two different people (who have been fighting excessively and pointlessly) may not work on "each other's" articles for a period of time.  Call it a required cooling-off period.

(23) Constables, observing a protracted dispute over some relatively narrow question, when an editor is on hand, may formally request the editor to make a decision on the dispute.  Constables may then require all debate on that question to end, subject only to an independent appeal.

Still going down the list...

[Larry Sanger]

Joe, that helps, but you still didn't answer my question, "What is a rule?"  Do you mean, perhaps, that a rule is something that can be officially acted on, or used in justification of an official action?

Whether you answer the above question, I'll answer in more detail later.  For now I just wanted to make an aside.

If someone has an issue with the application of a rule, it should be appealed to arbitration. 

"Arbitration" may be the wrong model, however, in many cases.  Arbitration is a way to avoid civil suits; as I understand it (and I have a feeling someone will correct me if I am wrong), it means foregoing the complex and expensive apparatus of the civil court system, and a jury trial, in favor of a non-governmental arbitrator whom the parties have agreed will make a binding decision.  However that is, the word "arbitration" implies a dispute that is "civil" rather than "criminal."  Criminals do not have the option of "arbitration" with the state, when the state finds that they break laws.  So, to apply the word "arbitration" to a process of solving a dispute between the state and the lawbreaker is to imply that (1) the state and the lawbreaker are equals in authority, and (2) the state is merely a party to a "private" dispute, and does not actually represent the public.

More later

[Larry Sanger]

(24) One possibly handy rule for arbitrators (here the word makes sense), or mediators, who are trying to reach peace between warring parties, is that they should require a word-limited position summary.  The practice of making the summary, with an arbitrator or mediator making a decision, would help everyone get the sense of what precisely the debate was about (sometimes, you don't know until it's over), and that it's really over now.

(25) In the interest of avoiding "escalating acrimony" in disputes, such as one Chris was just pointing out, I think a constable or the Editor-in-Chief ought to be able to identify a specific narrow question at the core of a dispute, and require that that question be decided (with the input, of course, of the disputants) by some specific group.  When this happens, further discussion of the question on the talk page becomes verboten.  In this way, we sit down and "once and for all" to decide difficult questions, with the presumption that the issue will be decided fairly and expertly.

(26) What happens when a dispute is not about some identifiable, specific, narrow question, but a whole series of questions that really come down to something rather vague?  Vague questions like "Whose position on this subject shall prevail?" or "Whose view shall receive most space or emphasis?" or "Does this topic, or this theory, really have any scientific or academic credibility?" etc.  I think this sort of question often ends up being our biggest trouble.  Again, as soon as possible, the source of the dispute should be carefully identified by a mediator, then the question should be addressed explicitly and a decision made (somehow) and issued.

(27) Unless this is adequately covered in some other way, set up an "ombuds service" for personal conflicts with those in authority (including, of course, the Editor in Chief).  This should be independent of the constabulary and others...

( 28 ) Adopt the Neutrality Notes scheme.

(29) The ombuds service might receive (without comment) complaints about a given person who becomes the source of too much interpersonal conflict.  If there are too many complaints (or something), a group meets to discuss the case, and has the power to remove the person on grounds of "irreconcilable differences with the community at large" (or something like that).  Just...if we do this, don't let this turn into a kangaroo court...

Remember please, these are just raw ideas, thrown out into the world to sink or swim.  I don't propose that we do all these things, and some of these I might myself be deeply opposed to, upon careful consideration...

[Larry Sanger]

(30) The revised editor rules should clarify specifically when editors can and should make decisions that overrule authors--and when they cannot.  They should be clear exactly how editors issue decisions, so that everyone knows when a decision has been made, and when a decision hasn't been made.  The tools for issuing a decision, like other dispute resolution tools, should be readily available and as easy to use as possible.  We don't want editors to just say, "I've decided X, and that ought to be good enough, because I can't be bothered with your complicated, arcane system."

Still in progress (!).

[Joe Quick]

Joe, that helps, but you still didn't answer my question, "What is a rule?"  Do you mean, perhaps, that a rule is something that can be officially acted on, or used in justification of an official action?

Whether you answer the above question, I'll answer in more detail later.  For now I just wanted to make an aside.

A rule is an official code that people must follow and is associated with procedures for responding to infractions.  A community charter is what binds a diverse community together and gives rise to norms and rules.

If someone has an issue with the application of a rule, it should be appealed to arbitration. 

"Arbitration" may be the wrong model, however, in many cases.  Arbitration is a way to avoid civil suits; as I understand it (and I have a feeling someone will correct me if I am wrong), it means foregoing the complex and expensive apparatus of the civil court system, and a jury trial, in favor of a non-governmental arbitrator whom the parties have agreed will make a binding decision.  However that is, the word "arbitration" implies a dispute that is "civil" rather than "criminal."  Criminals do not have the option of "arbitration" with the state, when the state finds that they break laws.  So, to apply the word "arbitration" to a process of solving a dispute between the state and the lawbreaker is to imply that (1) the state and the lawbreaker are equals in authority, and (2) the state is merely a party to a "private" dispute, and does not actually represent the public.

You're right.  I used the word "arbitration" imprecisely.

[Brian P Long]

Just some comments on Brian's suggestions:

-A clear decision what CZ documents are and are not "rules"

-A clarification whether proposals voted on by the Editorial Council are or are not "rules"

-A clarification whether a statement by the Editor in Chief constitutes a "rule"

-A template (or something similar) on each CZ page that says either "This is enforceable policy," or "This is just the way we usually do things (convention)."

Wikipedia instigated this "rules/guidelines" distinction after I left.  I always found it confusing, really a misunderstanding of the nature of rules or law.  I submit that there is no clear and useful distinction between rules and guidelines.  Speaking in very broad terms, sometimes the strictest laws are, for reasons that are difficult to catalog systematically, not enforced.  Sometimes violations of seemingly the most piddling of etiquette guidelines can be harshly enforced after causing a complete and total uproar.  Attempting to declare, in advance, which statements of policy should be taken as Holy Writ and which are "merely guidelines" merely muddies the waters.  The fact of the matter is that any community has a panoply of laws, rules, guidelines, traditions, habits, and so forth.  The varieties of "enforcement" are great and how they are "enforced" is difficult to predict.  For example, one editor might cite [[CZ:Article Mechanics]] in order to reduce the number of headers in an article.  Is he enforcing a rule or a guideline?  Does it matter what we call it?

I have to admit that I'm frankly sort of baffled by this comment. Furthermore, you have very quickly made a number of distinctions and strong claims, and I think it would be counterproductive for me to reply to them all. (I don't want to start up long discussions ancillary to the current project.)

To be brief, yes, I think it does matter what we call things. I remember very acutely the sensation of utter disorientation when I first got involved at CZ. One of the first things that I can remember happening to me was being descended upon by Richard Jensen because I had titled some article "History of X" instead of "X, History of." I combed the documentation trying to figure out just what in the heck this guy was after me about. I eventually figured out that Richard was perfectly happy to cite policies that weren't really codified, and that it wasn't such a big deal anyway.

If we had a central location listing the Citizendium rules, I think the acclimatization process would be much easier for newcomers. People understand what "rules" are, particularly when you set them in opposition to "guidelines." At one level, you're right to emphasize that rules are just words, and that they gain meaning by their broader context in social practice. However, people have a pretty clear set of expectations when you tell them that X, Y, and Z are rules, and A, B, and C are just guidelines. In trying to clear up our current governance issues, we should try to set up systems that are easy to understand and use, not attempt to reinvent the wheel.

Many communities, throughout history and across the world, have gotten along perfectly well without clearly codified "rules" and "guidelines." I am by no means trying to dispute that. We're an online community, though, which means we have to do everything with very little social context and no nonverbal help. If Citizendium was located in an office or at a college, it would have been very easy for me to pick up on the fact that Richard's peculiarities were peculiarities, and not shared by other contributors to the project.

"Rules" and "guidelines" may not get at all of the divisions that we want to communicate. But it is easily comprehensible, particularly for newcomers. We should try to make the transition as easy as possible for them.

-Brian

[Brian P Long]

But isn't that kind of platitudinous?  I get the sense that you want to say something more specific than this, but I can't read your mind...

Yes, actually, I am but the details do not belong here.  Suffice it to say that I think at least some of the most regrettable departures from the CZ community have occurred as a result of "badgering" by people in positions of authority over issues that should require space for dissent.  If someone leaves because that person feels that his or her interpretation of a declaration (not rule) is not allowed or not respected by the powers that be, then something went very wrong.

I suspect that the Neutrality Policy is probably one of those things that people involved in the project are never going to agree perfectly about. Humanities and science & engineering folks are likely to have very different feelings about truth and neutrality. Respect for dissent means that, as much as possible, we should avoid engaging in protracted discussions of the philosophical underpinnings of the Fundamental Policies/eventual Charter. When something comes up, we should say, "This is the way we do neutrality," (e.g.) and then show them the practical steps we take when trying to write an article neutrally. If they find the practice of Neutrality Policy implementation abhorrent, then Citizendium is clearly not the project for them. I imagine, though, that most people will find the implementation reasonably congruent with their feelings on neutrality and fairness. (And lord knows, if they want a deep discussion of neutrality, they can find a bunch of them here on the forums.)

We should try to limit the amount of heated discussion about these things, though. The goal, above all, should be to get people to do the right thing, and not to argue them down.

And then, of course, there is the fact that we require people to "agree with, or endorse," our Statement of Fundamental Policies (and later, our Charter).  Is your notion of dissent consistent with requiring a claim to agree with our fundamental policies?

I think the enforcement of our fundamental policies should allow room for dissent.  They are not absolutely clear cut or free of ambiguities and should not (in my opinion) be regarded as rules in and of themselves. 

I agree with Joe on this.

-Brian

[Brian P Long]

It is past my bedtime, but I had one more thought.

Just some comments on Brian's suggestions:

-A clear decision what CZ documents are and are not "rules"

-A clarification whether proposals voted on by the Editorial Council are or are not "rules"

-A clarification whether a statement by the Editor in Chief constitutes a "rule"

-A template (or something similar) on each CZ page that says either "This is enforceable policy," or "This is just the way we usually do things (convention)."

Wikipedia instigated this "rules/guidelines" distinction after I left.  I always found it confusing, really a misunderstanding of the nature of rules or law.  I submit that there is no clear and useful distinction between rules and guidelines.  Speaking in very broad terms, sometimes the strictest laws are, for reasons that are difficult to catalog systematically, not enforced.  Sometimes violations of seemingly the most piddling of etiquette guidelines can be harshly enforced after causing a complete and total uproar.  Attempting to declare, in advance, which statements of policy should be taken as Holy Writ and which are "merely guidelines" merely muddies the waters.  The fact of the matter is that any community has a panoply of laws, rules, guidelines, traditions, habits, and so forth.  The varieties of "enforcement" are great and how they are "enforced" is difficult to predict.  For example, one editor might cite [[CZ:Article Mechanics]] in order to reduce the number of headers in an article.  Is he enforcing a rule or a guideline?  Does it matter what we call it?

Larry, perhaps the situation is that we are talking past each other. "Rules" and "guidelines" seem to be most applicable when talking about behavioral, constabulary-related types of things. The practices that come in to play when writing an article, though, are usually more informal-- somewhere between rules and guidelines. Some people on a wiki are problematic because they manage to steer clear of obviously bad behavior.

Perhaps it might be useful to come up with a list of "editorial practices" that Citizens should attempt to uphold. Something codified-- and reasonably clear, which I see as essential-- but something which is also enforceable as well. Everyone makes mistakes, and so two or three lapses in a long, productive Citizendium career might not be a big deal, but five or six in a couple of weeks would be.

If authors had a way of anonymously reporting/logging editorial practice violations, down the road, this might serve as a way for the constabulary to establish patterns of misbehavior. I realize I'm repeating some of what you've said earlier; it's late.

-Brian

[Larry Sanger]

With apologies to those with little patience for philosophizing...

Of course we should recognize and make room for dissent.  This is a routine part of any healthy democracy.  The suggestion, however, is that we have not made room for dissent, somehow, in the past, and this has led to the departure of some people.  I find this quite vague, and I am not at all convinced that anyone has left because we have actually been improperly intolerant of dissent--we'd have to look at individual cases.

Joe says, "Now people certainly do interpret rules differently.  If we find that we have people coming to very different conclusions about what the rules say, then we must think about how to state them more clearly."  Yes, insofar as the policies can be stated more clearly, I think that's right.  However, it can't be helped if people won't read or come to grip with the policies.  For CZ's policies just as in more serious "meatspace" law, there are bound to be some issues that cannot be understood properly without rather serious study--not just skimming or casual reading.  If we're building a serious encyclopedia, I don't think that we should be surprised if this is the case.

Joe also says, "If people actually disagree that something should be a rule, then we should have a conversation about it.  The system you're thinking through here seems to deal with such situations."  Yes, definitely--I think that's what an appeals system, together with the existing Editorial Council, would accomplish.  There can't be a body of "case law" if there isn't anyone actually making and recording official decisions.

Joe again: "However, differing interpretations must be recognized in a very different way for things that are not explicitly rules.  In the case of things like a constitution or charter, rules are made and argued based on interpretations of declarations that are not by their own right rules.  Dissent must be recognized on issues that have to do with such declarations."  Separately, Joe says, "In the U.S., the constitution is perceived to have the force of law (and maybe it does, I'm not a legal expert) but the way I see the broader concept of a constitution, it is only really enacted through the creation of laws set down by legislation."

Maybe I'm just not understanding, but I've never encountered a legal thinker who draws the distinction you do here (and I've taught philosophy of law before).  Yes, there is certainly an important distinction between constitutional law and statute law, but they are both law, and of course you've heard the constitution called the highest law in the land.  The actual text of the constitution is of course regarded as law.  And so of course it has "the force of law."  This means that the text of the constitution is invoked by Supreme Court justices when they hand down their decisions; it can be used as the grounds on which very specific cases are decided.  Of course, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

Maybe your point is that Constitutions and Charters are (necessarily!) vague, and require a lot more interpretation, and hence are open to a lot more debate and, of course, dissent.  Indeed, the minority opinion issued by a court is a "dissenting opinion."  This is true.  But when applied to many cases, the Constitution is clear, and sometimes the combination of the text of the Constitution and constitutional case law is clear (which is one reason why the Supreme Court allows many lower court decisions to stand without comment).  And sometimes, seemingly very explicit statutes are thrown out by the courts on review precisely because they are vague.  Again, I suspect I'm just rehearsing things you already know very well.

So, while I agree that constitutional matters are in general more open to fundamental disagreement than are narrow statutory matters, I don't agree that there is a clear distinction between constitutional law and statute law, or between the charter and mere rules, that says one should be able to dissent from the charter and not from the rules, or that rules can be applied but the charter cannot.  I think the same sorts of issues about application, punishment, and dissent can arise in both cases.

I agree mostly with this: "The bottom line with regard to rules vs. not rules is that I see the Charter as a foundation for rules that are based upon it and enact it.  People must abide by rules even if they don't agree with them, but if they disagree, they must base their reasons on the Charter.  Much more room for interpretation of the Charter should be allowed than for rules based on it."  Slightly more precisely, I would say that people can also disagree on moral grounds--on brand new grounds--but not grounds that contradict the Charter.

Joe also said: "A rule is an official code that people must follow and is associated with procedures for responding to infractions."  I think you can guess now what I will say about this.  Fundamental, constitutional principles are also "official codes that people must follow," and frequently they are "associated with procedures for responding to infractions."  Just think of the U.S. constitution's rules about impeachment.  But even something abstract-sounding, like the first or fourth amendments, give rise to a panoply of rules--so those amendments are deeply "associated with procedures for responding to infractions."

You can also guess how I will respond to this: "I think the enforcement of our fundamental policies should allow room for dissent.  They are not absolutely clear cut or free of ambiguities and should not (in my opinion) be regarded as rules in and of themselves."  "Rules" or statute law is not entirely free of ambiguity--indeed no law is.  This is one of the basic lessons of jurisprudence.  This doesn't mean that "anything goes" when it comes to law, but it does mean that the boundaries of the law are fuzzy, not sharp.

Besides, I am not convinced that the existence of ambiguity in the written law is the best reason to permit dissent.  I think the law itself can be clearly wrong.  That's why.

Maybe it will help if I merely declare that the Editor-in-Chief will not be the court of final appeal when it comes to deciding whether something is constitutional or not.  When we have a proper appeals body in place, and when people leave in a huff over some issue of constitutional interpretation, then they will be disagreeing not with the E-i-C but with that body.  Sound good to you?

[Joe Quick]

You bring up the first and fourth amendments as examples of ambiguous laws and note that they "give rise to a panoply of rules".  They are exactly the types of declarations of rights that I have in mind here. 

The right to free speech is undeniably encoded in the charter of the United States.  We are granted it and held to it because it is in the constitution.  But what the **** is free speech, anyway?  How free?  When does another law trump my right to free speech?

And what the **** is neutrality?  We've all pledged to uphold it at Citizendium.  Larry, you've referred many people back to the neutrality policy asking them to try to understand it more clearly, but many have come back believing that they do understand it only to have you tell them to go back and look again.  That's because they (the more honest ones at least) actually do understand it but not in the way that you would like them to. 

Neutrality is accepted (necessarily so) by all members of the community, but it can be understood in very different ways.  It can nevertheless serve as a moral basis for a host of rules governing different topics that interpret it in order to set down a code for behavior and article policy.  I think it is very important that we explicitly recognize the right of our judicial body to interpret our fundamental policies in their evaluation of the formulation and application of more specific rules.  By doing so, we will allow them to establish precedents that will inform other decisions.

[Joe Quick]

I say that fundamental principles should not be regarded as rules in and of themselves.  This is not because I don't think they carry the weight of law.  It is because they are more appropriately viewed as foundations for more specific rules.

What does it mean when someone disobeys the neutrality policy?  Well, it could mean all sorts of things and if we aren't specific, then the person infringing on the policy can simply assert a different reading of the principle and keep causing trouble.

What if someone breaks a rule based on that same policy?  If the rule is simple and clear, then there is no question that the person has committed an infraction.  He can be disciplined and the issue will be resolved unless he continues to break rules, in which case more severe disciplinary action may be taken.  A person cannot argue with a such a specific rule except to say that the rule goes against the founding principles (in which case the judiciary can make a decision) or that the rule was unjustly applied (in which case, the judiciary is also consulted).  There is far less room for arguing endlessy over a principle that people do not understand in the same way.

[Larry Sanger]

Wikipedia instigated this "rules/guidelines" distinction after I left.  I always found it confusing, really a misunderstanding of the nature of rules or law.  I submit that there is no clear and useful distinction between rules and guidelines.  Speaking in very broad terms, sometimes the strictest laws are, for reasons that are difficult to catalog systematically, not enforced.  Sometimes violations of seemingly the most piddling of etiquette guidelines can be harshly enforced after causing a complete and total uproar.  Attempting to declare, in advance, which statements of policy should be taken as Holy Writ and which are "merely guidelines" merely muddies the waters.  The fact of the matter is that any community has a panoply of laws, rules, guidelines, traditions, habits, and so forth.  The varieties of "enforcement" are great and how they are "enforced" is difficult to predict.  For example, one editor might cite [[CZ:Article Mechanics]] in order to reduce the number of headers in an article.  Is he enforcing a rule or a guideline?  Does it matter what we call it?

I have to admit that I'm frankly sort of baffled by this comment. Furthermore, you have very quickly made a number of distinctions and strong claims, and I think it would be counterproductive for me to reply to them all. (I don't want to start up long discussions ancillary to the current project.)

To be brief, yes, I think it does matter what we call things.

(First, I wasn't making any distinctions; in fact, I was saying that the commonsense distinctions between these things are not at all clear, and they might not have any purchase at all, upon examination.)

I agree.  That's why I wouldn't make the Wikipedian distinction between "rules" and "guidelines" official here on CZ: it matters that we use words precisely.  I continue not to understand the functional distinction, in your mind, between rules and guidelines.  Maybe it will help to put it this way: what work do the concepts of rules and guidelines do, in your mind?

The example you give, re Richard Jensen, indicates that it would have been helpful to you if his odd tendency to use commas in article titles, when hardly anybody else was doing so, should have been labelled as a "guideline" and not a "rule."  Is that it?  And then, in that case, you could have said, "No, Richard, that's not a rule, it's just a guideline, and I disagree with it..."  And then what?

The guideline/rule is actually contrary to what Richard was doing, and I think his work needs to be reversed en masse, actually.  I and the rest of the community tolerated his practice, frankly, on the perfectly pragmatic grounds that he was doing so much work--and we were going to take it to the Editorial Council, but we never in fact did.

People understand what "rules" are, particularly when you set them in opposition to "guidelines."

My point is precisely that they don't understand this, even if they think they do, because there is no clear distinction.  My point is not that "rules are just words."  My point is that either a statement is enforceable or it isn't, and sometimes we enforce guidelines, and sometimes we don't enforce rules.  Surely you've heard people complaining about how Wikipedia "guidelines" are slowly transformed into hard-and-fast rules.  That's exactly what I mean.

Here is a way to give teeth to the notion of a guideline.  It would be: if a person ignores guideline G, then others must respect the author's choice and not render the text in conformity with G.  But this would be very strange indeed.  It would give a curious sort of right to whoever decided to write the text a certain way first.  I'm not too comfortable with that.  Well, what else could "guideline" mean?

Many communities, throughout history and across the world, have gotten along perfectly well without clearly codified "rules" and "guidelines."

I'm very far from saying we should have no rules.  I personally have usually been very clear about what our rules are, when asked or when the issue comes up.  I just look at the relevant pages, linked from [[CZ:Home]] (sometimes a few clicks away from there), and report back what it says.  I think Richard may have given you the false idea about CZ that we just make up rules, individually, as we go along, without even writing them down.

[Larry Sanger]

I'm going to have to let you guys have the final word on these philosophical issues.  I'm afraid that our disagreements are indeed mainly philosophical, and like many apparent philosophical disagreements, they might at bottom not be disagreements at all but just different ways of talking about things.

What I would really like to know is what very specific policy recommendations come out of your ruminations.  Joe, you might see my brainstorming items (16) and (17).

[Larry Sanger]

One more question, for Brian, and then back to hammering out the policies themselves:

"Rules" and "guidelines" seem to be most applicable when talking about behavioral, constabulary-related types of things. The practices that come in to play when writing an article, though, are usually more informal-- somewhere between rules and guidelines. Some people on a wiki are problematic because they manage to steer clear of obviously bad behavior.

Perhaps it might be useful to come up with a list of "editorial practices" that Citizens should attempt to uphold. Something codified-- and reasonably clear, which I see as essential-- but something which is also enforceable as well.

I agree and this is reasonable as far as it goes...but what really does it mean?  In practical, operational terms?  Look, we have enforceable editorial rules, codified.  Have a look at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Content_Policy and especially http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Approval_Standards and http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:What_Citizendium_articles_are_not

Those policies are enforceable.  We've "enforced" them in the sense that we've changed and deleted articles, and made decisions that we've stuck to, in accordance with them.  What more, exactly, do you mean?

Do you mean, perhaps, that we should be very clear about what pattern of violation of what editorial rules should result in people being removed from the project?  We've done that just a few times, on very vague grounds (citing no more than the Statement of Fundamental Policies--sorry there, Joe  ).  Is that what you mean, anyway?

[Hayford Peirce]

My old prep school, Exeter, was proud of the fact that it apparently had many fewer codified rules than, say, its arch-rival, Andover.  People, including the dean, were always saying, "There are no rules at Exeter until you break them." Sigh.

I myself apparently side with Larry here, perhaps even more than he does himself.  I *hate* the idea of there being both "guidelines" and "rules" -- there should be one or the other, or none.

Larry brought up Richard and the commas.  A little while ago there was another controversy about the formatting of the Discussion pages. Did the indenting format, and putting new topics at the bottom of the page instead of at the top, come under CZ rules, or were they just guidelines?  Various people took positions and offered evidence to justify their positions. It finally became clear that we needed *rules* about this rather than guidelines.  Now, if you go to a Discussion page and want to start a new topic, you will find that the *rules* pop up in a blue box at the top of the screen.  A small example, but I think that in the long run this will prevent a lot of ill-feeling and confusion among the Citizens....

Likewise, I think that for any gray areas that now exist and for which both "rules" and "guidelines" can be cited, they should be clarified so that there are precise "rules" that govern them.