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Q&A

Welcome to Codidact Meta!

Codidact Meta is the meta-discussion site for the Codidact community network and the Codidact software. Whether you have bug reports or feature requests, support questions or rule discussions that touch the whole network – this is the site for you.

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Q&A To be constructive, or not to be constructive, that is the question.

No system of rules can run only on statutory rules. There is always case law, because no set of laws/rules that people can actually manage will ever include everything. We are trying to write a cl...

posted 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2020-09-23T19:58:56Z (over 3 years ago)
No system of rules can run *only* on statutory rules.  There is *always* case law, because no set of laws/rules *that people can actually manage* will ever include *everything*.

We are trying to write a clear, succinct "statute" about what we expect on our network.  We know that some things will require human judgement, which is why it's important, early on, to specify how decisions can be challenged.

You say:

> Such an abusable policy also exists on SE.

SE does have policies that can be *and have been* abused.  SE's bigger problem is that they are not required to *follow* their own policies and have a track record of bypassing them.  SE is fundamentally autocratic, as you would expect from a profit-seeking company that owns a closed platform.  SE, just like Facebook and Reddit and Quora, can and does do whatever it wants.

I challenge your use of "also".  At Codidact we are working hard to prevent that kind of abuse.  But we don't do that by specifying every possible case down to the last detail and then being stuck when a troll finds a loophole to exploit; we do it by establishing core principles including ways to challenge decisions.

You linked to a question that was previously closed as "not constructive".  It was closed by one regular user and reopened by a staff member.  Sometimes people disagree about whether a question should be closed; it was discussed and remedied.  We should probably change the name of that close reason (close reasons are planned for reworking already), to avoid causing confusion.  Nobody was suspended, and moderators and staff members aim to apply the smallest correction that fixes a problem.  A single snarky or ranty comment or post is likely to get dealt with (deleted for the comment, closed for the post).  If it happens more than once someone would try to discuss it with the person.  If it keeps happening there'd be a warning.  Unless something is *way* over the line, by which I mean things like direct personal attacks or hate speech or something like that, moderators aren't going to jump straight to suspensions.  If they do, they should expect it to be challenged and reviewed.

Our communities are made out of people.  People are complicated.  We have to all be willing to do our best, presume good intent, and discuss disagreements.  We have a baseline set of expectations that will over time be augmented by "case law", reviews, and discussions.  Unlike on SE, you can expect transparency, honesty, and the willingness to make corrections when we err.