Okay, excuse me for asking....but if we throw out the Charter, how will the Rangers know WHEN to step in when things start to get out of hand?
I once volunteered to help moderate a board that had NO TOS. It was INSANE!! We had no power at all when members got out of hand. Some of them would just literally thumb their noses at us and go: YEAH YEAH, where's your TOS to show I did something wrong? We kept begging the board owner for a TOS, and he kept promising one and not delivering. (He's more fluent in computer languages than he is in English...
) Finally, the mods got together, and virtually wrote the TOS themselves, borrowing from other sites. The owner approved it, and finally we had the backup we needed to keep the peace, though it took over 6 months for things to finally settle down.
The core of the TOS is this:
Remember what you agreed to upon signup: You will not use this BB to post free advertising or solicitations, any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this BB.
Posting on BB for research purposes is strickly prohibited and member's account will be closed.
There is also a section on debate:
Debates
We promote the idea of lively debate. This means you are free to disagree with anyone on any type of subject matter as long as your criticism is constructive and polite.
Personal Attacks
Our first priority is to the members that have come here because of the flame-free atmosphere we provide. There is a zero-tolerance policy here against personal attacks. We will not tolerate anyone insulting another individual's opinion nor name calling and will BAN repeat offenders.
The idea has merit, but only if there are some ground rules to guide behaviour. In a way, it's a lot like the system we have now on the work-related board I moderate: the mods do the every day stuff, guided by the TOS, and the board owner steps in when there are disputes the mods can't settle, or if their decisions are being questioned.