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And sitting at this rockpool, were two rockpool fairies, an orange one and an aqua one.
ORPF: Orange and Aqua, huh?
ARPF: Yes, I know. Hurts my eyeballs just thinking about it, but I didn't want to be accused of being racist or anything else.
ORPF: And fairies???
ARPF: It's a fairy story, gotta have fairies.
ORPF: Right.
While the rockpool was a lovely rockpool, it was a bit empty. And so the rockpool fairies, being homeschooling rockpool fairies decided that it would be the ideal setting for a homeschooling forum. As you do.
ORPF: The question is, what kind of homeschooling forum shall we make it? We can't make it all orange or all aqua. You and I have quite different beliefs and approaches to things.
ARPF: That's true, I don't think we want to fill it with just orange and aqua either, I think we need to have lots of variety.
ORPF: Yes, it would be really great if we could create a place where people who had different religious, educational, and parenting philosophies could talk together.
ARPF: So rather than being like Sonlight or WTM, which are based on one curriculum approach, we would have folks using a whole variety of approaches?
ORPF: Exactly. Lot's of different colours and diversity.
And so it was decided that The Rockpool forum would be a forum for homeschoolers that celebrated differences and embraced variety.
ORPF: Next we need to work out what the purpose of the Rockpool forum is going to be?
ARPF: What? Other than a place for you and me to have a chat?
ORPF: Yes, I think primarily the Rockpool is a place for Homeschooling Mums to chat about homeschooling related stuff. Not that Dads aren't welcome but that it seems to be more of a hang out for Mums. We need to decide on some topics though.
ARPF: Ok, what about we have thread where we say hi, and we can talk about some books, and I know, let's have a birthday thread with glitter graphics!!!!
ORPF: Um, ARPF.
ARPF: Yes?
ORPF: That is not a forum. That is the Smurfs. In fact, that is the Smurfs doing an online Hallmark greeting card.
ARPF: Bit lacking then?
ORPF: Wikipedia says that the Roman forum "was a gathering place of great social significance, and often the scene of diverse activities, including political discussions and debates, rendezvous, meetings, et cetera." We need to have some debates happening. People need to be able to offer their opinions on different topics, That's what a discussion really is. We can also add in events and meet ups and things so people can get together in real life. And the Roman forum was also a bit of a market place, so it would be good for people to also be able to buy and sell homeschooling stuff.
ARPF: Ok, that sounds like it was pretty chaotic. I'm mean I know we said that we wanted to welcome everybody, but we don't want sharks going around attacking everybody either.
ORPF: No, we don't want sharks swimming around but we do want the sea anemones and jelly fish and hermit crabs to be able to say when they disagree with stuff that people have posted or when they see a different side, or when they interpret what was written differently.
ARPF: That's really tricky. We've got so many different opinions and it is hard for people not to feel hurt if someone disagrees with them. Or even if they think that someone disagrees with them. How do we do this but still make the Rockpool a supportive place?
ORPF: I have no idea.
ARPF: Well, ok. That makes two of us.
But from this, it was decided that there would be two admin voices. One would advocate for more discussion, more nitty gritty and debating, and the other one would advocate for more glitter graphics, and smilies and curriculum reviews. Because the forum was just teeny to start with, there really wasn't much need to spell out rules in great depth. Admins were pretty much regular ole members. Admins pretty much made up half the regular ole members.
Over time however the forum grew and the balancing act got trickier, and trickier and trickier. People expected that everybody was going to be nice to everybody all the time. And that nobody should ever get hurt by anything that anyone else said. And so the Rockpool Fairies decided that "play nicely" was a stupid and ambiguous rule for a large number of people. And that perhaps some clearer guidance needed to be set up.
ORPF: So you wrote a fairy story?
ARPF: Work with me here.
ARPF: The hard thing is getting the balance right between support and discussion.
ORPF: Yes because even under the best of circumstances, we all naturally gravitate towards people who sound like us. It's the natural search to find people who are part of our tribe.
ARPF: Do you mean starfish tend to gravitate towards starfish?
ORPF: Yeah - but if starfish only hang out with starfish, they only get to see things from a starfish point of view. Sometimes it takes the sea snail to say, come and check out the view from up here. At the same time, sometimes starfish need to ask stuff like, how do you grow that extra arm back, that only another starfish can answer.
ARPF: What about "playing nicely?" as a rule.
ORPF: We are going to stab it to death with a blunt spoon.
ARPF: Right. But even so we still need some ground rules about what kind of stuff we allow on the Rockpool, don't we?
ORPF: Yes, I think we have a core set of topics that have proven to be the most upsetting to people and people need to be conscious of posting within these guidelines.
And so it was decided to revise the basic set of posting rules to the following:
On the Rockpool, we do not allow criticisms of religions or religious beliefs and practises. As an example, we accept that some folks will pray and some folks will send good thoughts for others in times of crisis. Some folks celebrate birthdays on this forum and others do not.
We respectfully ask that you refrain from posting topics based on religious beliefs, which may be contentious issues.
We haven't included this one before, but we think we need to add that we will not allow criticisms of sexual preferences and practices. Not that we are expecting a deluge of discussion on this, just saying.
With the footnote to all of the above that we are not talking about criminal activity here, but personal beliefs and practises. Where people make comments about things in these topics that fall into a currently grey area, we will attempt to evaluate them on a case by case basis. Mainly because it's hard to write rules for every single instance or exemption that may or may not happen. Derogatory language will also be considered on a case by case basis.
We are going to try really hard with this one, although we do understand that it is difficult. Although we are primarily a homeschooling forum, many members here have had kids in schools, also currently have kids in school, or will have kids in school. We understand that many, many homeschoolers have had bad experiences at school BUT one of our long standing philosophies has been to do what works for you and your family at the time. Therefore, while sharing a personal bad experience with school is perfectly acceptable, generic 'school bashing' is not.
We do allow criticisms of different homeschooling and educational products and programs. Again, there is a caveat on this. Generalisations are really not what we are interested in hearing or promoting. It is not helpful to say things like "Classical homeschooling is evil incarnate". It is more useful to say "we tried Classical Homeschooling but found it didn't suit us." It is also helpful to say thing like "We tried The Wonder Woo Woo book of Homeschooling, but it really didn't live up to our expectations and my kids didn't like it at all". We do want people to honestly share their personal perspectives on homeschooling and educational products and experiences. And just to clarify, this is not a rule we are attempting to apply retrospectively or are even imagining was applied retrospectively. This is a rule we wish to use as a guideline going forwards.
Posts where the intention is to directly undermine or attack a person, rather than discuss an issue will be deleted. In the past, we have left up posts where folks have intentionally attacked other members, or have been perceived to have intentionally attacked someone else. We have done this to let the situation have time to naturally resolve itself, and to allow other members to have input into the situation and to share their points of view. We have found the insight of our forum members invaluable, and have greatly appreciated it. Also, we left posts up to allow enough time to let people themselves have the opportunity to put things right if they should choose to do so. It has come to our attention that in fact, although we as admins may feel that the posts have worked through to a natural conclusion, they may have been better off nipped in the bud.
With this forum software we have the ability to put posts on hold. From now on, if there are posts that we are unsure about, uncomfortable about, want to double check if we have the right end of the stick, want to check that they are on topic etc we will put them on hold or "ice" them until we have time to get advice and come to a consensus. This does not necessarily mean that your post is bad or that you have done something wrong, it means we want to evaluate the situation further. It also gives us the chance to say to the author of the post, "hey, did you really mean xyz, or did you mean something else?" After that we will decide if a post needs to be deleted or restored.
We will also be deleting posts quicker that we feel breach the posting rules.
In summary, you are likely to see more putting posts on hold, more editing and more deleting of posts. We feel that the leniency that worked well with smaller numbers is no longer a successful or helpful strategy.
A reminder that Admins and Moderators have the right to:
• modify or move any post
• delete any posts
• delete your account without warning
Admins also have the right to ban any member for any reason that they see fit. When we ban, we do so without giving notice, without sending warning and without sending a courtesy email to let you know. We take it extremely seriously.
If we are going to ban someone, we consider how much emotional energy of ours that personal has consumed. We only have so much time and energy that we can invest into our lives. If someone chooses to be difficult and disruptive on the forum, they are effectively stealing the emotional energy that we should be using to lead happy lives with our own kids instead. So we weigh up,
- the forum rules that have been broken
- the amount of energy invested on our behalf
- the amount of distress caused by this person to other people
As Admins, we will also take into consideration how people have spoken to us and their correspondence with us.
ARPF: Sigh. We don't sound very much like fairies after all that lot. We sound like parking wardens. That's not very fun and sparkling.
ORPF: No, but it is important for people to remember that we built this forum with our blood, sweat and tears. If they don't want to play by our rules, then they should go somewhere else. There are lots of homeschooling forums out there, and while we aim to welcome everyone, we don't pretend that we are able to cater for everyone, make everyone happy, or are anywhere close to the perfect forum.
ARPF: Just one glitter sparklie then?
ORPF: Oh all right, as long as you remind everyone that…
All the information on this forum is copyright. Nothing should be copied or quoted anywhere else without express permission, apart from your own contributions. Likewise all the images on the forum belong to their respective posters and must not be copied or used outside of The Rockpool without permission.
ARPF: Black Adder ruined you, you know that?
ORPF: Last word anyway.
Edited by fliztea, 09 July 2011 - 07:28 PM.
Due to overwhelming feedback, we have slightly altered what we originally said
I giggled, laughed, nodded and looked serious lol.
Oh well, I guess I can read the kids the forum rules then 
