Comments on the ToS 2.0

[The Chairman]

Feel free to give your opinion of the new ToS here in this thread.

We hope you enjoy the new ToS and our Mission Statement.

 

[redrover]

Speaking as 1 life form amongst the multitude in bodies of water; this board is A Pearl of Great Price as far as I am concerned. (Hope this is not offensive; it was my intent to compliment the board and with no disrespect to a specific religion. :blinking: )

Having been active in the Censorship and SB thread I sincerely appreciate the apparent rapidity of return feedback. Two weeks from initial post seems responding with due diligence to me, and particularly as it was not a united voice for action from the masses. I say apparent rapidity as this could have simply been a process in the works for many months previous to the thread and timing coincidental. In any case; Mahalo for reviewing and taking the time to sort thru things. I can only imagine the logistics required to have done so. There is much mention of this board belongs to some one and they can run it as they choose to, and I fully agree. And am thankful for requested member input.

Unfortunately I neglected to save a copy of the previous ToS and unable to compare it to the new and frankly, I don’t see anything having changed. It could very well be my misunderstanding or recollection of the previous is faulty.
I don’t intend to be confrontational, seriously, but it reads much as my Employee Handbook updates having been revised with legal implications, wording, points more thoroughly addressed and legal CYA. And without the previous to compare with; I have no way of knowing.
If it turns out I am not alone in this, a mention to us of what has changed would be helpful. Otherwise I’ll simply be carrying on as before noon 12/15/07 HST.

I recommend or suggest consideration if you’ve not already, inserting document creation and revision dates into the specific areas. It was the first thing I’ve looked for when reviewing them – when was this statement determined? How long has it been since these issues were addressed for relativity? What additions have been deemed necessary and when? A document created say 1/01 and revised 1/03, 1/06 demonstrates proactive approach to quality.

ScubaBoard was the first and only Internet Board I’ve participated in. I used to think it luck I ran across it while still in BOW and now, the luck was recognizing it for what it is. For having run across it searching for gear reviews, I’m deeply grateful.

Sincerely,
Lisa

 

[Geoff_H]

Looks good to me.

 

[DandyDon]

So PG including brief nudity is now ok...??

A PG-rated motion picture should be investigated by parents before they let their younger children attend. The PG rating indicates, in the view of the Rating Board, that parents may consider some material unsuitable for their children, and parents should make that decision. The more mature themes in some PG-rated motion pictures may call for parental guidance. There may be some profanity and some depictions of violence or brief nudity. But these elements are not deemed so intense as to require that parents be strongly cautioned beyond the suggestion of parental guidance. There is no drug use content in a PG-rated motion picture.

I guess we're gonna see some see-thru bikinis...?

 

[HowardE]

Nudity is not allowed. The PG description has been corrected. ScubaBoard - Frequently Asked Questions: Terms of Service Items

Some material may not be suitable for pre-teenagers. Nudity and coarse language are prohibited.

 

[El Orans]

So PG including brief nudity is now ok...??

A PG-rated motion picture should be investigated by parents before they let their younger children attend. The PG rating indicates, in the view of the Rating Board, that parents may consider some material unsuitable for their children, and parents should make that decision. The more mature themes in some PG-rated motion pictures may call for parental guidance. There may be some profanity and some depictions of violence or brief nudity. But these elements are not deemed so intense as to require that parents be strongly cautioned beyond the suggestion of parental guidance. There is no drug use content in a PG-rated motion picture.

I guess we're gonna see some see-thru bikinis...?

:blush:

An preliminary version made its way onto the server. Now corrected.

 

[DennisS]

Darn, I thought that brief nudity clause would let me post my flasher avatar.

 

[stillhope]

I'd suggest re-visiting the last paragraph. It is typical, but in the spirit of your guiding principles, if you are going to expect people to conform to any additions or amendments to your ToS that are made without warning, at least you could make the explicit commitment that you will announce them on the forum -- give us a chance to at least know what has changed!

I realize you did this time with this new ToS, and I applaud your announcement. What I'm saying is that you haven't made a commitment to announcing future changes to the ToS, and it seems like that's something that could be done with little risk or extra work.

thanks!

 

[The Chairman]

I'd suggest re-visiting the last paragraph. It is typical, but in the spirit of your guiding principles, if you are going to expect people to conform to any additions or amendments to your ToS that are made without warning, at least you could make the explicit commitment that you will announce them on the forum -- give us a chance to at least know what has changed!

I realize you did this time with this new ToS, and I applaud your announcement. What I'm saying is that you haven't made a commitment to announcing future changes to the ToS, and it seems like that's something that could be done with little risk or extra work.

thanks!

Our commitment is to always be clear and up front about any changes. However, in order to make the ToS CONCISE (and readable), we have eliminated many "common sense" statements.

 

[The Chairman]

Having been active in the Censorship and SB thread I sincerely appreciate the apparent rapidity of return feedback. Two weeks from initial post seems responding with due diligence to me, and particularly as it was not a united voice for action from the masses.

Changing the ToS had been discussed for about a month maybe more, prior to the Censorship thread. I had actually had a conversation with the OP about that very subject at the Florida Dive Show and encouraged him to start the thread. Well OK, I probably solicited him to start the thread so we could be more responsive to the desires of our users. Though I own the domain ScubaBoard.com, I humbly realize that no individual can really own the community. We are here to fill a need and if we ever lose sight of that we will certainly loose our magic. As a community, we have a hard time feeling out our boundaries. Some want ONLY Scuba to be discussed here, while others want to share their lives with their new found friends! We have tried to accommodate BOTH by making the Surface Interval an opt in forum.

To be sure, until the two feedback threads were started, we were a bit stuck on how to make our ToS simple to read and administrate, and yet have something useful that would create an even more friendly environment for everyone to participate in! Fortunately, once the Mission Statement and Guiding Principles were finished, it took only about a half hour to rough out the ToS. The final tweaking took only about a week with major kudos going to the Advisor Team and the Mod Squad (especially Rick Murchison).

Many thanks to those who participated in the Censorship and the "How are we doing" threads. You provided much needed clarity and insight. We have always been known for our friendliness, but we felt we were being too "friendly" to those who like to disrupt our conversations. This isn't fair to those who would rather have on topic Scuba discussions. To that end, we are tightening up on off topic banter in our Scuba related forums, and loosening up just a tad in the non-dive related areas.

You might wonder what I see as the biggest change in the ToS? Well, there is no prohibition on politics anymore! But please confine those discussions to our new forum: The Pub! You can disagree all you want, but you must still keep the rancor off the Board! BTW, this is what we call a "double opt-in" forum. You have to opt in to the Surface Interval and then opt in to The Pub!. You should be warned that this forum may not be considered "work place friendly" by some businesses which is the reason why we use the double opt in paradigm.

I recommend or suggest consideration if you’ve not already, inserting document creation and revision dates into the specific areas.

Not a bad idea. We also rewrote our "Modiquette", which gives our moderators direction on running this board and in so doing called it the "Modiquette 2.0". Perhaps we should do the same for the ToS.

ScubaBoard was the first and only Internet Board I’ve participated in. I used to think it luck I ran across it while still in BOW and now, the luck was recognizing it for what it is. For having run across it searching for gear reviews, I’m deeply grateful.

Look for a more formal approach to our gear reviews in the not too distant future. We started a discussion with a few key people just before DEMA, and it's time we got back to that discussion.

Well, as this post now seems L-O-N-G-E-R than our new ToS, I will end it and await any further questions or comments.