What Commandments apply in Hell?

Caissa

Dafyd posted: The 10 Commandments other than 3 and 4 still apply in Hell. Pond Wars have by long-standing use and custom been curtailed on the Ship.
Questions about hosting decisions belong in the Styx.

Dafyd Hell Host

To which Caissa replied: I would have thought that parts of 1-5 would not apply in Hell. That said I do wonder if Commandment #1 needs to be renamed. All of the examples given go far beyond my definition of "Jerkish behaviour".

Nick Tamen

Well, the Hell Guidelines specifically say:

Please read, study and become one with these guidelines before plunging in, because ignorance of the law is no excuse and our normal rules on civility are abandoned on this forum. Read these guidelines in conjunction with our FAQs & the ships 10 commandments - only commandments 3 and 4 do not apply here.

So what @Dafyd said is indeed stated in the guidelines.

Caissa

That is indeed the Guidelines; my question is whether or not that is the practice? The phrase "normal rules of civility" being telling. One might argue that in some uses of Hell, the purpose is to offend.

Alan Cresswell

The purposes of Hell are to give an option for personal disputes to be bashed out, and to provide a space to rant about injustices in the world. Hell doesn't exist to allow people to give gratuitous offence. Some people may be offended by what's said to other Shipmates or to express anger at something in the world, but that offence should only be incidental to the intention of Hell.

There is a history of "Pond Wars" (usually USA-UK, hence the name, but the same would apply to any dispute between people based on nationality), which has resulted in people being hurt and leaving, and hasn't ever resulted in anything positive. Whereas Hell is a place for personal disputes, the nature of a "Pond War" is to try to hold individual Shipmates responsible for real or perceived failings of their nation, that by definition is not a personal dispute. There's no space here for calling people to account for what they personally have not done or said, even more so when many Shipmates from a particular nation have been working against the problems in their own nation.

Caissa

I understand about wanting to avoid Pond Wars. I am just trying to understand the parameters of Hell more clearly especially in relation to all of the commandments.

RooK

Caissa wrote: »

...I am just trying to understand the parameters of Hell more clearly ...

This might¹ be a divergence of art and artifice. Hell works as a functional acknowledgement of the fundamentally illogical aspects of humans, and is about how we are forced to exist with internal emotional states that are simultaneously "true" and "of dubious founding". As such, the maelstrom is shepherded by slightly warped moderators who need to contemplate simultaneously "how much heat needs venting" and "how much heat is too hot" - none of which conform to cleanly described parameters. So any attempt to strictly parameterize are doomed, and why the age-old advice to Shipmates navigating Hell (and most fora) is "if in doubt, ask a Host". Because in Hell, more than any other board, the Hellhost's feelings are essentially the current (if transient) definition of the rules.

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¹ This have doubtlessly evolved since I was influential in this realm

Caissa

Got it. The details are in the devil. ;^)

Bullfrog

That has also been my sense of it, and also my sense of much of the ship. The rules are very important guidelines to be respected, grounded in the lived experience of the community. They're cautionary tales of "we have these rules in place because we've seen what happens when these rules get violated, and it gets bad."

But ultimately it's up to the hosts to enforce these rules. And in a community built on trust, there's a certain degree to which you have to trust the community. If you don't trust the community, then you really should vote with your feet.

The relationship between laws and enforcers is always kind of interesting.

I feel that in Hell (and perhaps in Epiphanies) this dynamic is more evident because the content is more emotional than logical. And this is why I really appreciate good hosts.