So.. in a the "Game Proposals, Input, and Advice thread"
Which is specifically about dicussing the possibilities of running a particular game..
You apparently can't talk about "character classes" as that is apparently creating a character..
Really?
I always thought creating a character, especially for OSR games, was rolling dice for stats, hit points, etc and picking abilities.
Seems that one of us has our definitions as to what "creating" actually means.

The rule actually says that both character creation and character calling are not permitted.  If you mention the class you are interested in playing, that is counted as character calling, and is, therefore, a breach of that rule.

For future reference, complaints about Moderator decisions should be done in private, via rMail to the Moderators, not in a public forum.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:52, Mon 21 Nov 2022.

Now that Larson has raised the issue. Can someone perhaps explain further? I don't understand the problem, much less the rule meant to address it.

Also, I could not find a thread with that title ("Game Proposals, Input, and Advice"), which raises a separate question. Is there a search engine of any kind in the forum?

I've been here   for a long  time? I have to admit there are some tools i have yet to use, because i don't need them.

 Having  said that there is a search  engine for games , I haven't used it  for  finding  threads.  I am pretty such you could just Browse the  Forum  section of the home age  and  find it?

Thanks Don.

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get to the generic home page. (Clicking the icon in the upper left corner only takes you to your own customized home page.) But I was able to find it by clicking on the "search for other forums" link in parentheses next to the RPoL Forums You Peruse section in my customized home page. This revealed the "Game Proposals, Input, and Advice" thread below the "Beginners" and "Community Chat" sections.

My question still remains about the issue that gave rise to this particular thread. Perhaps you can explain?

Or maybe Larson can direct me to the subthread where his post was moderated so I can see the context.

In the FAQs there is a section which explains the reasons behind various rules: /help/?t=faqs&page=Rules+Background

Thanks Ron. This is the explanation offered in the section you cite:

"Do not do character creation or selection here:  Common courtesy to stop the new message indicator from highlighting too frequently for a thread that most members are not going to be interested in, also to stop the fake discussion bumping that used to be rife."

I teach English composition, and I have no earthly idea what any of that means.

If someone for some unfathomable reason was following that channel specifically and was only interested in "Game Proposals, Input, and Advice" (all of it to the point that they are staying up to date on every thread with equal interest.) you don't want to bore that very strange person with your idle chatter about character creation.

The short version is strong Thread/Channel Discipline. It's enforced here. If something isn't about what that channel is specifically about then it's going to be moderated. Not because of any real reason other than the principal of threads Proposing or asking for Advice or Input on Games belong in one place while threads about tinkering within a game system belong in a different place.

There's no formal way the Mods are tracking infractions as far as I know. So it's not like you are getting a yellow card every time they have to move one of your threads and it will eventually earn you a statutory ban.

Not altogether accurate.  There is a real reason why almost all, if not all, of the thread guidelines have been developed, and they pretty much all boil down to "Some idiot in the past abused the lack of restrictions and spammed other users to the point that we felt we had to intercede and make sure it never happens again."  Most of the time someone gets moderated, it's because they've drifted into a pretty 'dark gray' region and the discussion could very easily stray from there into domain that has required Moderator intervention in the past.  It's the same reason why Community Chat threads aren't allowed to discuss politics...they could, when I first started here.  Some people got so enflamed over their political positions that the threads rapidly devolved into streams of invective that got nowhere and made anyone who wasn't eating popcorn as the fight unfolded kind of sick to their stomach.  So, that particular topic was deemed verboten and any drift in that direction resulted in moderation.  As time went by, there were fewer infractions and the need for moderation seems to have become less strict, but the guideline is still there and every so often, someone puts their foot in their mouth.

This isn't exactly the same, but reading between the lines a little bit, it sounds like people in the past developed a bad habit from discussing Game Proposals, etc, into actually pre-building their games on the thread.  That's not what that forum is for, so the majority of forum users were getting notifications about messages discussing the minutiae of building characters for this game that they weren't interested in...so the moderators blacklisted that particular discussion topic in that particular thread.

And, as stated earlier in another message here, being moderated is no big deal, unless it becomes a chronic thing where it becomes apparent that a particular user is deliberately ignoring the guidelines.  But the moderators understand that mistakes happen, people forget about guidelines or get so excited about a particular idea that they get carried away and take the discussion too far, etc...nobody's getting banned or penalized for minor infractions.  The moderation is just a reminder that the subject in question is going down a path that has caused problems in the past so they're going to stop it right now, just to make sure those problems aren't revisited.

In reply to 1492 (msg # 3):

link to another game

Thanks Larson.

That link took me to the "Game Proposals, Input, and Advice" master thread but not to a sub-thread or a specific post, so I'm still unclear what happened.

With that said, it's ok with me if everyone wants to retire this matter. I don't want to waste anyone's time unnecessarily.

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 9):

Yes, and no one likes my idea of "Entirely delete this largely useless section of the site and just make a bare bones game and advertise it if you need to continue workshopping the specific game."

Entertaining as this ... discussion is (and I admit, I've found it entertaining), I feel like this thread has run its course and has the potential to become problematic sooner rather than later. Can we either let it die or have the Mods close it?