Asking for your input on new site rules
June 10, 2023
Given recent events, here are the two changes that I’m planning on making for the site:
Developing a new set of rules and guidelines with input from the site community, and
Creating the Community Moderator system, where a rotating group of users will be able to make moderation decisions.
I’m developing the second part now and I’ll talk more about it when it’s closer to being ready, but today I wanted to gather ideas for new site rules.
In general, the rules need to be broad enough to cover most realistic situations in which they’d need to be applied, and not get too numerous and precise in an attempt to address every possible scenario. For example:
- Activity descriptions need to be three paragraphs or longer.
versus:
- Activity descriptions should provide a clear description of how to perform the activity.
I think the second is probably better because it allows for activities where a very short description is adequate.
My plan is to gather your rule ideas for a week, and then make a Google survey where I ask everyone to vote on which rules you think should be adopted on the site, starting the week of June 19. I’ll give one example of a rule that I plan on putting forward:
- Activity attachments should only consist of classroom materials. (This rule is because sometimes I see people attach completely unrelated files to their activities, like resumes or job applications. Please don’t do this – it’s not the purpose of the site, and it means anyone can see these files.)
Rules for comments and activities will need to be slightly different, since they have different purposes. It might be worth separating the rules into site-wide content guidelines, activity rules, and comment rules.
Please leave your rule suggestions in comments to this post, or send them to me using the site Contact system. If you want to talk about the situation in general, I’d request that you leave comments on the previous “June freeze” post.
If your comments (or lesson) don't have positive, constructive criticism/content, then you shouldn't be posting it at all. It's easy to be hateful towards each other behind a screen but when you post something, but you should only post it if you would want your name and identity associated with what you are saying.
I think if people really want to still say something that can lead into a bigger discussion with the creator of the content, maybe there can be a direct message option. That way the conversation is between just those two people and if they want to ignore the direct message they totally can.
Let's just all be adults. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all!
Scrolling through the comments recently has reminded me of Reddit. Let's be a welcoming community here and not tear each other down! <3
Rule suggestion, something unrelated to the drama: No tagging review activities with specific grammar points etc unless that content is actually in the materials uploaded. Some way to report things like this to mods/admin as well.
Comment on textbooks and social issues rule suggestion: I have never uploaded any of my lessons here but I teach lessons that are about social issues and I do not use a textbook in any of my classes. Of course I am not teaching anything against MEXT/BOE guidelines, nor do I want to, but I simply don't have a textbook thus putting me into a kind of impossible situation if I ever wanted to upload a lesson that touched on a social issue and needed to refer to some textbook. I like the sound of the rule but the practicalities of it need to be reconsidered a bit if it is implemented. Perhaps collate a master list of social topics touched on in textbooks at different school/age levels which can be used a reference for what is appropriate or not by mods/users?
I think it's important to remember that although the activities that have caused a stir have been submitted by one user specifically, getting rid of said user will not solve the problem of new accounts being created by the same user, or others coming on to troll as the site gets more visitors (because let's face it, this site is so helpful for so many of us). I think what has been shared are ideas that could really work, as it's most important that we protect this site and the resources on here (the ones that are catered to the textbooks). I hope we get this sorted out, especially for Jake as this is his personal time, money, and energy he puts into this and it's unfortunate that this happened in the first place.
Keep comments on, it is great for feedback. otherwise you, who wants to fix it, have to make new entries to improve upon the activity, instead of asking the original poster to maybe make an edit, and PAYWALL this. only people with donations can comment.
report button, only to prevent hate speech, racism, religion, non-MEXT guidelines.
When registering, require the ALT to fill out some information such as city, school, area, of course only for the admin to see. Sure, people will say "but my privacy"... we kinda lost that after the event since it showed why we can't have this nice thing.
maybe log IP's on posted activities to make sure the person is actually in Japan, correlating to the information they filled in, in case this ever happens again
Sure people can use VPNs, but I doubt they'd go through the trouble of doing all this just to troll.
The wording of the MEXT guidelines are vague but if you think my activities go against them then so do all the other ones that are pro LGBT. No in between seeing as it's clearly a controversial and political issue. The other holidays I mentioned are not.
There is NO way I am putting information on where I work here no matter who sees it. One, it might be a violation of my contract. Two, I am simply not going to do that. Full stop. And finally, there is nothing to prevent people from entering false information. Do you really think people are above making a false account with the information of another teacher they don't like and proceeding to cause trouble?
I know its a pain for moderators to go through comments but they're so useful. We really need them for feedback and adjustments. I think if we just had enough moderators it would be fine. I agree with taking on more people.
Report/flag system is a great idea. Or even a "something wrong? message us here"-type deal. I know some people are saying "well what if one activity gets spammed". But why wouldn't it be by multiple different people unless there was something wrong? I think things like discrimination, going outside the scope of ALT work and badly-written material is fairly easy to spot and agree on for the majority here. Badly-researched material wouldn't be well-received anywhere.
We need to do something about people creating multiple accounts though before that gets implemented. Its fairly obvious who has them.
Sticking to only textbook-related material isn't going to cut it for those of us who don't use curriculums, or who are using TEFL or more international series.
For those asking to "enforce the MEXT guidelines" on this site as a means of reference for appropriate topics. Can you tell me if you are meaning the guideline specifically meant for English textbooks or the MEXT guidelines generally as enforcement? Because LGBTQ topic inclusion is not strictly prohibited from textbooks in general. There are SHS, JHS, and even ES textbooks cirulated in Japan that are MEXT certified that include LGBTQ topics. I cannot say specifically that those textbooks are English textbooks. I can say there are health textbooks with it. I have looked at the MEXT official page and other related websites and could not find any words or phrasing about exlusion of LGBTQ anywhere. If you could give me a link to the exact page it says that these topics are not allowed in English textbooks, that would be greately appreciated. I would just like to see the real references to such claims or assumptions on MEXT guidelines that reference the prohibition of LGBTQ topics.
I've come across many unhelpful activities on here, but I just move on hoping the next one will be better. Now we know there are activists here masquerading as English teachers. It is disturbing. I hope the majority of ALT's who are on here are using this site for fun, English language, and textbook related activities. The LGBT activist activities are wholly inappropriate at a JHS/ES level. I don't think Jake should remove these activities because functional ALTs won't use them. The consequences for using activist activities should be from the schools or the ALT's employer rather than website moderators. The activists should use their social media to fight with each other. Leave this site for teachers that need inspiration for English activities. Yet, I know the activists won't stop abusing the comment section, therefore I'd like to see the comments turned off or at least only visible to the activity uploader. It is only a distraction.
I'm going to close the comments on this post since people are starting to argue past each other. If anyone has any new rules that they want to propose, please use the Contact page to suggest them. I'll post the poll next week.