Rule A

"Rule A" for the "Bill of Responsibilities":

With freedom of speech comes the responsibility to use it wisely.

Words have meaning. Once words leave your mouth, there is no undo (only apologies). Once you post something on the Internet (even in a private conversation), there's no taking those words back. And people will think about those words, long after you regret saying them. Don't say anything you'll regret, and certainly, be careful with what you post online.

Drafting cruft
This document describes "Rule A" of the "Bill of Responsibilities" that User:RobLa is currently working on. See User:RobLa/Bill of Responsibilities for the full list, as well as "Definitions"

This page will be broken up into many sections. Some of them are specific to the wiki ("Forum") this document is hosted on. Others will be for Forums hosted elsewhere.

Definitions

 * "Bill of Responsibilites - see User:RobLa/BResp
 * "Forum" - A "Forum" in this document is a wiki, mailing list, or other online discusssion forum. These will all be referred to as "Forum" for purposes of this document.

Rule A - With freedom of speech comes the responsibility to use it wisely.
Though the First Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranties American citizens freedom of speech, Rule A ensures that every user of this Forum uses this freedom responsibly. This Forum has a code of conduct, and "Rule A" is an introduction to the other rules of this Forum. The Forum may be hosted on a site that has its own code of conduct. If so those rules need to be followed, too.

Comparison to the US First Amendment
This rule is intended to be a counterpart to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Particularly the "freedom of speech" part. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:


 * Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There's a lot mixed up in that. Some things that people often cite out as core principles of the U.S. Constitution derived from the First Amendment:


 * Freedom of speech
 * Separation of church and state (broken up into "separationists" and "accomodationists")
 * Free exercise of religion
 * Freedom of the press
 * Freedom of anonymous speech
 * Freedom to speak truth to power

Each of these may need to have separate rules. For purposes of this set of rules, "Rule A" will focus on "freedom of speech".

Specific rules per site/forum
This section is site-specific prose for each of the given Forums:

Electowiki
In addition to the Bill of Responsibilites, Electowiki is subject to the Miraheze Code of Conduct.

Election methods mailing list
The Bill of Responsibilites is intended to replace the [EM Code of Conduct ], for which the April 2020 version is quoted here: Please come prepared to defend the statements that you make, and to directly answer the questions that others ask of you. This list was set up to increase communication between people interested in new forms of election methodology, not as a sounding board for those who wish to drown out opposing views with prolific repetition of statements already made. When conflicts arise, please use this list to understand fully why the other side feels the way they do by honest intellectual inquiry. And when those who feel differently than you are trying to understand why you feel the way you do, please answer as honestly and directly as possible.

Hopefully this is all common sense, but sadly not common enough (hence the reason for this message). In summary, please ask, answer, and be humble.

History
See for now. Rob Lanphier started writing this page on electowiki back in April 2020, based on a comment from a friend on social media. He used electowiki for several draft versions, then moved it to roblawiki in November 2020. He was the primary editor for the article over there, with one typo fixed by electowiki:User:Kristomun