in discussion Forum / Discussion » [Discussion] Amendment to the Donations Policy
Since we first discussed and approved the Donations Policy, our world has given us new financial horrors to contemplate. Here, I am speaking of so-called prediction markets, or probably more honestly called "news gambling", where ongoing events are turned into binary choices that you either bet on, for or against, and receive payouts depending on the odds.
This is not something we should tolerate SCP staff engaging in. Bets on a wiki matter (such as whether a particular user will be banned, whether a proposal passes or not, if a famous author's newest work clears +100 in less than 24 hours, etc) should not be permitted. There are a few reasons:
- They reduce site matters to financial transactions and spectacle. As a writing site, our purpose here is to create and engage with works of fiction, not to gamble over outcomes. For sensitive matters (such as the ongoing Bright Works discussion), this trivializes important topics and makes them simply being about monetary outcomes.
- Staff should not endorse or promote gambling on our site. Like above, we are not here to gamble, and staff participating in bets about outcomes on the site, whether they intend to or not, acts as an endorsement of those bets.
- Staff should serve the interests of the site. Just as bribery distorts this by causing staff to behave against that interest, a staff member who has a stake on a bet may take actions to increase their chance at receiving a payout.
This proposal, if adopted, would modify the "Prohibited Actions" section of the Official Donations Policy to read as follows: (changes are marked in green)
Prohibited Actions:
Breach of any of the following is likely to result in immediate disciplinary action.
- Under no circumstances may SCP Wiki Staff accept any compensation for the performance of staff duties. Any attempts to bribe staff into performing duties also constitutes a violation of this policy.
- Under no circumstances may SCP Wiki Staff participate in any prediction market or other gambling event, where the bet in question concerns the SCP Wiki, its community, its staff, or any of its translation branches.
- Under no circumstances may you attempt to buy or sell votes on the site. This includes the promise that an article would reach a certain threshold of performance.
- Under no circumstances may you advertise donations for or the sale of content which breaks the site rules.
- Under no circumstances may you advertise the sale of critique services anywhere on the SCP Wiki. Note that this does not prohibit critique services offered by off-site venues such as Patreon.
- Under no circumstances may you advertise donations for or the sale of co-authorship or "vanity publishing". Articles found to have been published in such a way are subject to summary deletion, and may also include action against the donator/purchaser.
- You may not excessively advertise content you produce as a result of donations, including overly bothering people about reading and voting on the work. A reasonable degree of advertisement is allowable as is expected with any user.
- You may not advertise "partial donations", such as a claim that a portion of a donation will also be forwarded on to another cause or organization.
- You may not create or participate in donation-incentivized competitions, such as offering a reward for the "highest rated tale about your author avatar". Anyone wishing to organize an unofficial contest should speak with the Community Outreach Team for approval and assistance.
Clarifications of this policy are to be directed to the Disciplinary Team.
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