Week 7 Shift: Writing the rules

The cohort writes the rules for the course sandbox, encodes some of them in AutoModerator, and then has to live under both until week 12

19 April 2027

Legislative drafting, two hours, no training, binding until the end of semester.

Before the Shift#

Bring your norm map. The rules other communities enforce but do not write down are the ones you are about to discover you need.

In the Shift#

Draft in the open, as a cohort, with Ren chairing and refusing to let “no low-effort posts” through the door. Every rule must survive three questions: what exactly does it prohibit, how would a newcomer know, and what happens the first time someone breaks it.

Then split the ruleset. Some of it goes to ShiftBot as regex and thresholds, which will apply it without judgement, at speed, to everyone equally. The rest stays with humans, and the ruleset has to say which is which, because a community that cannot tell you whether a machine or a person removed something cannot be appealed to.

Write the rationale register as you go — one line per rule, why it exists. In week 12 you will find out that this is the only part anyone needed. Last year’s is published, with the ruleset it explains.

Afterwards#

The rules commence at midnight. You are now governed by them, including the ones you argued against.