Bylaws, Regulations, and Legislation discussion?

[kstaven]

As we all know the items listed in the title of this post are always changing, being added to, or totally new items are being presented. In the past these controversial items have been considered and shown themselves to volatile for these forums.

But seeing that when one is involved in agriculture, hobby farming, or just has a few pet farm animals these items can have huge impacts on us all and are relevant to this forum. Thus we are proposing a limited short term experiment on this forum for items that relate to farming, food, or animals.


Here are the ground rules proposed for people who want to discuss regulations, bylaws and legislation.

1. Post has to say legislation in the title. Legislation:______________
2. Full text of the legislation or proposed item has to be posted or linked to in the first post.
3. No discussion about which party or politicians back or fight this legislation that could be considered flaming, derogatory or posted to start political debate.
4. Discussion is centralized on the legislation itself and what can be done about it, considering this is where the harm or good really comes from.
5. Anyone who starts a political debate or commentary gets a full point warning. NO EXCEPTIONS!
6. No outside links to inflammatory and sensationalistic articles surrounding these subjects.
7. All posts must appear in the Me, My herd, My family section considering most here have multiple species in their care.
8. Deviation from this format will result in the thread being removed from the forum.

This is not a go ahead and start these posts situation. First we want the input from the membership.

Do we want this on the forum and do you feel it is of value to the animal owners is the big question to be answered first.

If it turns out to be a go ahead concensus after discussion here, then it will be the members and their conduct that will determine if this experiment continues, is expanded upon, or if further latitude in discussion will be allowed on this forum. Personally I have a lot of faith in the membership from my experiences and interaction with the members here.

 

[Ms. Research]

Thank you for your further consideration of my suggestion. I think what you have already stated would be an excellent idea and I would comply 100% to what all feel should be the correct way to discuss these issues. I will await your reply on what all feel is best for the forum. I feel that knowing bylaws, regulations and legislation that will impact our lives and our animals need to be discussed. But as you have stated in your post, there is a way to discuss it. I truly agree.


This is a very informative forum, with many helpful people involved.

 

[kstaven]

I agree that this can have value to the forum, as long as it doesn't become a divisive political agenda driven item. The idea behind this is to inform, evaluate, discuss, and look at remedies.
All too often we are unaware of what is being legislated quietly, or are never exposed to the actual documents themselves. Instead we are swept along by agendas and media hype.

The decision to put it in Me, My herd, My family for now was based on the simple fact that what is legislated or proposed today does effect you and I, our herds and farming, and our families and countries future.

 

[freemotion]

Farming has to do with food and people need to know how their food is being regulated. Yes, discussion of regulation belongs here. It'll likely take some moderating, of course!

 

[Nifty]

A HUGE thumbsup to kstaven for working to put this together!!

We definitely want to allow and even encourage discussions that will help us all take better care of our herds. With that said we've realized that some topics cause more harm than good and we've struggled with if / how to allow them.

Hopefully this system, or something along the same lines will allow our members to discuss Bylaws, Regulations, and Legislation without dragging politics, parties, fights into the discussion.

This will only work if:

1) While reading you don't take offense or take things personally.
2) While writing you make sure you keep "politics" and other divisive comments out of your posts.
3) You keep in mind that if you cross the line into making posts that could be considered flaming, derogatory or posted to start political debate, your posts will be reported and you will receive infractions (warnings) and a potential ban from the community.

We have faith that we can have these discussions without any problems and hope that we don't have to have much more discussion on the rules so we can spend more time talking about our wonderful herds!!

Cheers!

 

[elevan]

I think this is a great idea.

I do have one suggestion, I think it should have it's own "forum" with the rules listed as a sticky...instead of going under "Me, my herd, my family"

 

[kstaven]

I'm pretty sure that's what will happen in the coming months. I know Rob has a ton of new things on the agenda right now for the forums.

 

[jodief100]

I think this is a good idea. Legislation affects us all, whether we agree or disagree with it it affects us. I think people need to be aware of what is going on. Be it so we can fight it or happily comply we need to know about it.

These discussions can get heated but I think we can all agree not to resort to name calling or other inappropriate responses.

 

[Mea]

I think it could be a very good idea. Knowledge is the first line of defense.

( also realise it has the potential to get a bit heated at times.......)

 

[ksalvagno]

I think it would be a good idea too. We don't always have time to find all the legislature online ourselves. So if people can post them, then we have the opportunity to find out what is going on.