Board Thread:Star Wars Fanon Discussion/@comment-3528596-20170511152440/@comment-104549-20170511161508

I'm in total agreement with points 3-6 above (I agree with the others, but they're less impactful to me). I strongly support enforcement by warning-then-deletion, although only bringing in bans for egregious and repeated violations which show that a user is clearly indifferent to the policy.

To Firedance's point that "trying to force good behavior is the wrong way to go about it", that could apply with equal force to any policy governing users' behavior—assuming good faith, edits, and even remaining civil. The only difference is that the harm there is for users we can see, while the harm for violations of the image policy (and the underlying issue of refusing to acknowledge the work of artists or seek their permission to use their works) is to faceless people with whom we rarely interact. While that's my interpretation of the difference, not any other user's stated argument, I'm strongly opposed to such "out of sight, out of mind" disregard for other creators. Artists (including writers) above all others should model respect for one another's work.

I'm not persuaded by arguments of alienating new users; we expect users to comply with a number of site policies, and from what I've seen of the influx of new users, none appear unwilling to conform. Off the top of my head I can think of two occasions in the last week when a new user was advised of a policy violation and took immediate steps to correct it. New users are new and sometimes inexperienced, but that doesn't make them stupid or obstructionist.

Insofar as precedent is concerned, as I've expressed to a number of people (including Brandon Rhea himself), I have great concerns about any admin unilaterally amending policies or neglecting enforcement without a community vote. If the majority of the community does have concerns about the Image Policy, the proper redress is a community vote to amend the policy, not pretending it isn't there.