Re: Mod Note
The golden rule has always been in place. The one difference, if there is one, is that since the community was TOSed off Livejournal, an incident triggered by a creator who was "obviously not here" taking offense to what was perceived as a personal attack, people should be more aware of it. The numbers going down is an issue most likely to do with our moving sites, whilst the increasing number of mod notes is most likely to do with the simple fact that there's now two more active mods and we're able to keep a closer eye on things than before.
As far as I'm concerned, and it seems a lot of the membership agrees judging by the comments from members when S_D 1.0 was TOSed, Scans_Daily should be a forum where we are able to discuss and spread enthusiasm for comics, not be perceived to be attacking comic creators, something that even our industry defenders commented detracted from the otherwise strong community.
Personally I don't see the issue here. I'm known to be hyper critical of some creators, but I'm simply keeping that commentary for my own personal blog where I can take sole responsibility for my opinions. By opening up the community as a free for all where personal attacks are allowed, we'd be creating an extremely toxic atmosphere where any good work we do, turning people onto comics, would be outweighed by personal insults and aggression.