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Should PPCG rules or guidelines or other administrative content be considered "official" when it is not hosted on meta or main?

(Note that "PPCG" refers to the entirety of the Programming Puzzles & Code Golf Stack Exchange site microcosm, including main, meta, and chat.)

Currently, most of our specific rules reside in various meta posts while other guidelines and info are in the help center and tag wikis and such. But the mods recently created a "Chatiquette" github page for chat etiquette in our chatroom, The Nineteenth Byte. The chatroom description links to it directly:

General discussion for codegolf.stackexchange.com | Guidelines: ppcg.github.io/chatiquette

So I take it that the guidelines are more or less official, akin to a meta decision.

Should these github hosted Chatiquette rules be considered binding and official? i.e. should mods (and the community at large) be able to enforce them as they would any other site rule?

In general, should PPCG administrative content not hosted on PPCG ever be considered official?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Perhaps it's better to consider the Chatiquette list as guidelines that users and moderators should follow, rather than binding rules that strictly determine usage. \$\endgroup\$
    – Quill
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 6:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ If a moderator documents their logic and reasoning in how they moderate content, that doesn't make it a binding document, it's an expression of their opinion. \$\endgroup\$
    – Quill
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 6:28
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    \$\begingroup\$ Though I do support not having externally-hosted administrative content (see: link rot), I think you are conflating "rules" and "guidelines". Rules are "do this or else", guidelines are "please do this, and if you don't, you may be subject to the consequences". \$\endgroup\$
    – user45941
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 7:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ One of the reasons we hosted that off site is because we wanted it to be informal. It isn't a binding document, it's a set of things we consider to be good chat guidelines, not rules. We considered putting it on Meta but decided against it because we didn't want it to be that official. FWIW the SO JavaScript chat room has a similar document hosted on GitHub. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex A. Mod
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 16:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ We encourage anyone in chat to provide input on the contents of the document, regardless of whether they have a GitHub account. (And if they do, they're free to submit issues and/or PRs.) Noting what Martin said in chat, putting it on Meta is kind of the wrong place for it anyway, since it's so specific to chat. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex A. Mod
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 16:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ @AlexA. Why do you want the chat guidelines to be informal and not binding? \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 1:42
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    \$\begingroup\$ @xnor What constitutes acceptable behavior beyond the official rules made by Stack Exchange is inherently subjective, so we don't want to make these guidelines seem formal along the lines of official policy. These are things that the moderators subjectively, with feedback from the community, think would make TNB a better place for everyone. Moderators don't make policy; the community does. What we can do is to provide our guidelines and hope for the best. We don't want them to be binding because it's more of a "use common sense and be respectful" kind of thing, which again is subjective. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex A. Mod
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 17:47

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No, Admin content hosted on external sites should not be binding

Only administrative content present on PPCG should be binding because sundering some rules from the official site will make it harder for new users and new mods to find them and democratically update them.

Not everyone will necessarily have a github (or whatever) account but they will have an SE account, along with a set of earned privileges already tailored to make the site democratically functional. I'm merely saying that we should work within the system we already have.

Meta posts can always be used for rules that don't fit in the help center or elsewhere, so I see no need to post rule lists on github. A meta post could be locked/protected if necessary to form a basic, static rule list.

(This "No" decision applies the Chatiquette guidelines as well as all future administrative content.)

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'd think this is better said as "Admin content should not be hosted on external sites." Having it hosted on external sites and not be being binding would not be a good result. \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 8:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ @xnor I'm using "binding" because it would be impossible to stop people from posting PPCG rules externally, even if they had no force whatsoever. \$\endgroup\$
    – Calvin's Hobbies
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 15:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ As I said in the comment on the question, the chatiquette guidelines aren't binding. I agree with this answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex A. Mod
    Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 16:46

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