Every Website Needs Just Three Rules

If you've ever been really bored while visiting a website, you may have clicked around a lot and noticed some of them have rules. Sometimes those are for commenting (we have those!); sometimes, for sites that are particularly prominent (or are full of themselves), they'll take the form of publicly-available editorial guidelines.

While those might seem necessary, I have recently encountered evidence that they can all probably be replaced by just three rules. And that any website without rules should probably institute the same three.

The evidence comes courtesy of Supper Mario Broth, the quite frankly exceptional social media account responsible for posting all the best Nintendo trivia and tidbits. Lately they've got a little worn down after posting some mildly incorrect information and/or stuff that wasn't explained down to the most minute detail, which led to encounters with some of the most annoying and terrible people in the world (Nintendo pedants).

I sympathise! It's tough working with hard facts in the public eye because, as humans, we all make mistakes. And in fields where people are as weird and passionate as video games, even when you get things right, you might express them in a way that leads to confusion, and then you may as well have got it wrong because you'll get the same angry and abusive messages regardless.

In response, Supper Mario Broth posted this yesterday, and I don't think I've seen a better set of rules not just for a single account, but for how we should all conduct ourselves on the internet:

Perfect! Firstly, good for them, this is the best possible way to deal with the worst possible people. Secondly, I am now considering getting all three rules tattooed on me somewhere.