If I might make things a little more clear, staff often sees criticism presented to them in a manner which isn't conducive to a good dialog. If you're coming at us with say, snide comments, or spurious arguments, then you're frankly just getting in the way of actual improvement. Everyone handles it differently, but ultimately it shuts down lines of communication, because people don't want to be dealing with that kind of behavior on a consistent basis. So it's not that staff isn't open to criticism, or that once you cross some sort of threshold, you've hit your limit for criticism we'll hear from you in a given day/week/month/whatever. We're simply asking people to be mindful of the fact that these are actual people, trying to make the site better for everyone in some capacity. Many of them without any form of compensation for their efforts. If you're making a habit of coming at them sideways, or talking down to them, under the guise of "criticism," then that's a problem, and we're going to be stricter on it moving forward.

That at least is my interpretation of the new rule(s). Obviously, insulting, or bullying anyone - regardless of whether or not they're staff - is against the rules across the board.

I think that if we are going this route, that everyone has to be more careful with what they say. If non-staff are going to be held to a higher standard in regards to interactions with the staff, then the staff also have to make sure that their interactions with non-staff are courteous and respectful.

I would agree

That's true. So, if they aren't, direct them to one of the Head Mods or a Site Admin. If one of those are the culprit, send it to another of them that isn't (in such a case, a PM would work better). We take a look at all complaints, regardless of stature here. 

The forum isn't as lively as it was years ago for a whole host of reasons. And there won't be any abundance of changes. I'm just making sure that every Staff member feels good enough here to continue doing their jobs, just like I'm going to make sure that users are offered a fair balance in being able to express their concerns about site issues.

I think that if we are going this route, that everyone has to be more careful with what they say. If non-staff are going to be held to a higher standard in regards to interactions with the staff, then the staff also have to make sure that their interactions with non-staff are courteous and respectful.

Since that's the case, give me some examples of when Staff weren't courteous and respectful. For this to be of such concern, someone must have taken things too far already. I'd like to know who and when.

There's really no reason to make a RIP thread for the likes of AlfredoPasta...

Negative. Each of those covers what they need to cover. The one about Staff is straightforward: don't give anyone a hard time. We don't mind reasonable criticism, but outright attacks/badgering/bullying etc, etc... isn't going to fly anymore. 

And there aren't multiple new rules. The only thing that wasn't there before were the bullets for Staff Criticism, which was not covered by any of the other rules. It is specific (and we have a thread going up soon that will discuss it in further detail). We already had rules that covered Mods and individual Flaming of users (which are different from continued criticism of Staff). Thus, it was combined with Website Criticism (making for a remaining total of 18 Rules). We don't mind some critiquing, but if you take things to a point, it will be in violation of the rule. It has been happening to Staff a lot lately, and as a result of much discussion with different forms of workers here, this was the best course of action.

You shouldn't have anything to worry about if you aren't someone who causes trouble. :)