Forumopolis Rules and Guidelines
First up, have a look around before you start posting. Get a feel for the place, and you'll find it much easier to fit in. We have a pretty low tolerance for bad spelling and grammar (including AOL-speak and txt msg shrtcts). We have plenty of members for whom English is not their first language, so if they are capable of constructing coherent English sentences, we expect you to be able to as well.
|
The Moderation Team
These are the people that keep the forums running smoothly
The Rules
- NSFW Material – Links with ample warning to borderline material will be tolerated. Anything over the line (graphic nudity, porn, victim pics, etc) will not be tolerated. If you are in doubt - PM a mod.
- Warez/Drugs/Other Illicit Activities – May be discussed on an academic basis or in passing. No instruction, detailed accounts, or the like will be tolerated.
- Spam - Members who register and immediately start posting spam links will be banned. Existing members will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
- Trolling - We have no problems with heated discussion, but require you keep it to the subject at hand. If you're making uncalled for personal attacks or simply posting to get a rise out of another member, you will get very little warnings before there will be repercussions. As a corollary to this, do not randomly attack a poster who has not even contributed to the discussion yet. This is also considered trolling and will be met with the same punishment.
- No troll/flame smurfing. Gimmick or humour smurfing is tolerated but using smurfs to troll will result in a ban. Also, no registering a new account because you have a bad reputation. You made your bed, you lie in it.
- Cite your sources. Do not paste quotes from other sources without attribution, especially doing this as a way to post offensive statements with the defence that you were only quoting someone else. In this situation, be prepared to deal with the consequences of having your posts taken at face value.
- Do not try and play the rules lawyer. Continually skirting the line between rule-breaking and not is unacceptable. The spirit of the rules is important as well as the letter. Basically, don't be a dick.
- Thread Tags. When creating a thread, please remember to choose a tag appropriate to the subject. Generally, using a misleading tag for comedy purposes is acceptable. The exception for this is misusing the 'Serious' tag, the punishment for this could be a banning.
- Spoilers. A "spoiler" is a statement or piece of information that gives away information about the story of a book or film. An Ambush Spoiler is a spoiler in a thread which does not use our spoiler tag in a thread that has not been marked as having spoilers. There is a certain statute of limitations on what can and cannot be spoilered. Things which are common knowledge (IE: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, Hamlet dies at the end of the play, etc.) can safely be left unspoilered.
To use spoiler tags...
If you type this: [spoiler]This is a spoiler which folk may not want to read[/spoiler]
Your post will show with: This is a spoiler which folk may not want to read
To read the spoiler, simply highlight the black area with your mouse.
- Bannings
- If you're banned, do not create new accounts to get around it. This will increase the length of the ban and may lead to a permanent banning.
- If you're banned, don't argue about it pointlessly.
- No posting on behalf of a banned member. Discussion of the member is permitted, being a loudspeaker for them is not.
- Deletion of Posts - Do not delete or alter your posts to purposefully alter the flow of a thread. Deleting duplicate posts or making minor edits is of course acceptable.
- No image leeching - Don't link images that are not hosted on your personal webspace, or a place where you have permission (ImageShack, Photobucket, etc).
- Plagiarism - This includes (but isn't limited to) both writing and drawing. The basic definition is taking credit for other people's work, or trying to pass other's work off as your own (partially or wholly). For more on plagiarism, visit http://www.aug.edu/sociology/plagiarism.html or http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html.
- Mod Discretion – Mods will oversee the community and will make decisions in regards to keeping the community functioning and working well.
Signature Specs
We're rather stricter than most forums on this. Maximum values are:
- 35k image size
- 150 pixels max. height (for images and text)
- 500 pixels wide (not accounting for text that auto-wraps)
If you're having trouble getting things down to size or lined up right, just ask for help - we've got numerous members who will be more than happy to give you a hand. Sigs that break these guidelines are likely to be edited down without warning. Those who repeatedly ignore the signature rules may meet further consequences.
Name Change Policy
- You may request to have your name changed. This is intended to be on a very infrequent basis, so think long and hard before requesting a change. Exceptions to this are for small cosmetic changes (e.g. C0linZeal -> ColinZeal, Coffee_Guy_872 -> CoffeeGuy, etc.) or upon the discretion of the administration on a case-by-case basis only.
- Your former name will be placed in the "known aliases" field of your profile by the administrator that changes your name.
- Inappropriate names - those containing profanity, impersonating another person or forum member, an unpronounceable ASCII drawing, in ALL CAPS, that violate any other forum rule, or are generally considered to be stupid - will be denied at the discretion of the administration.
- Name change requests for another user will be denied, and threads petitioning for such will probably be closed. Repeatedly doing this will result in a ban.
- Name change requests should be made to an Administrator only (that would be ColinZeal, ZSquared or Baldrick) as moderators cannot do it. Requests should be made by PM only
- While certainly not a difficult or lengthy process, after you have requested your name change please be patient. We'll get to it eventually.
|
