Author Topic: Forum Rules!  (Read 117248 times)

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Offline TheYoungerPlumber

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Forum Rules!
« on: February 20, 2009, 05:10:21 AM »
FORUM RULES

Like any community, the Nintendo World Report Forums have rules and regulations that each user, staff, and moderator must abide by. We reserve the right to update these rules as necessary.


General Tips:

* Lurk before posting. Familiarize yourself with the rules and norms of the forum!

* Sticky threads and posts in the 'Announcements' area supplement the forum rules and you are expected to abide by them.

* Don't be a jerk!


Registration and Forum Accounts:

* Users must supply a valid email address, or else registration will probably not work. You are signing up for these forums at your own risk.

* Obscene, racist, defamatory, or otherwise offensive usernames, avatars, and avatar subtitles are not allowed.

* Usernames, avatars, and avatar subtitles that depict/endorse illegal activity (such as drug use or game piracy) are not allowed.

* Avatars are required to be within 100x100 pixel size and 30kb in weight. Images are not permitted in forum signatures.

* Impersonating another user or staff member is absolutely not tolerated.

* Please use a unique, non-simple password for your forum account. Account security is your responsibility.

* Forum administrators may edit your account information for any reason.


Posting Guidelines:

* Thread titles should clearly indicate the content of the post.

* Forum posts are expected to be on topic and deliver a certain level of content and legibility. "Spam" and other posts without value are not allowed and may be edited or deleted at the sole discretion of forum moderators.

* Be aware of any special rules or conditions of particular forum areas. These will be called out in threads pinned to the top of that particular forum area.

* You may not post obscene, racist, defamatory, or otherwise offensive material.

* You may not personally insult another user.

* You may not pointlessly criticise the website and its staff. Constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged, but if you're just going to post "NWR sucks" in a thread and leave, don't bother.

* Do not "troll" threads. NWR's definition of a forum troll is a user who posts a response for the sole purpose of garnering an angry or upset response from another individual or group of individuals.

* Do not "derail" threads. Do not intentionally change the subject of a thread or purposefully turn a thread in an unnecessarily negative direction. If it made you think of a good topic you really want to discuss, make a new thread.

* You may not post another individual's personal information.

* You may not post copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder, or anything violating U.S. law.

* You may not post or discuss anything involving activities illegal in the United States. (i.e. video game piracy, music piracy, movie piracy, drug use)

* These topics are strictly off-limits: politics, religion, sexual orientation.

* For posts including images, be aware that images over 100k and 640 pixels wide are not permitted except in threads marked for giant images in the thread title. Using bandwidth that is not your own without permission is not permitted. Images must be safe to view at school, work, and in front of grandma.

* Do not make any attempt to impersonate a forum moderator/admin or staff member, whether in your posts, user name, or signature. This includes jokes that could easily be misconstrued by new forum users.

* Last but not least, do not accuse another user of breaking the rules within a thread. Instead simply make use of the "Report to Moderator" feature of the forums. There is a link after every post. This rule includes calling someone a "troll" or yelling at them for derailing a thread.


Moderation Policy:
If any of the above rules are broken, it will be at a moderator's discretion to hand out a warning to all offending parties. Warnings are handed out using a system built into the forum software.

Every user has a "Warning Level" associated with them that is represented by a percentage (from 0 to 100). Most users will be at 0%. If a mod hands out a warning, they will add percentage points to the user. Depending on the severity of the offense, 10%, 20%, or 30% will be added.

The warning level of a user will decrease by 1% per day. Therefore, if you receive a severe 30% warning, it will take 30 days for your account to be clear of it.

As a user's warning level increases, certain things happen to their account, as outlined below:

At 25% the user is added to the watched list. This means that every post they make will be under the scrutiny of all moderators.

At 50% every post made by the user must be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible on the site. This could take upwards of 24 hours and will make carrying on conversations difficult. At this stage, if a post is refused by a moderator an additional warning will still be given even though the offending post never actually showed up on the site.

At 75% the user cannot post on the site at all. This will operate as a temp ban. Breaking 75% can also be considered a "final warning" and the user will be put on probation. If the user receives one more warning before their warning level retreats all the way to 0%, they will be permanently banned from the forums.

Any attempt at gaming the above system will be met with harsh penalties and possibly permanent bans. For example, if one user decides to egregiously break rules once every 30 days, while his warning level would never surpass 30, the pattern would warrant further action by moderators.

All of this said, extreme situations can still result in an immediate permanent ban at the discretion of moderators. We will do our best to stick to the above system as long as everyone does their best to abide by the rules.

In addition, posts that are deemed inappropriate or detrimental to discussion may be removed at staff discretion. This may occur even if such posts do not warrant disciplinary action, especially to keep the conversation smooth in Talkback threads.

Thanks!

- NWR Forum Moderators and Staff



=======OLD RULES============================
The following version of the rules is included for archival sake. If there are any inconsistencies between them and the above newer version, the newer version stands.


FORUM PROTIPS:
- Lurk before posting. Familiarize yourself with the rules and norms of the forum!
- Sticky threads and posts in the 'Announcements' area supplement the forum rules and you are expected to abide by them.
- Don't be a jerk!

REGISTRATION AND FORUM ACCOUNTS:
- Users must supply a valid email address, or else registration will probably not work. You are signing up for these forums at your own risk.
- Obscene, racist, defamatory, or otherwise offensive usernames and avatars are not allowed.
- You must provide your own bandwidth for your avatar. Bandwith "leeching" is not allowed. Avatars are required to be within 100x100 pixel size and 30kb in weight. Images are not permitted in forum signatures.
- Please use a unique, non-simple password for your forum account. Account security is your responsibility.
- Forum administrators may edit your account information for any reason.

POSTING GUIDELINES:
- Forum posts are expected to be on topic and deliver a certain level of content and legibility. "Spam" and other posts without value are not allowed and may be edited or deleted at the sole discretion of forum moderators. Thread titles should clearly indicate the content of the post. All posts become the property of Nintendo World Report.
- Be aware of any special rules or conditions of particular forum areas.
- You may not post obscene, racist, defamatory, or otherwise offensive posts. You may not post another individual's personal information.
- You may not post copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder, or anything violating U.S. law.
- Crazy catch-all: the forum moderators and administrators may edit your posts or ban your account for any reason.
- These topics are strictly off-limits: politics, religion, sexual orientation.
- For posts including images, be aware that images over 100k and 640 pixels wide are not permitted except in threads marked for giant images in the thread title. Using bandwidth that is not your own without permission is not permitted. Images must be safe to view at school, work, and in front of grandma.
- Do not make any attempt to impersonate a forum moderator/admin, whether in your posts, user name, or signature.  This includes jokes that could easily be misconstrued by new forum users.



THE LONG, PROPER VERSION:
Quote
To post messages on the Nintendo World Report Forums, you must register as a member.  This registration is free of charge.  By registering, you agree to abide the following Terms of Membership:

When you register, you must choose a unique user name or "handle" and you must provide a unique, VALID email address.  Duplicate user names and email addresses are not allowed, so if the name or address you enter is already in use, you will be prompted to choose another one.  You must also choose a password for the account and verify it.  Please choose a good password to secure your account!

You may add a custom avatar (also called a "author icon") to your profile.  It should be no more than 100x100 pixels in physical size, and no more than 30KB in data size.  It should not contain any offensive graphics, and be safe to view at school, work, or in front of your grandparents. Nintendo World Report Forums reserves the right to remove the avatar feature at any time if it is deemed to be causing problems with page loading times, or causing unnecessary strain on server resources. Use of images in your avatar falls under the same rules as linking to any image in the forums... they must be hosted on your own personal webspace, and should not be linked to any other site's bandwidth without their permission.  Additionally, the use of images or the <img> tag within your signature is forbidden; text signatures only. Violation of these rules may result in your posts or account being edited, deleted, or manhandled by a moderator.

These forums, at its own discretion, may bar registration from any specific email service or ISP.  This action will be taken if and only if that e-mail service or ISP becomes a source for abuse, and that service or ISP refuses to take action on the matter.

Any message posted on our forums expresses only the views of the author of the message and does not necessarily reflect the views of these forums or any person or entity associated with them.  These Forums use moderators and administrators to monitor the content and appearance of messages posted in our forums.  However, considering the real time nature of this bulletin board, it is impossible for us to monitor or review every message.  Therefore, you agree that neither these forums, nor any person or entity associated with them, will be held responsible for the contents, accuracy, completeness, or validity of any information posted in them.

You agree that you will not use our forums to post any material, or links to any material, which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. This is a private forum, and content may be removed or edited at the sole discretion of the forum moderators.

You agree that you will not post any copyrighted material (including copied text or images from other websites) on this forum without the express permission of the copyright holder. Advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also inappropriate on on Nintendo World Report Forums. This includes links to Auction Sites, Adult-Oriented sites and imagery, and any blatant advertisement.

We have the ability to edit and/or remove any objectionable messages without warning. Objectionable is defined solely by the administrators and moderators, not by any user. Any user who believes that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. Upon receipt of such notification, we will make every effort to take such action as we deem necessary within a reasonable period of time. Since this is a manual process, you are advised that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately. Reposting the same material or offensive post after it was removed or locked is grounds for an immediate ban. And before you decide to complain about a thread being removed, be sure to check the other areas. It might have been moved somewhere more appropriate.  Public complaining about messages being moved or deleted is reason to have your account banned.  Any questions should be sent to a moderator by Private Message.  All moderator actions are logged.

You agree that you are solely responsible for the content of your messages, and that you will indemnify and hold harmless Nintendo World Report, FuseTalk (the forum software manufacturer) and their agents and employees with respect to any claim based upon the appearance and/or transmission of your message(s).  In the event of any complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you, Nintendo World Report Forums reserves the right to reveal your identity and any other information we may know about you to the proper authorities.

Nintendo World Report also reserves the right to remove any user's access to our forums, with or without prior warning, with extreme prejudice, and also reserves the right to prevent future access to the site. This is our home, and you are guests in our home. This is NOT a "public" forum, it is a private one, and we will decide who we allow to use our services.

The following offenses can and often will result in your immediate expulsion from the forums, without warning:

* Spamming the board with for-sale or advertisements for other sites.
* Spamming the board for the purposes of inflating your "post count."
* Cross-Posting any message to multiple areas.
* Posting chain-letters, e-mail "stories", hoaxes or anything else of no particular social value.
* Using any racist or gender-biased slurs against other Forum members, whether intentional or not.
* Repeating any "offense" of which you have been warned by a Moderator or Administrator. This includes reposting closed messages, regardless of whether or not you agree with the reason it was closed.
* Posting links to pirated software or game "ROMs.", or any discussion of how to beat the copy protection inherent to any game machine. (Discussion of how to "mod" a machine to play LEGALLY purchased games from other geographical regions IS permitted.)
* Impersonating a forum moderator, administrator, or NWR staff member by means of forum post(s), signature, or user name.


The following topics are off-limits unless specifically approved by a moderator, and will result in the thread being deleted.  Any reposting of these off-limits topics will result in the user being banned:

* Religion
* Politics
* Nationality
* Sexual Orientation

These rules apply even in the "General Chat" area of the Forum. Do not use that as an excuse to break the rules. All "General Chat" means that conversation is less-structured, and does not have to be video-game related. The standard rules still apply.

Thanks for joining the Nintendo World Report Forums. All your post are belong to us.
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« Last Edit: June 02, 2013, 01:53:28 PM by MegaByte »
::Michael "TYP" Cole
::Associate Editor
Nintendo World Report

"Only CHEATERS mess up!" -Waluigi