Post by Webmonkey on Aug 9, 2009 16:29:46 GMT -8
General Board Rules and Warnings (this post was previously called 'New Feature: Warnings)
The warning feature of the forum allows Staff to display a warning bar representing a member's behavior. Warnings are in respect to message board use and behavior only. They don't have anything to do with the dots on your character sheet, behavior while at game, etc. This is about forum use only.
Obviously though if you break The Rules of LARP you can be asked by the staff to leave the game entire, so your message board profiles would possibly reflect that. Most of the 'rules' below are general forum ettiquite taken from Proboards.com, or slightly modified to suit our forums. Most of it is very basic common sense stuff.
The following may get you a warning on the message boards:
EDIT: Updated signature graphic to the new one.
The warning feature of the forum allows Staff to display a warning bar representing a member's behavior. Warnings are in respect to message board use and behavior only. They don't have anything to do with the dots on your character sheet, behavior while at game, etc. This is about forum use only.
Obviously though if you break The Rules of LARP you can be asked by the staff to leave the game entire, so your message board profiles would possibly reflect that. Most of the 'rules' below are general forum ettiquite taken from Proboards.com, or slightly modified to suit our forums. Most of it is very basic common sense stuff.
The following may get you a warning on the message boards:
- Section 1: General Rules
1. Don't break the Proboards Terms of Service.
2. Use boards for what they are intended. Do not post any support related posts on the IC boards, put that in the Webmonkey board. Don't rant on the sphere specific OOC boards, etc. There are specific boards for these things. Pay attention to board conventions - for example, we put character names as the visible message board name for our profiles here.
3. Don't make a post announcing your post count or asking for a custom title. Once you have 500 posts, PM the Webmonkey with the custom title you would like.
4. Participants try not use the forums to post or transmit advertisements or commercial solicitations without permission of the Webmonkey. I don't care if you advertise for your tabletop or other gamer non-profit stuff. Non-gamer-related home-based business spam has historically been almost completely ignored, but still, it's annoying and impolite, so please refrain from posting it. Gamer related for-profit stuff is ok with permission, but ONLY on the General ALL OOC board. Unless you are Staff do not reply to obvious spam threads. Spam is considered any thread that lacks any point of discussion or is inappropriate to be discussed on the boards. If the first post should never have been made, then replies to it are considered as spam.
5. Don't post misleading OOC subjects. Make the subject of your thread relevant to your topic. As far as IC goes, poetic license is allowed.
6. Do not create a thread saying you are leaving, you are back, or that you love peanut butter (regarding your online presence only - stating that you won't make it to a particular game or event is fine). If you must post random non-sequitur stuff, please enjoy the Rant Board, or the All OOC board's neverending Velvety Potato discussion thread. Do not post any 'I'm Bored' threads, there are plenty of other topics for you to post in, or maybe even consider reading a book, or catching up with the Real Life (tm).
7. Do not create threads where the subject at hand is already being discussed unless the post is months old or you are directed by staff to start a new topic of discussion. Avoid thread necromancy - the posting of off topic replies to long dormant threads.
8. No "word games" or any threads which result in many just 1 or 2 word replies at fast intervals. This flags the forum with Proboards and may be considered a violation of the TOS.
9. Staff may lock a thread at any time for any reason. If the reason is not obvious, a justification post will be made to explain the action. Do not make threads about locked threads.
10. Do not post any material that may cause physical distress to others, this includes purposely posting flashing images (triggers epilepsy), and 'Screamers' (images that suddely change to a screaming face). The Webmonkey cannot and will not make any effort to control "Rickrolling". - Section 2: Copyright and source citing
1.Due to copyright issues and general confusion it is now advised that quoting large sections of someone else's work, news etc. is not permitted here. Please provide a link to the article/piece of work.
2. Any thread that purports to be based on historical fact yet has no widely known information or has no credible sources will be considered spam and locked. This will mean that they are locked after a page or less of replies if there is no sources or credibility provided. This usually does not concern In-Character posts where minor poetic liscense is required in the case of historical fiction, etc.
3. Read the disclaimer fully in the MUST READ post at the top of every message board and abide by it. - Section 3: Signatures and Advertising
1. Personal banners and signature areas (in the event of text) are limited to a size of width 700 and height 200. This is the same size as the top most banner on the Forums, the one that looks like this:
If your whole signature area does not fit into this area above, please resize it. Sigs over this size will be removed. Please follow this size and consider those with a smaller screen resolution when adding an image to your signature.
2. Logical size of the signature should not exceed 250KB.
3. When signing your post, please don't do it as a link, you have plenty of space in your signature area and in your profile for links.
4. Avatars should be kept under 50KB in logical size.
5. there is a maximum text size of 4 in your signature area.
Click here for a useful Screen Ruler
6. Out of consideration to those with epilepsy, flashing avatars and signatures are not allowed.
7. Do NOT post affiliate links here. They are unwelcome and you will receive a warning for posting them.
8. General advertising is not allowed anywhere on the forum.
9. Do not use banners that display IP's, while they seem to be a novelty, we don't know what the banner hosts do with the information they collect. - Section 4: Polls
1. Polls must have at least 2 choices.
2. When making your poll, be sure to promote discussion, to back up the choice they made (why did they choose that option).
3. The poll starter should post their choice and why.
4. Think carefully before posting the poll, do some research if needed (don't want to miss an option).
Any poll that does not follow the above guidelines will be locked. - Section 5: Attitude towards other members and/or staff
1. Posts that belittle other members of this community will not be tolerated. Some leeway is given if the post is made on the Rant Board. If someone comes here and asks for help, please give them a sensible answer and point them in the right direction. Do not make fun of them solely because they are new. We were all new one day and we all might have needed help likewise.
2. If you cannot be civil when replying, please do not reply. This is a friendly community. Some leeway is given if the post is made on the Rant Board.
3. We do not appreciate members using profanity on the message boards, neither does Proboards.com, our message board host. Profanity is ok if: It is a logical part of a story on the IC boards, i.e. if your protaganist gets shot, the character yelling 'shit' is a logical part of the story. If you are posting something that is Not Safe For Work, place NSFW prominently in the title of the post and/or post NSFW stuff under a cut or link and/or post on the Rant board. Please keep profanity out of the TITLES of all posts.
4. If someone does ask for help with anything relating to 'their opinion', then either help them in a friendly way or ignore the thread/post. Do not make it your mission at all costs to convert them to your opinion to the exclusion of reasonable discourse and common sense. If you treat people with disrespect to win an arguement, eventually all of your arguements will become meaningless, as no one will choose to listen to you. Actively work to provide leeway for the way 'tone' is often failed to be correctly expressed in an expressionless (as in facial expression and body language) medium, and do your best to consider your own tone as well. This is difficult. Try anyway.
5. The Webmonkey does not moderate pass/locked Staff/Support message board behavior. That's on the Staff to moderate. - Section 6: Staff impersonation and support
1. At no point in time will a staff member ask you for your password. The Administrator of this ProBoard has global access power and thus does not require your password to log in. The only password an administrator might ask you for is the original board password and that only in a Personal Message (PM) and only by the administrator (noted by a red name and red stars under the name, or namely Chris Schetzle (Webmonkey) and only if you are having trouble with your password and request my help expressly). Giving out details over an instant messaging program might infringe your security on your forum.
2. Post message board support questions NOT related to password difficulties on the Webmonkey FAQ's board. All other inquiries should go to webmonkey@emeraldcitychronicles.com or come in the form of a PM to the webmonkey. - Section 3: Warning levels
There are 3 levels of warnings per member position.
1. New members who haven't yet found the rules, they would usually be simply reminded of where the rules are, and which one applies. (All board members are included in this group for 6 mo. after this initial post).
2. Members with 50+ posts or 6 mo. in play are members who should have found the rules, so would get a percentage on a warning bar. Again, warning bars are only visible to Staff, and the warned individual. They are not public.
3. Members with 100+ posts or a year in play would be more established, so should know better, partly because of the rules, and partly because of their past record. These members would get a higher percentage warning.
Members with a custom title, other than Staff, Player or Combat Advocates that receive a warning will have the custom title removed. The title can be restored after the warning is gone. If the PA's or CA's act poorly, the Webmonkey will defer to the staff. If Staff is being douchey, the Webmonkey will defer to the HST of the sphere. If the HST is being douchey, the Webmonkey will defer to the council of Sphere HSTs who will make a final ruling as message board Admins and take whatever other actions they deem appropriate which the Webmonkey will abide by.
The warning percentage is only visible to staff and the member. Other members cannot see your warning level, unless you have received a previous warning for a bigger offense.
Do not post about your warning or your warning level. If you have a question about your warning, PM the Webmonkey/Staff. - Section 7: Member ranks and custom titles
- Member RanksPosts Rank Stars 0 Neonate 1 50 Ancilla 2 100 Elder 3 200 Justicar 4 500 Inner Circle 5 1000 Inconnu Monitor 6 2500 Antediluvian 7 5000 Clan Progenitor 8 10000 Masked Avenger 9 25000 Dark Father 10
- Custom Titles
Basically, there are two ways to get a custom title, and they are as follows:
1. By gaining 500 posts - When you have 500 posts, you may PM the Webmonkey and request a whimsical custom title, and you should get your custom title inserted into your profile, however, I'll usually check every once and awhile to see what post counts our at and surprise you - If I don't, don't take offense, just PM me politely. Generally I'll pick a Custom Title based on your message board/game demeanor and/or interests. Naturally if you hate the title, you can let me know and I'll work something out with you that you like. The idea is to recognize active members of our community, not call you names.
2. You become a support position for Staff, such as a Sphere Head Storyteller, Assistant Storyteller, a Player Advocate or a Combat Advocate for one of the role-play spheres. HST's have their name as their custom title. AST's Custom Title will be the name of the sphere they are helping to run and the letters AST. CA's and PA's will have Player Advocate or Combat Advocate as their custom title. If you think you have the wrong title or are missing a title, please contact the HST that governs your sphere and have them send me confirmation of the appropriate title. Especially with other spheres besides Vampire, I'm often not notified of PA's or CA changes.
- If you have a whimsical custom title and become Staff, PA or CA, the support positon should win out. If you started with a whimsical custom title, became staff/support and then went back to playing, you can get your whimsical title re-instated by the Webmonkey.
EDIT: Updated signature graphic to the new one.
