Forum Rules

I've decided that the forum needs a refresher on the rules, so I'm going to write them up from scratch. Each rule will be accompanied by its associated punishment for violation.

General Content/Post Rules

1.00 - No insulting, flaming or harassing of any community member. An infraction will be given once per post.
1.01 - No multiple posting within short time frames. If it has been a period of at least two days between posts, it is allowed. An infraction will be given once per string of posts.
1.02 - Gore, sexually explicit material and advertisements are banned. Punishment will range from a simple infraction to a permanent ban depending on severity.
1.03 - No linking or discussion of specific pirating sites or warez, or of other illegal activities with the intent to participate in said activities. An infraction will be given per instance.
1.04 - No spamming of posts. An infraction will be given once per instance.
1.05 - No reposting locked threads. An infraction will be given once per repost.
1.06 - No posting messages from banned members. Doing so is an automatic one-day ban.
1.07 - Derailing of threads will result in all associated posts being deleted. This rule will be absolutely strictly enforced in the News, Community Content, Bugs and Support forums; weakly enforced for the sub-forums of Off-Topic (Not including Off-Topic), and moderating enforced for all other forums (General Discussion, Gameplay, Suggestions and Off-Topic). Derailing in boards where the rule is strictly enforced will lead to infractions for all participants on a per-post basis.
1.08 - No shitposting. An infraction will be given once per post. This rule follows the same enforcement guidelines as 1.07.
1.09 - No necroing threads for the sake of necroing. Posting in an old thread with intent to contribute to its content is allowed. A necro'd thread will be locked and the violator infracted.
1.10 - No blank thread titles. Threads will be locked or renamed and the creator given a warning.
1.12 - Excessive swearing for its own sake will result in a warning.
1.13 - No racism, sexism, anti-semitism, or hate speech in general. Moderator's will make an effort to distinguish between being playful and outright hostile, but this being an international forum with different cultural backgrounds, it is better to be safe than sorry. For example, while a moderator from North America might not see much harm in a Nazi joke, one from Europe very well might. An infraction will be given on a per-post basis.
1.14 - No opinion except that which states Jenna Louise Coleman is the finest female in existence is acceptable.

Images
2.00 - No embedding of images greater than 1280 x 720 in any thread EXCEPT for News threads and Community Content threads. Repeat violations will be subject to infractions.
2.01 - No rapidly flashing images. Maximum frequency for a flashing image is 2Hz, or 500ms per frame. An infraction will be given once per post.
2.02 - No images larger than 90px in height and 1000px in length in signatures. Violating signatures will be forcibly changed and repeat violations will be met with infractions.

Accounts

3.01 - One account per person; extra accounts will be permanently banned and the owner temporarily banned.
3.02 - No offensive usernames. Violators will be permanently banned.
3.03 - Creating an account after being banned will extend the length of the original ban and result in a permanent ban for the new account.

The report button is to be only used in urgent cases, in particular extreme violations of 1.02. Excessive use of the report button will be met with an infraction.

Each infraction will last three days for the first offense.

Repeat violations are subject to greater punishments at the discretion of the moderator (i.e., longer or more infractions; banning).

Moderators have final say in all rulings. The punishments are guidelines more than they are absolutes. If a community member has a complaint with that moderator and has tried talking to said moderator in private, then they should escalate to another moderator. Under no circumstances are members allowed to discuss moderator actions in public on the forum without the permission, implicit or explicit, of another moderator.

 

This thread will be open for a number of days to gather feedback. Afterwards, all the posts will be archived in another thread and this thread will be locked.

 

What's changed?

 

I forgot to add a rule about racism in there :/

The main changes are an official recognition that some forums are more moderated than others and the max image size. Importantly, I wanted to refresh key points about moderators and the report button, and the rules in general.

 

How rapid is the limit for flashing images? Is your signature the correct rate? :p

Also what is an infraction, I've never had one. What does it do?

 

1.07 is my biggest concern - lots of Empires tend to evolve over time away from their original topics, and mostly that's all right. Unless you're talking about bringing a completely different subject in.

Also 1.09. People are supposed to search for old threads first, right? That's standard procedure on most forums anyway. Only problem is with Empires the versions aren't really shown, so things can be necro'd by mistake for new users. I'm assuming in that case though, they'd just be warned. The bigger concern is...some threads very occasionally get 'resurrected' rather than necro'd, to good effect, so...just hoping if the raise is relevant maybe they'd be consideration given.

Not sure if this post was necessary, I just wanted to get things clarified so I know where the real limits are.

 

2.01 - No rapidly flashing images. An infraction will be given once per post.
2.02 - No images larger than 90px in height and 1000px in length in signatures. Violating signatures will be forcibly changed and repeat violations will be met with infractions.
http://forums.empiresmod.com/showpost.php?p=506825&postcount=1


Your signature has flashed 53 times under a minute.
Post infracted

 

I'll most likely peg the max at 2 or 3Hz; the former is US government guidelines and the latter is WCAG.

I'll definitely take into account necro vs resurrect, thanks for the input.

Derailing is complicated, which is why it'll be enforced differently across the entire forum.

 

Yeah, but this time something's actually being done.

 

How will viroman survive? how will destroyer survive!?

 

I don't particularly have anything to say, just want one of my posts to be archived with this topic :D

Glad for a limit stated for huge stupid images. Those were the worst. I particularly am not liking the images that are being used in certain polls... makes me not want to open the forums when I am away from home lest people think I am some weirdo that gets off on star and stripe clad ladies and unusually sized photos of Emma Whats-her-name.

I'm actually more upset with the huge images in polls than I am anything else, really.

 

you obviously forgot racism/sexism

the large image thing is particularly troublesome, in regards to game screenshots. people still dont know how to resize them...

 

You're banned for however long you have 3 active infractions at once. They expire after a while.

 

I suppose, I will just have to post in my atheism thread more often in order to avoid it reaching necro status.

 

why not just say no hatred for shitty reasons and leave it at that. No need to be this specific.

 

I'm still convinced a forum of this size doesn't need a law codex and the semantic discussions by Paradox et al. will be tedious.

Also we need rules against sexism, racism, homophobia, deniers of the Jewish holocaust, deniers of the Armenian holocaust, trivializers of terrorism, apologists of pedophilia, political propaganda, talking about pirated TV shows, drug glorification, domestic violence, violence against animals, critizicing law enforcement, talking about leaks that endanger National Security, downplaying Japanese war crimes, supporting Catalan independence, supporters of female circumsision, opponents of male circumsision, falling in love with female Russian officials, predicting a crash of the financial system, changing to the gold standard, using steroids and posting outdated gifs.