Site Rules

Things concerning the site.

Site Rules

Postby The Kingpin » Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:25 pm

First of all, I would like to welcome you all to RPGTopia. In order for all of us to enjoy and make the most of the forum I'd like all of you to endorse the following rules:

All RPGs and E-wars members wish to create MUST be requested in the various Request Topics (Located at the top of the RPG forum and E-Wars subforum). They must then abide by the rules for each request topic before the RPGs/E-wars can be made.

#1 Terms of Use
I Content Notice
II Account Responsibility

#2 Privacy and Release of Information

#3 Member conduct
I - Offensive Posting
II - Censor Bypassing
III - Flaming
IV - Trolling
V - Illegal Activities
VI - Spamming
VII - Off-Topic Posting
VIII - Disruptive Posting
IX - Flooding, Invading, and Board Wars
X - Impersonation
XI - Harassment/Stalking/Privacy
XII - Signatures & Avatars
XIII - Bugs and Exploits
XIV - Usernames, Profiles, and Forms
XV - Posting Questions
XVI - Other

#4 Helping Moderators

#5 Image Posting

#6 RPG Related Rules

#7 Notes to Remember

1. Terms of Use
RPGtopia is based on its Terms of Service outlined here. When using the message boards, you are subject to these posted terms. Usage of the services on this site denotes acceptance of these terms. The TOS (terms of service) may be changed at any time and without direct notice to individual visitors, so it is recommended that you check back with this page at any time you have questions or concerns.

I Content Notice
By viewing the site content, you agree that all content on the RPGTopia Message Boards is the responsibility of the person from which the content originated. You agree that neither RPGTopia nor it's affiliates are responsible for any content that you personally post or upload/download.

You agree that while using the RPGTopia message boards and comments, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable, and that you will in no way hold RPGTopia or it's affiliates liable in any way, shape, or form for any harm or loss that may come to you or others as a result of viewing this content. RPGTopia is not responsible for screening content before it is posted, although our staff makes their best effort to control indecent content (be it language or graphics).

II Account Responsibility
Users are solely responsible for protecting their accounts from access by others. You are strongly encouraged to select a hard-to-guess password and not re-use that password on any other sites where it may be read by the owners or administrators of that site. RPGTopia also does not endorse multiple accounts. A user who has several accounts shall receive a private message on all of them and be asked to choose only one, leaving the others to be deleted.

2. Privacy and Release of Information
Under normal circumstances, RPGTopia would never release your provided information to any third party without a court order requiring us to do so. However, in cases of certain severe and/or repeated TOS violations or illegal activities, we reserve the right to forward any and all known information about you and your accounts to your ISP (including libraries, schools, and places of employment), e-mail service provider, your ISP account owner (if someone else is actually paying for it), and any parties whose copyright has clearly been infringed by your actions on the boards.
3. Member Conduct
You agree that you will not use this service to perform the following actions:

I Offensive Posting
Posts of a patently offensive nature are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
* Using vulgar, profane, or sexually explicit language
* Using race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, handicap, nationality, or gender as a means of insult
* Using sexual preference terms as a term of insult in any way, shape, or form
* Using threatening, harassing, defamatory, hate-speech, or libellous language
* Posting or requesting links to or material from pornographic, obscene, or hate-speech web sites
* Posting links to web sites with potentially offensive content without a clear warning
* Descriptions or details about any sexual act or sexual organs
* Any Adult rated content that hasn't been previously mentioned.

II Censor Bypassing
The RPGTopia message boards are programmed with a list of words that are considered vulgar under any context, and these words are not allowed to be posted. Attempting to bypass the censor by misspelling, inserting spaces or symbols, transposing letters, using look-alike symbols, or any other method is not allowed. The only acceptable method of posting one of these vulgar words is to completely obscure it, making it impossible to determine what the word is without context. Additionally, certain words are prohibited from being used in topic titles and user information pages; bypassing the censor to post those words where they are restricted is also disallowed.
For example, if "gris" is a banned word:

* Not allowed: g-r-i-s, 9|-1$, girs, gryeeeas, grizznizz
* Allowed: ****, ****ed, ****ing, gr*s, *ris, g'ed, g-word

III Flaming (Insulting Other Users)
Posts clearly insulting other board members, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
* Name-calling ("You're an idiot", "You moron").
* Direct insults ("Screw you").
* Offensive orders ("Go kill yourself").
* Insinuations ("Are you stupid or something?") or insults towards family ("Your mom...").

IV Trolling (Inciting Flames)
Posts intended solely to annoy and/or offend other posters by going against the clear nature of a board or topic are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
* Provoking other users to respond with flames.
* Provoking fans of a particular system or game, especially on boards dedicated to that system or game.
* Making misleading topic titles.
* Asking obviously useless questions.
* Posting false information as fact.

V Illegal Activities
Posts that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, asking for or providing, in any way, shape, or form:
* Illegal copies of copyrighted software (ROMs, Warez).
* Methods of circumventing copyright protection (Cracks, CD Keys, mod chips).
* Illegal copies of copyrighted music (MP3s), movies, videos, or any other type of media, except if you have consent of the owner.
* Methods of cheating in online games.

VI Spamming
Posts that clearly advertise a service or product are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
* Unsolicited commercial or personal web site advertisements.
* For-Sale/For-Trade/For-Auction/Wanted notices.
* "Make Money Fast" scams, chain letters, and pyramid schemes.

Users are allowed to include a web site address in a signature, request comments on their personal site in a social setting, or providing only once an useful, interesting or relevant link to another site.

VII Off-Topic Posting
The main purpose of the Message Boards is to provide discussion forums for various items. Topicality is expected and will be enforced on all boards, so take the extra time to post about the proper subject. If you want to talk about something off topic, RPGT has a forum for them.

VIII Disruptive Posting
Posts that disrupt the message boards for other users, intentional or not, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited, to:
* Message posts or topic titles that force browsers to scroll horizontally
* Large blank or content-free posts
* Bumping old or "dead" topics without a reasonable cause
* Posting multiple identical or near-identical messages or topics, including "fad" topics
* Topic titles or posts consisting of all or mostly capital letters (Images cannot be larger than 600 pixels wide, with the exception of the Art topics, in which case images can be 1600 pixels wide).
* Intentionally hard-to-read posts (i.e. using all, mostly, or alternating capital letters; using no spaces, capital letters, or punctuation; using large amounts of "1337 speak", etc.)
* Post counting (i.e. "First", "100th Post")
* Double Posting without obvious reason (example found lower in the page)

IX Flooding, Invading, and Board Wars
Users will be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for:
* Flooding a board with multiple disruptive topics or posts
* Invading another board (flooding a board as a group with multiple topics or posts)
* Announcing or inciting a "war" or any conflict with the regular members of another/same board
Users who violate these rules can expect an immediate and permanent ban, along with any and every person who joins in with him/her.

X Impersonation
Users will be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for impersonating other boards users by creating and/or using a message board account with a name clearly intended to impersonate, mock, or antagonize another user, or otherwise falsely claiming to be another message board member.

XI Harassment/Stalking/Privacy
Continual harassing behaviour directed towards a certain individual or group with the intent of creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the boards, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is strictly prohibited. Posting private information without permission is also prohibited. Failing to comply with these rules results in a warning. If it continues, and the warning is not heeded, the user responsible can expect a month long ban. If repeated, a permanent ban will follow. Depending on the extremity of the harassment, the user may get an immediate, permanent ban, if the Admin in charge sees fit to do so.

XII Signatures & Avatars
RPGTopia users are not allowed to have signatures larger than four lines (rows), this includes any breaks/spaces between text. A standard line is the height of normal text. Making larger text than standard will count your line as 2 or more.
Images are allowed in signatures, as long as they aren't larger than 500X250 pixels.
Avatars can be no larger than 150X150 pixels
Gif images in signatures prohibited, but gif avatars are acceptable. If the avatar is causing browser lag for a number of members, however, it will be removed.

Users have a time limit of 5 days to replace their signature and/or avatar after an admin or moderator contacts them.
Infringement of this will result on a deletion of the users' avatar and/or signature.

XIII Bugs and Exploits
Using exploits or tricks in the forum's code to gain privileges, access, or abilities not clearly intended by the board design is prohibited. While you are more than welcome to try and find any exploits away from the public eye, making them public or using them for personal benefit is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.

XIV Usernames, Profiles, and Forms
Violating any of the above rules with a username or any part of the user profile (signature, quote, e-mail, IM) is considered a severe violation.

XV Posting Questions
First thing is to find out whether your question has already been answered in a thread. There is a search function on this forum you can use to find similar questions and their answers.

If you cannot find a suitable answer and wish to ask- you can start a thread. When naming your thread it is a good idea to clearly put the nature of your questions in the subject. For example: Putting your subject as "Help please" is bad from when you could put "release date?".
This also helps others looking for similar answers to find the relevant threads easier.
Always supply as much information about your problem, or question as you can.

XVI Other
When posting, remember you should be posting to either ask for information or provide information for others benefits. Posting "Cool" or "Yes, I know about that" as a topic title is not useful and can be considered spamming the forum.

There is an Edit button in your post. You can change/add to your posts by clicking on the edit button, making your changes and then pressing Submit. Please edit your post rather than making another post to add another point, correct your statement, or to try to increase post count. Multiple Posting may result in a warning being issued.

Any other activity that is clearly detrimental to the flow of conversation and normal activities of the boards and its users may also be deleted.

4. Helping Moderators
Whilst we appreciate that some of you like to help us with the forum, there are a few issues that need to be addressed.

Do not make a post just to tell another member not to double post. We will decide what is an inappropriate double post and advise the person if necessary. (It does not make sense to post, just to tell someone else not to double post).

Do not make a separate post just to inform another member that they are in the wrong forum, or a topic should be moved or locked. We do not need you adding "Mod/Admin you can close this". We read the forums everyday and it is our job to notice these things.

If a thread needs urgent attention please PM a Moderator and we will attend to it as soon as possible. Do not take forum problems into your own hands.

It would be appreciated if you can help us by following these guidelines. We notice that on some sites, a thread can go on for half a page whilst everyone adds there 2 cents about where it should be and if it should be locked etc.
This is unnecessarily clogging up the forums.

5. Image Posting
You may add an image to a post as long as it complies to the rules below.

The picture when using the IMG tags must not be larger than 450x450 pixels. This is to cater for people with lower resolutions and to avoid members having to scroll horizontally to read the post.

You can use the image tags to link an image from another website.
eg:
Code: Select all
[img]http://theURLaddress.jpg[/img]

This will paste the image in your post.


Or you can use the URL tags
eg:
Code: Select all
[URL=http://theURLaddress]Click Here[/URL]

to open a new window to view the image.
There is no size limit for using the URL tags linking to another website.
Please do not include the asterisks

Other Files
you may add other file types to your post if relevant . Allowed file types are .txt, .doc and .xls and .zip . This feature is restricted by file-size. Follow the same procedure as for attaching an image.

6. RPG Related Rules

Each RPG has a list of rules that must be followed in order to play the RPG and to ensure the happiness and pleasure of other Players. Examples of these Rules are:
-Other players' characters cannot be killed off without the owning players' permission.
-Powerplaying is not allowed

Breaking these rules, or doing something that would be impossible in that RPG, will result in a report being sent to an Admin or moderator from the RPG's Author, or the participants affected.

Any RPers reported 3 times gets 1 official warning. after that, each report counts as one Official warning.

This rule set works as following:
5 reports [3 for first warning, one each for the next 2]=1 week ban. another 3 after that week is over and the account returned [1 equals official warning, given per report]=1 month ban. if, after that month, the member gets reported ANOTHER 3 times, he gets a permanent ban.

Those who fail to follow these rules will be "dealt with".

NOTE: Banning System:
Unless otherwise stated, a Member receives one warning per rule infringement, is given 2 warnings and is banned on the third. that ban will remain in effect for 1 week, then lifted. if the violator continues to break the rules, he receives 3 more warnings, and a permanent ban on the third. Explicit content is the most unwanted thing on this site. As such, anyone who breaks that rule receives an immediate, permanent ban. other instant ban causes are to follow later.

7. Notes to Remember

1- RPGTopia cannot and will not be held responsible for any damages done to excessively attention-seeking people as a result of not being given full attention in any of the RPGs.

2- If a user encounters a strange post posted by a "guest", then this is simply a deleted account's posts, and they should remember that guest posting is disabled.

3- RPGTopia aims to please its members. Any requests that may improve the RPGTopia Experience are to be suggested to the Webmaster or Second in Command, to be debated by the staff and added if considered worth adding

4- RPGTopia emphasizes equality among members. No person has any more of a say in anything than the other, and no member has more right to do anything than another member. Any violation of this will be dealt with severely, as has been mentioned above. the worse the case, the more severe the punishment.

5- To join RPGTopia, one must: Be over 15 years of age, and have some experience on internet forums. Those who join the site and wish to learn how to use forums, are welcome, but that is the only exception to the rule.

6- Some of the content on RPGTopia is for mature eyes only. This includes violence, cursing, and other such material some might find offensive. The staff urges that people read the contents of an RPG or discussion carefully before joining, to make sure it is suitable for their age and maturity level.

Thank you for reading,

The RPGTopia Staff
Last edited by The Kingpin on Sun Jan 06, 2008 8:34 pm, edited 12 times in total.
"Ah yes, organised chaos. the sign of a clever but ever-busy mind. To the perpetrator, a carefully woven web of belongings and intrigue, but to the bystander? Madness!"
–William Beckett, Lore of Leyuna RPG

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