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[kyle]

Here's a first draft of the rules.

HERE BE THE RULES OF THE TEAM MEAT FORUMS.
Obey them and all shall be well.  Break them and one might find themselves on the wrong side of a swift moving ban hammer.


RULE 1  Don't be an ass.
Should be simple enough.  Being an ass includes but is not limited to, personal attacks on other members of the forum, racial slurs or otherwise super offensive language, any sort of harassment to other members, and acting like a general douche.  Punishments for assery include verbal warnings from the forum staff (either public, or private through PM), temporary, and permanent bans.  Treat people as you would in person, be civilized, and all that good sort.


RULE 2  No illegal stuff.
Do not post anything related to pirated material, and do not post material that is unsuitable for minors to view.  This includes pornography and general gross/shocking imagery.  Illegal materials could get us in big trouble with our web host, and we wouldn't want that.  Any posted material or links to aforementioned materials will be promptly removed.  A warning of some sort will come swiftly to the offending user.  Repeat offenders will lose posting privileges, or be banned permanently.


RULE 3  No advertisement spam.
This should be obvious, but any spam advertisement posts (WoW gold, Ugg Bootz, Nike Jerseys, etc) will be immediately removed with the ban hammer coming down swiftly on the offending poster.  If you make a post that is spam-like, the forum staff will assume that you are a spam bot and ban you permanently without warning.  This rule applies only to posts that make you look like a spam bot.


RULE 4  No super annoying signatures (or avatars)
If your signature is huge and has 100 frames of animation then it's probably going to be moderated.  There is no exact pixel size limitation on signatures currently, but if your signature is much larger than your average post size, then there's a good chance it will be moderated.  Also if enough people complain about your signature or avatar giving them seizures, it will be moderated.  You won't be banned, probably just warned and your signature removed.


RULE 5  Post Etiquette.
We're not asking you to behave like fancy pants rich people, but please be reasonable while posting in the forums.  Completely derailing a thread will result in a warning.  Repeat offenses of purposely derailing threads will result in a temporary loss of posting privileges.  On top of that, try not to post large images directly to the forums (wallpapers for example). If you'd like to share a large picture, use a link to the image instead.


RULE 6  The rules can change.
The forum staff reserves the right to alter or amend the rules as they see fit.  That's about it.


Some important notes:
- If you see something out of line, please report the offending post to the moderation staff with the "Report to moderator" link at the bottom right of the post.
- It is up to the discretion of the forum staff to decide what is a punishable offense.
- In most cases you will be warned about an offense before before further action is taken.  (Except if you're a spam robot.  That's a insta-ban.)

Hey everyone, its time to discuss forum rules as the member count grows the amount of drama grows with it.  I know the anarchy has been fun for some, but probably not-so-fun for others...

First of all, I've bestowed the power of Global Moderator unto Orci.  Everyone say hello to Orci.  Right now I only expect the removal of spam posts and general forum tidyness from the moderators, so that leads us to the next part of this thread.  If you have any nominations for moderators, please PM me.



For the most part, I am just a bystander.  I set up the forums and will tweak them and play with them from time to time, but you guys are creating the community, so the rules should be up to you!

Obviously the rules will include no posting of illegal crap that could get our web host in trouble, but outside of that everything is up for discussion.  I know that a topic at hand is general behavior rules.  Should members be disciplined for being rude, aggressive, offensive, etc, to other members?  What should the discipline be?  Who decides what qualifies as such behavior?

There's also things like signatures, avatars, etc.  Should big animated avatars be okay, or should there be limits on stuff like that?

Now this is where I turn it over to you for discussion!

[electric_shaman]

Members should be disciplined for being rude, aggressive, offensive, etc.
This should be decided by other members of the forum, via reporting the post. After x amount of complaints, a mod can then decide if the action is worth disciplining. If there are another x amount of complaints about the post, the user must be disciplined. Obviously there would have to be a slightly more sophisticated set of rules than that to ensure there's no abuse of the system.

Disciplinary action should range from a warning, temporary bans, to perma-bans, depending on the number and seriousness of offences.


Other possible rules:
- Age restriction: should be at least 12+, to fall in-line with SMB's rating.
- No self promoting outside of the Fan Section

[FlipTaco]

Hi Orci

I believe that we should have some base rules written out such as no spamming, try to keep on topic, don't act like a douche, etc. but I believe that actually making judgement calls and handing out bans should be up to the discretion of the moderation team. The entire foundation of most forum rules is common sense and I'd expect that a person being promoted to the role of moderator would have lots of it. My idea is that generally, if you're playing nice with the other forum members and you keep the discussion on track then you won't be put on the blacklist.

There would still be a set of written rules, of course, but the moderators would make all of the calls as to who gets a warning, who gets a ban, and the length of a ban. If some user were to find a loophole in the rules that would technically allow him to misbehave, the moderators could be like "Nope" and ban him anyway, followed by a quick rewrite in the rules. It could also work the other way; if a user were to break a rule but a mod decides that it wasn't that bad, he knows what he did wrong, nobody was really hurt, etc. then he could let the user off with a warning or possibly take no action at all.

Basically, this.

[Psychopath]

I'm going to borrow a few rules from other forums that I'm a moderator on:

• Don't reply to spam topics. This only keeps them afloat. Report and move on.
• No malicious posts or personal attacks on any members in any part of the forum:

A certain amount of hostile banter and insults among friends will be acceptable, but it is completely unacceptable to troll or insult any user without provocation or cause. If harassment persists through PM's, report them to a moderator.

• No image spamming:

This means no images should be posted in the forum unless you have a justifiable reason. Acceptable images include screenshots, contributions, and other relevant non-offensive artwork.

• Keep hatespeech, racial slurs, and swearing to a minimum:

A certain amount of swearing and other offensive language will be tolerated, but I don't want to see 'nigger' in giant letters anywhere in the main forum, nor do I want to see anything offensive in the names of threads.

• No sharing or discussing pirated material anywhere on the forums:

It is illegal to distribute copyrighted material and any discussion of said actions will be removed. Repeat offenders will be punished.


First-time offenders are warned or are given a temporary ban based on the nature of their offense. The length of any temporary ban is determined by the moderator who is disciplining the offender. Repeat offenders will be punished for a longer time period; up until the point that they are permanently banned. Circumventing a currently-active temporary ban will result in a more severe punishment such as an ip-ban. Any permabanned user who is discovered using an alternate account is prone to become permabanned at the first sign of trouble.

That's the ruleset on a forum I moderate, but I think that the ruleset on a TF2 server I hang out on sums it up much nicer:

• Don't be a fuck.

Congratulations, Orci, before I forget to congratulate you.[/list][/list]

[orci]

Hi all!

Keep your thoughts/ideas coming on what you think should be acceptable behavior on the forums! It will help us create a moderation system based on what you expect of yourself, your peers, and the community as whole.

There's also things like signatures, avatars, etc.  Should big animated avatars be okay, or should there be limits on stuff like that?

I am going to agree on this one. Although I was one of the first to use an animated gif as an avatar, I can see how distracting animated gifs are in both avatars and signatures, especially when multiple people have them and post consecutively. As such, I have changed my avatar to be non-animated, and I hope others will follow suit.

Congratulations, Orci, before I forget to congratulate you.

And thanks, Psychopath.

[wekhter]

There's also things like signatures, avatars, etc.  Should big animated avatars be okay, or should there be limits on stuff like that?

I am going to agree on this one. Although I was one of the first to use an animated gif as an avatar, I can see how distracting animated gifs are in both avatars and signatures, especially when multiple people have them and post consecutively. As such, I have changed my avatar to be non-animated, and I hope others will follow suit.

I don't mind an animated avatar since there is a size restriction, but I agree the signatures are a bit much.

[Suyo]

As long the animated avatars are not overly large in filesize and aren't inducing seizures, they should be allowed.

As for signatures, on I forum I moderate there's a 150px limit. Maybe a vertical size limit like this could be enforced too.

[FlipTaco]

As for signatures, on I forum I moderate there's a 150px limit. Maybe a vertical size limit like this could be enforced too.

I have to agree with this, for both images and animated gif files. There should also be a limit as to the size of signatures in general; it's a bit distracting when your signature is 3/4 times larger than your post is, whether the space is taken up by a picture or by text.

As far as animated avatars go, I think simple, simple animations are ok, but nothing too fancy. Orci's old avatar, for example, was fine since Commander Video's arms and legs just moved a bit in a quick, small, and smooth loop. However, if somebody were to use a large animation such as Dancing Baby or a rapidly changing gif then I'd say it's a little too much.

[Nicco]

This rule should take care of people trying to circumvent the current rules:

It is at the discretion of any moderator/administrator to ban a user temporarily or permanently.

The real question is where this forum is going to draw its line. I think we all agree that racism and personal insults should be a bannable offense.
Now that leaves general swearing and off-topic posting open for debate. IMO, both should be allowed, but to a certain extent. The only downside is that you now have quite a few grey areas, such as: What should be considered as 'a certain extent'? Or what words are seen as swearing and what words are seen as personal insults?

Also, I think animated avatars and animated signatures should be allowed, but give people the option to disable signatures/avatars. And if there isn't a signature limit yet, limit it to 300px or something like that.

[Psychopath]

This rule should take care of people trying to circumvent the current rules:

It is at the discretion of any moderator/administrator to ban a user temporarily or permanently.

The real question is where this forum is going to draw its line. I think we all agree that racism and personal insults should be a bannable offense.
Now that leaves general swearing and off-topic posting open for debate. IMO, both should be allowed, but to a certain extent. The only downside is that you now have quite a few grey areas, such as: What should be considered as 'a certain extent'? Or what words are seen as swearing and what words are seen as personal insults?

The line can be blurry, flexibility in actions make the moderator-user relationship a bit less formal and strict.

If things are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, something that is borderline rule-bending could be simply halted via warning. Just the moderator informing the perpetrator that that particular action was a step too far and that they should not perpetuate it. Warnings are a good way of keeping everyone from stepping on one another's toes, but the instant that a warning is completely disregarded, there is no excuse.

[FlipTaco]

Now that leaves general swearing and off-topic posting open for debate. IMO, both should be allowed, but to a certain extent. The only downside is that you now have quite a few grey areas, such as: What should be considered as 'a certain extent'? Or what words are seen as swearing and what words are seen as personal insults?

This is something I tried to address in my first post and something you basically took care of with your rule:

This rule should take care of people trying to circumvent the current rules:

It is at the discretion of any moderator/administrator to ban a user temporarily or permanently.

It's all up to the discretion of the moderator. If somebody is on the fence with their off-topic posting, swearing, and/or "jokes", it comes down to the moderator's feelings on the issue to decide whether or not a warning/ban is necessary.

[juxtapose519]

I hate when forums become over-policed and infractions are handed out for every little incedent. There's nothing worse than worrying about every single post you make because the power-hungry moderators are in a bad mood.

I like that thus far this community has been friendly and civil with one another without big brother stepping in. I have no problem with flashing avatars and big signatures. It's the trolls that come here to ruin it for everyone that I have a problem with. So far, I've only seen one, and he's so full of himself he doesn't even realize he is one. I guess "art" will do that to you.

I vote we let the occasional language and flame wars slide, and we allow the flashy avatars to stay. Let's instead reserve the punishments for repeat offenders who are obviously only here to create trouble.

[FlipTaco]

I hate when forums become over-policed and infractions are handed out for every little incedent. There's nothing worse than worrying about every single post you make because the power-hungry moderators are in a bad mood.

I like that thus far this community has been friendly and civil with one another without big brother stepping in. I have no problem with flashing avatars and big signatures. It's the trolls that come here to ruin it for everyone that I have a problem with. So far, I've only seen one, and he's so full of himself he doesn't even realize he is one. I guess "art" will do that to you.

I vote we let the occasional language and flame wars slide, and we allow the flashy avatars to stay. Let's instead reserve the punishments for repeat offenders who are obviously only here to create trouble.

I agree with this, but with animated avatars and signatures, I figured that people wouldn't be punished for going overboard with theirs but instead simply told that their avatar/signature is a tad distracting and that they should look into changing it. We can't punish people for trying to make their profiles look unique.

Language, we could let slide, but I don't think letting whole flame wars slide is setting a very good example for other forum users. At the least, any flame topics should be locked and the users directly involved given a warning, which could turn into a temporary ban if they continue to start and get involved in other flame wars and receive additional warnings.

[juxtapose519]

Sorry, I didn't mean we should completely ignore flame wars taking place. I meant that when they do, this community is mature enough that a verbal warning should suffice. If the flaming continues, THEN we should be handing out infractions.

Sometimes I get too caught up in my own ramblings to makes sense to anyone but myself.

[n9195v]

I say no bumping and double posting.