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Board Rules
Topic Started: Dec 30 2016, 03:53 AM (133 Views)
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Definitions:
Staff: Moderators, super moderators, and administrators with the authority to enforce the board rules by warning, issuing infractions, suspending, or banning members.

Duration: The duration between when a member receives a warning, infraction, or suspension from staff and the time when it expires.

Points: The number of infraction points you receive from an instance of rulebreaking after you’ve been warned for breaking that rule before. Accounts are suspended after receiving 10 infraction points.

Warning: A request not to repeat a certain type of behavior issued by a member of staff via a post or private message on the boards.

Infraction: An issuance of infraction points by the staff after rulebreaking is repeated even after a warning.

Suspension: A temporary restriction of a user account which prevents access to board functions. The duration of a suspension is based on the duration of the infraction which caused it.

Ban: A permanent restriction of a user account and IP address which prevents access to board functions. A ban is only issued by staff in cases where a member repeatedly breaks the same rules or breaks rules in a particularly severe way.

How to read the rules: Each header is a rule, followed by a brief explanation of the rule. After the explanation, you will see something in the format of Duration: a period of time (Warning – a number of points – suspension – ban). This is a general map of how discipline flows if you break that rule and only that rule. For instance, if you break the “No explicit content” rule, you will receive a warning, followed by 4 infraction points if you repeat the offence, followed by 8 if you repeat again, followed by a suspension, followed by a ban if you repeat the offence after returning from your suspension.

Why there are rules: The rules are here and enforced to keep things fun for everyone. Preventing an unpleasant atmosphere is more important to us than having a large group of members. If we only have three people willing to be courteous, we will consider those three people to be invaluable and our site a success. If we have a toxic environment with a hundred active but angry and cruel members, we will consider that a complete failure.

BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER.

1 No explicit content
The ZetaBoards Terms of Service strictly prohibit explicit content, and so do our rules. Excessive sexual content, violence, and profanity are all prohibited. Some content will be treated more severely. If you are unsure of where the “line” is, ask the staff before you post it. Duration: 2 months (Warning – 4 points – 8 points – suspension – ban.)

2 No abusive behavior:
We take abusive behavior seriously. That includes harassment, which we consider to be any repeated unwanted contact after a warning; flaming, which we consider to be insults and personal attacks; trolling, which we consider to be taunting and other behavior intended to instigate an argument or flame war; threats, which we consider to be any implicit or explicit reference to something which could cause harm to someone’s quality of life away from the internet; and other malicious or abusive behaviors, such as intentionally deceptive derailing of plots or threads. Duration: 3 months (Warning – 5 points – suspension – ban.)

3 No spam:
Spam is a broad topic and doesn’t necessarily concern us if it’s just random stuff. We consider something spam if it involves advertising outside indicated areas, double-posting outside of solo roleplaying threads, posting uninvited in other members’ closed roleplaying threads, or posting something off-topic in an otherwise serious thread. General shenanigans and “shitposting” isn’t a punishable offense unless it causes trouble for someone else. Duration: 1 month (Warning – 1 point – 2 points – 3 points – suspension – ban.)

4 No moderation abuse:
This is particularly serious because there’s an element of harassment to it. Do not use the staff to attack or harass another member by falsely reporting them for rulebreaking, repeatedly report someone for a behavior that is not against the rules, impersonate a member of the staff to another member, or convince a member of staff to use their position to negatively affect another member. The staff takes its job as seriously as we can and we try to be fair. It actively makes our job harder if someone lessens our credibility by using us to score points in personal fights. Duration: 3 months (Warning – 3 points – 6 points – suspension – ban.)

5 No narrative exploitation:
Within the narrative of roleplays, or in-character, certain specific actions are against the rules. Most of the in-character rules are based on a desire to make things fun and accessible to everyone, regardless of who they are or how long they’ve been on the boards. With that in mind, we do not allow:
  • Metagaming – using information you know out-of-character to influence your or non-player characters’ actions in a way that benefits you or helps you “win” in some way. Duration: 1 month (Warning – 2 points – 4 points – 8 points – suspension – ban.)
  • Powerplaying – using or abusing another players’ character without their permission. Duration: 1 month (Warning – 3 points – 6 points – suspension – ban.)
  • Godmoding – writing a character as if they are unreasonably powerful, influential, or in some way insurmountably “better” than other characters. Duration: 1 month (Warning – 2 points – 4 points – 8 points – suspension – ban.)
  • Gamebreaking – deliberately “stacking the deck” in your favor by writing a narrative that uses “luck” or “chance” to justify your character winning in some way. Duration: 1 month (Warning – 1 points – 2 points – 4 points – 8 points – suspension – ban.)

Common things we see that might be considered metagaming might include having a character think about or “dispute” the thoughts another character did not express, or reacting to conversations or actions of which they should not be aware. For powerplaying, we often see characters making unreasonably long statements during casual conversations or arguments, when it would be out of character for others present to remain silent or not interrupt. We sometimes see people godmoding by having characters master skills unreasonably quickly, display too much “natural” talent at a complex task, or exhibit unreasonable ability to come out on top in fights.

Gamebreaking has a lot of gray areas, so if you have questions about this one you can always feel free to contact the staff and ask for help. A lot of things that would be considered gamebreaking can be “justified” in-character by “showing, not telling” – show how your character obtained tools, weapons, ships, etc., instead of having them have unexplained access to them. The most common way we see gamebreaking happen is when characters abuse non-player characters by having them be unreasonably helpful or incompetent, making things too “easy” for characters to succeed.

5 No plagiarism or theft:
This should go without saying, but as a collaborative writing site we take theft of other people’s creative work personally. Plagiarism is theft. You’re stealing someone else’s time, ideas, creativity, and imagination. You’re stealing a piece of art they’ve made. Even if you think it’s “not that special”, it’s special to them and it’s personal to them. It doesn’t matter if they posted it on a public forum or if they got it published. Don’t plagiarize other people’s material. By the same count, don’t steal other creative work. If it’s already publicly available on the internet, use it if you want – but provide a link back to the source and the name of the creator. This includes videos, artwork, music, and more. Duration: 3 months (Warning – 5 points – suspension – ban.)

6 General stuff:
Although these are still part of the rules, they aren’t generally enforced with warnings or infractions. These are just general things we want done a certain way:
  • Only create one account on the board.
  • No profanity in usernames, user titles, avatars, or signatures.
  • Please limit the size of signature images to 100 pixels tall and 450 pixels wide.
  • No characters younger than thirteen (13) years old.
  • No characters older than three hundred and thirty-three (333) years old.
  • No characters from extinct sentient species.
  • No comparatively futuristic or overly powerful technology.
  • No Force powers which would seem out of place or unusually powerful in the Star Wars films.
  • Characters must be Force sensitive to build and effectively wield lightsabers.

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