Here's what I have at the moment in preparation for our True Launch. What do you all think? I tried to make the tone less heavy than it used to be, though I kept a decent amount of the old text if it worked well in the past. Many of the rules and the general layout of them are still the same.
Quote:Welcome to Minus World! We hope you have a good time here, and we're glad to have you. It's best to read these rules first though!
Before we start...
The report system is important. If you find a post that you view as having broken the rules, report it. Many of the rules are in place for the sake of the members, not for the sake of punishing people. While obvious and clear rulebreaks will be acted upon swiftly (such as an outright flame), if a rulebreak is more subjective or concerns another member (such as an commentary directed at a particular person that could be interpreted multiple ways) it will need members pointing it out for action to be taken. More or less, if you see something you think shouldn't be done on the forum, press that button. The staff will review the case as impartially as we can.
Rules have been a bit of a strange spot in Minus World's past, and it's important to follow them. Remember that getting contacted for having broken a rule is not a punishment -- there's no need to view it in a negative light. It's only upon repeated rulebreaks that action such as a ban may be taken, unless otherwise stated.
Content
This section is to do with the content of your posts.
Host Terms of Service
No content that violates the Linode Terms of Service. This includes stuff detailed below, but redundancy never hurt anyone.
Content Warnings
Certain content should be marked with a spoiler tag obscuring it with a clear descriptor of what's contained within. This includes gore, nudity, sexual imagery, and things that could negatively affect certain posters such as epileptic flashing.
Sexually Explicit Imagery
Can be posted with the above warning tag, but don't go around making threads like "lol watd u fap 2 tonite". It'd best be posted humorously or extremely rarely. You can post it a little more freely if it's your own art you're sharing on the Arts board.
Illegal Content
Anything that is illegal - in the United States - for a website to host, display, or otherwise be involved in, is banned here. (This includes viruses, CP, warez, ROMs, etc.) If you post anything that fits this description, your post will be removed and you could be banned, depending on the content of your post.
Spam
Defining spam is tricky and we used to be pretty strict about it. Nowadays, having a post outright defined as spam is rather hard or situational. In the PPP, Life Chat, Arts & Crafts, and Help! boards, a topic creator may report a post as spam if it is contextless or derails their thread, and it will be dealt with one way or another if the staff agrees upon review. This may include a thread split. If a post is objectively pointless or obviously making a thread hard to read on purpose, it will be regarded as spam.
Attitude
This section deals with how you interact with other people here.
Don’t act like a jerk
If you’re constantly getting into arguments with people, or insulting them, their posts, or anything else about them, you’re doing something wrong. This is a community forum, so if you don’t get along with the community, you really should consider the reasons as to why you’re here. Thus, if you make a post that is meant to provoke or insult someone (This includes stating that they are present on your Ignore List) it will be dealt with.
Be civil. If you can’t say something without being passive aggressive, insulting, sarcastic or just plain rude, please don’t say anything at all.
Discrimination
Racism and discrimination against any group based on their race, sexuality, gender, etc. is prohibited. The use of slurs is also prohibited. If a video or an image that you didn't make but want to post has slurs, you may still post it but hidden with spoiler tags as it were NSFW content. This rule does not cover hobbies or interests. We try to be a fair community, and everybody should be welcome here regardless of who they are, so discrimination is something that we're strongly against. This is an encompassing rule, so it's not exclusive to minorities.
Special Cases
In the event that someone is constantly skirting the rules and actively bothering enough members that it becomes something the staff is repeatedly contacted about, action may be taken on a case by case basis. No one really wants to do this, but it can be necessary in some situations.
Technicalities
Some little extra things that are sometimes quite important.
- No duplicate accounts - if you get banned for a couple of days and make a dupe to subvert that ban, you're going to just have your ban extended. Keep doing it and you'll get banned permanently.
- Don't share accounts - this is sort of the opposite of the previous note, but it's worth pointing out. An account represents an individual, don't share accounts.
- Let us know if you're going to be sharing an IP address with somebody else - otherwise we'll think you're duping.
- No proxies - spammers and dupers use proxies, so we ban them on sight. If you need to use a proxy (hello China) then let us know beforehand, we might be okay with it, we might not.
- You're responsible for your own account - if your little sister gets on your account and comes on and starts spamming the forum, we'll warn/ban your account. No matter how anime she is.
- Mass Embeds - Please try to avoid filling topics with a large number of embeds (such as YouTube videos). If you notice a large amount of embeds already in the topic you should make your post be a link to the content instead. You won't get banned for continuing to embed but your post may be edited. Multiple embeds on one page can really drag performance down, so this is all about making browsing better for everyone.
- Imgur - Do not use imgur for your avatar/signature hosting, as stated by their ToS.
- Jokes - If you say something that offends another member as a joke or claim it is a joke, action still may be taken depending on the case and what that member thinks.
- Don't Use Minus World At Work - Well, at least not without knowing what you're in for. Considering the sort of content that gets posted around here, the nature of Good Sh*t, and the possibility of videos containing vocal swears and whatnot, it's best if you just didn't browse in such an environment. If you are doing so it's likely you're prepared anyways.
The point of these forums is enjoyment for everyone involved, so it's best to avoid drama and other things that'll just bring others down. Have fun, and post some good sh*t!