The Town Hall Archives

*daniel · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2003 4:45 pm Post subject: THE RULES

I've noted thanks to an astute observer, that there is currently no posting of The Rules on this board anywhere, mostly because up till now, we haven't really needed any.

I'll be adding to this thread later, but I thought I'd get it started right now.

Xhan

*daniel · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2003 7:56 pm Post subject:

{Note: Items colored in blue are additions to the rules approved by the administration team in March 2005. Consider them highly suggested.}

THE RULES

By becoming a member of The Town Hall, you are agreeing to abide by the following rules, and also to respect the Moderators and Administrators who enforce them, regardless of what you think of the Mods personal opinions, lifestyles, etc.

This message board's admins and mods are here to keep things from getting out of control -- this is not an anarchy -- and to make sure that things look nice and flow smoothly. They aren't there to prevent intelligent argument, and they are certainly not prohibited from getting involved.

But most importantly, remember that the mods and admins are doing this for free, on their own time, as a favour to you, the reader. What follows are the guidelines that they judge by:

1. Problem Behavior

2-Way Conversations. When it's blatantly obvious that only two people are involved in a conversation anymore, the message(s) or thread(s) they have posted will be deleted. Good rule of thumb: if it is something that could easily be taken to PM (private messaging) and not missed by other readers, then it's a 2-way conversation.

In order to prevent this rule from being cited, it is best—if you see that a two-way conversation is forming—to simply avoid posting in that thread until other people have joined the discussion. Three-way conversations may also be removed if the topic at hand is irrelevant or consists of short posts.

Upping Your Post Count. Threads that exist for the discussion of post counts are not allowed. Posting to simply increase your post count is not allowed and will results in removal of the offending message(s). Also, avoid multi-thread one-word responses.

Please avoid causing other threads to go offtopic by posting about people’s counts. Threads that moderators deem likely contributors to the upping of post counts will be removed. Also, remember that one-word posts are generally frowned upon, as are excessive posts stating only that you agree with a previous post. Double posts are generally prohibited. Unless there is a good reason, these posts will be edited/deleted.

Veering Wildly Off-Topic. While we realize that tangents are a part of life and will inevitably happen, sabotaging a thread is not allowed. A thread that starts off about a certain topic but veers wildly off course and becomes a conversation about something else entirely will either be deleted or split into its own topic heading.

Another thing to keep in mind is that questions or comments regarding people’s avatars, signatures, usernames, and other specific information not relating the topic can easily be asked in a PM. Posts with such questions or comments may be deleted.

Threads in the Entrance are for new people to introduce themselves. Please keep your posts focused on the person in question and don't let the topic wander off onto something else. If you wish to remind the person of the rules, either send them a PM with the link or contact an administrator—don't post about it. Also, don't "welcome" people who joined the board long before you did.

Redundancy. If someone starts a thread on an existing topic (within reason or course), thread deletion, locking, or merging may happen.

Flame Wars. When a thread becomes too heated and/or a discussion loses all objectivity and disolves into hurling insults, deletion of posts will ensue. The individuals involved will also receive warnings

Obscenity. We will tolerate so-called "soft" swear words such as "darn" and "heck", etc. Anything worse than that will not be tolerated, and will result in a warning to the offending member.

Emoticons. Posts containing only one or more emoticons will be deleted, as will short posts contributing nothing to the topic at hand. Excessive use of emoticons in posts may result in post editing.

Spam. Intentional, unsolicited advertisements and the such will be deleted. This is a community, not a mall. Or a magazine.

Rants With No Redeeming Value. Any post that exists to "air dirty laundry" or immature, obnoxious behavior that makes no point with any logic, value, or coherence will be deleted. Members may receive a warning.

Lies, gossip, etc. We're not here to grind each other to dust with words. Moreso, we're not here to smear each others' reputation. Threads and messages with such content will be edited or deleted.

When situations arise that the administrators have to take care of, we ask that you not gossip about events that occurred. We really don’t need threads devoted to people’s misbehavior. It is either embarrassing to the individual or the desired publicity on the part of miscreant. There are some things that other people just don’t need to be told either publicly or privately.

Consequences. Editing, locking, and deleting of posts and threads may occur depending on the occasion. If you accidentally include a vulgar expression in a message, the mods may choose to edit the post instead of deleting it. Threads with no purpose at all will be locked or deleted. These are at the moderators discretion. Any and all of these actions described above may be accompanied by a warning, at the mods discretion.

Also, please avoid vigilanteism and the court of public opinion. If you see a post you find offensive, contact the moderators via Private Message. There's no need to embarrass yourself and others by making everything public right away.

2. Member Banning

If a member of The Town Hall intentionally engages in behavior that is inappropriate as described above and at the mods discretion, he will receive a warning about their behavior from a Moderator for each instance. After the third warning, the offending member will be deleted, after which they will be unable to access The Town Hall, and also unable to create new member names, also at the mods discretion.

Understand that this is an action only taken in the most extreme situations, and is usually a decision made by a group of concerned moderators, not one individual.

Temporary member banning at the discretion of moderators and administrators may also occur as a form of punishment for misbehavior.

3. Harrassing Moderators and Administrators

I took this verbatim from http://forum.cmcentral.com:

Because some people can't enjoy themselves without constantly whining, complaining, and trying to tell the moderators how to do their jobs (and pointing out every single way they are supposedly defficient in that respect) -- i.e., because some people treat this Forum as if it were a matter of life and death, and if they don't get to have their say, exactly the way they want to say it, with their precise preferences intact, without being criticized in any way -- then an all-out holy war is launched upon our team of Moderators, and the mods consequently feel so much stress and pressure from simply being here that they have no choice but to pull back to maintain their sanity. Is it really worth harassing, belittling, and questioning every action the Moderators take just to get to say your peace on some topic that is here today and will be gone tomorrow? This is a message board. It is just a message board.

Evidence of moderators being harassed, questioned, or judged in this way, will result in the perpetrator(s) will be banned. No questions asked, no "three strikes and you're out." Let me be clear: innocent curiosity is never a problem; feel free to ask the Mods about something if it's on your mind. It is this judgmental, "you don't know what you're doing," "I could do this better than you ever could" attitude that is being referred to here.

They said it best, I think.

If you feel something is unfair, please avoid what may appear to be public harassment and contact the moderators and administrators by PM.

4. Duplicate Accounts

Due to the sheer size of this message board, each user is allowed only 1 account. Please do not create additional names. It helps keep our costs down and our speed up.

If you wish to have your username changed, send a PM to one of the administrators instead of signing up for a new account. If you forget your password, send an e-mail to yourself to get it reset. If that doesn’t work, contact an administrator for help. If you signed up for a new account because of this problem, please contact an administrator to have one of your accounts on the forum deleted.

5. Image sizes

Images in Signature files should not exceed 400 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. Signatures found to exceed this size will be manually edited by Moderators, and the image removed. Also, please limit yourself to one image only in your signature. You can change it as often as you like, but please only use one image at a time.

6. Remote Avatars

Remote linking of offsite avatars is allowed. However, please remember that there is an 100x100px, 10k max limit still in effect here, just to make sure that the images aren't clogging up people's dial-up lines.

Make sure when you're choosing an avatar that it's not going to offend people needlessly. Of course, you remember that any offensive images will be removed by the moderators, and that if they are offensive enough, you will be warned in accordance with what is written in the paragraphs preceeding this one.

Remember: you are part of a community here. Be responsible with your avatar, just like everything else. For instance, if you decide to link to an avatar of someone being disembowled by a Gorga monster, nobody's going to like that very much.

7. Threads

Topic Titles. Please post clear titles when starting a new thread. There will doubtlessly be a few acceptable exceptions to this rule, but in general, keep them obvious. Many people don’t want to have to keep rechecking threads because they can’t remember what they were about and some people don’t have time to read all the threads so they appreciate the visual cues as to what the thread is about. Also, generally try to avoid the use of caps in thread titles as well as excessive punctuation. Moderators may edit titles at their discretion.

Posts consisting of links to an external source must be relevant. Breaking news is appropriate, as are links intended to foster discussion. If you want to talk about something on Slashdot, that's fine; just keep in mind that the Town Hall is not a portal and as such, regularly starting threads consisting primarily of links will result in the removal of those threads deemed unnecessary.

No threads devoted to commenting on a previous post. Rating avatars, commenting on signatures, complimenting/belittling the person above you, commenting on comments on comments, etc., will not be tolerated.

Quotes. When quoting a post, please don’t let quotes be stacked more than three levels deep, like this: