BoM Rules & Guidelines (Extended)

We strive to make our forums a place where everyone feels welcome, and in order to do this, we have to enforce certain rules and recommend a set of guidelines. If you read them over and try to understand why they exist, we hope that you will agree with the fact that they are necessary in order to maintain the high quality of our forums. We recommend reading the Internet Writing Guide - a 10-minute course in online writing style. Much of what is covered below is also contained in that brief course.

When you post in our forums, please adhere to these rules & guidelines:

• (1) Only one registered account per person. +expand
  To prevent abuse, members are only allowed one registered account per person. In the case that you lose your password and cannot retrieve it automatically, you should contact us with your login details and we will reset the password for you, so please DO NOT just create a new account. Any duplicate accounts we discover will be merged or deleted.

• (2) Do not post your thread headlines or messages in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS or excessively punctuated. +expand
  This is seen as yelling and when done repeatedly is very annoying and very rude. ALL CAPS TEXT is not welcome on any forum. Excessive use of punctuation marks like ! and ? (more than 3 per sentence) also falls under this rule.

• (3) Before starting a new thread, see if anyone else has started a similar one recently. +expand
  There's no sense in beginning a new thread if a discussion on the same topic occurred not long ago (i.e. if a thread about it can be found on the current page of the threads list). Often a new thread asks a question that was already answered in the old thread. If you don't feel like checking previous posts manually, you can use the search feature. However! do not revive a thread older than a few months unless you have a GOOD REASON to do so. (Also make sure to check the date when the original post was created since responding to very old threads or to members that have been long gone will make you look silly.) If in doubt, it is always better to open a new thread, not resurrect an ancient one.

• (4) Remember 3 basic tips for improving the quality of your thread headlines. +expand
  (1) Start your headline with a capital letter and write names of places, persons etc. with a capital letter as well (Imoen is -not- imoen, Athkatla is -not- athkatla). (2) If your headline is a simple statement (for example: Multiplayer problem), do not end it with a full stop (.). Except for unfinished statements marked by an ellipsis (...), there should be NO periods anywhere in any headline. (3) With the exception of full stops mentioned in count (2), you should always punctuate your headlines. That especially goes for questions (e.g.: How do I kill Irenicus?).

• (5) Make sure the headline of your thread is descriptive. Do not make headlines like: "A Question", "Please Help", "Read This" and similar. +expand
  They tell us absolutely nothing about the content of your message. Moderators will have to edit such headlines, so please save them the unnecessary work.

• (6) No "l33t 5p34k" and/or shorthand (u, r, l8r etc.) like: "I'm about 2 run off 2 the hills 2 see him." or "What do u get if u just take his body 2 the wizards?" +expand
  Most people here trying to make sense out of such mutilated sentences will either not understand them, or need twice as long as if you had written "2" as to and "u" as you; the spelling people normally use. You can't write like that in any formal correspondence, and we choose to hold our forums to the same standard.

• (7) Write complete sentences and use proper punctuation, spelling and grammar*. +expand
  Typing a 400 word run-on sentence will not gain you any respect. People reading your post will likely skip over what you have to say if it is difficult to read or understand. Learn to use paragraphs.
  
  *[If you have an actual disability like dyslexia that prevents you from complying with the above, please mention that in your introductory post or inform us of your disability via a PM so that we know that you are doing your best even if your posts are sometimes hard to understand.]

• (8) Signatures are allowed, but subject to certain limitations. +expand
  - You can't use images/smilies in your signature
  - Maximum Lines: 2
  - Maximum Links: 5
  
  Signature restrictions for SPS account holders do allow for images/smilies as well as advertising* and have higher maximum characters and lines allowed, plus certain additional allowances. Check the SPS forum for details.
  
  *Advertising: Any kind of commercial product/site advertising in signatures is allowed ONLY for active SPS account holders. To keep it simple - if you're selling a product or a service on the site that you link to, it's considered commercial. If the site is your own and you don't have an SPS account, you can display its url in your public profile as your Home Page, but you are NOT allowed to advertise it in your signatures. Of course, there are exceptions that don't quite fit under the "commercial" umbrella description, so if in doubt, contact Taluntain with your proposed signature for verification.
  
  Promoting Mods: If you are a mod maker and would like to promote your mod(s) in your signature, please limit your promotion to the name, url and short neutral description of the mod(s), or make a blanket link to a listing of multiple mods, e.g. "All my mods". This is a precaution to prevent signature wars between mod makers.

• (9) Do not advertise a site or service with the intent to expand its member base at our expense. +expand
  This goes for any public website, community or service advertising, as well as any private means of contacting members through our boards. Recruiting members from an existing community ("poaching") is considered very bad netiquette and something that we have zero tolerance for.

• (10) Criticize and discuss to your heart's content, but do it constructively. No attacks, insults, or flames - be it on someone's person, religious beliefs, race, national background, sexual orientation or whatever. +expand
  This is one of our most important rules. If you have a problem with somebody that you can't work out peacefully, put them on ignore. No flaming of ANY kind is welcome here, neither in public posts nor in private correspondence. The quickest way to get banned from our forums is to break this rule.
  
  NOTE: Every member has the right to manually decline the receiving of private conversation messages (PMs) from any other regular member for any reason. If a member directs you not to communicate with them via PM, they will only be expected to ask that of you ONCE, via a separate PM. You are required to abide by their wishes and cease such communication with them immediately, but you have the right to request the same of them (i.e. that they should not send you any more PMs). Your counter-request should be in the form of a SINGLE response to the original PM.
  
  To report violations of this rule, please click on the "Report" link near the date/time of the PM in question. This will send a copy of the unwanted PM to our moderators and they will deal with the offender.

• (11) No inappropriate*/obscene/adult material outside of the MUG. +expand
  Please do not post or link to any inappropriate, obscene or sexually explicit content, be it stories, pictures, sounds, animations, games, etc. outside of the Mature Users Group (MUG) trusted-members-only forum. See this thread for details on what's acceptable. For any posts that wouldn't be acceptable to view in a conservative work environment, please employ the NSFW warning.
  
  *[A couple examples of inappropriate material would be any discussions or stories on the topic of suicide (please read this), or posts where too much personal information about any of our members is revealed. We feel that it is in everyone's best interests that we disallow posts with such content.]

• (12) No intellectual property violations. +expand
  We don't take kindly to people using our forums in connection with any kind of illegal or copyrighted material. Requesting cracks, keys and the like is out of the question. The same goes for any discussions about obtaining or using pirated software.

• (13) Make sure that you are posting in the correct forum. +expand
  If there's a forum specifically for your topic, please make sure to post it there. If it doesn't belong anywhere else, put it in the Whatnots forum. Threads opened in the wrong forums are frequently moved, but never deleted, so if a thread of yours disappears from the forum where you've posted it originally, check your notifications for information on where it's been moved.

• (14) Make sure that you are posting on-topic. +expand
  Posting something unrelated to the original post is called being off-topic. While this is permitted somewhat as long as it develops out of the original post and remains at least vaguely connected to the issue, starting to post about something completely unrelated to it is frowned upon. In such a case you should start a new thread instead. If you feel the need to converse further about something unrelated with someone, you can PM them.

• (15) No cross-posting across different threads and/or forums. +expand
  Please do not post the same message in multiple threads or forums. Make one post, either a reply or a new thread, in the proper forum, and no more. Once you get a reply to that, feel free to post more on that subject. Under no circumstances should you open multiple threads about the same thing. Hijacking other people's threads to get answers to something unrelated to the original topic is considered extremely rude as well.

• (16) No re-registering or posting via proxy if you are banned. +expand
  If you're banned, that means banned. Please do not register another account and start posting again. Most bans are only temporary, but trying to circumvent them in any way will likely only result in them becoming permanent.

• (17) Do not ask to be a moderator or admin, or pretend that you are one. +expand
  We are not looking for new moderators or admins, and if we were, we would not pick anyone who posts/mails us asking for it. The only persons qualified to elaborate on and enforce our rules are the moderators and administrators (staff), whose status is listed below their user name. NO ONE else should publicly advise any members of BoM how to comply with these rules, or publicly tell them how they have broken any of them (in their opinion). More often than not, such opinionated instructions from regular members turn out to be incorrect, which only results in confusion.
  
  If you feel that a certain member is in violation of any of our forum rules, please use the "Report" link inside every post (below the signature area). All such reports will be treated as being anonymous and strictly confidential. We will investigate the reports and act, if we deem it necessary. NOTE: This rule also applies to itself, meaning that no one should publicly quote it to another member. Again, use the Report facility.
  
  If for some reason you want to notify only a single moderator, you can still do so via a PM to them (Taluntain, Blackthorne TA, dmc or Beren).

• (18) If you have an issue related to the moderators... +expand
  If you have a problem with a ban or a thread being either closed, edited or deleted, be it yours or someone else's, send the moderators a PM or e-mail about it. If you have any comments regarding the actions of any of the administrators or moderators, PM or e-mail them personally. Please DO NOT post a message arguing about it on the forums, as it will likely be deleted. Also, please don't come to our chatroom and start arguing about it there, as you will be escorted outside. If you don't feel comfortable contacting one of the moderators, contact another one. This rule is enforced because every time someone starts arguing with the mods/admins, the thread is more or less ruined and nothing of relevance gets posted there any more. Obviously, we don't want that happening.
  
  Please keep in mind that we have a very low tolerance for people who intentionally try to skirt the rules, seek loopholes or have authority issues resulting in inability to respect the moderators' instructions. If we wanted to cover every single aspect of common sense we could write a whole book about it, but that's not really the point here. When it comes down to it, our list of rules here serves mostly as a set of community guidelines conveying the community spirit, and we believe that it is thorough enough that if taken as a whole, everyone gets the picture of what is acceptable here and what isn't. The administrators and moderators have the authority to do whatever is necessary to keep Boards o' Magick the sort of place we want it to be, and if you don't agree, you are always free to leave. However, as we hate losing members over trivialities, we would rather ask you to respect our rules even if you don't agree with all of them, and keep being a part of our community.
  
  NOTE: Should you ignore the rule above and begin an argument in a certain thread, or post a public remark which we feel requires response for the purpose of damage control, we will usually respond ONCE in public as well (either that, or simply delete the comment, as noted above). If it comes to that, and you feel the need to add anything further, you should PM or e-mail the mod/admin who replied to your argument (as you should have done originally, see above). If, at this point, you attempt to create a full-blown public argument by responding in public again, your post WILL be deleted. We don't believe in airing dirty laundry in public any more than what's absolutely necessary, and will do our best to privately handle matters which only concern one particular user. We kindly ask you to do the same.

What happens if I break the rules?

Members failing to comply with our rules will be issued a warning, sometimes in the form of a note appended to their post for minor infractions, via a PM, the forum's moderation system or e-mail. In the case that our warnings are ignored, we might be forced to temporarily suspend the posting privileges of the member in question until they acknowledge the moderators.

Repeat and deliberate infractions may constitute removal from the forums. The fact is, if anyone chooses to make this place unenjoyable for everyone else, they will be dealt with accordingly.

To conclude...

Finally, we should note that we are really not overly strict in enforcing our rules and have plenty of understanding when it comes to the mistakes that newbies tend to make. Unless you really set out to break our rules on purpose, the worst thing that you have to "fear" here is getting a warning PM from one of the mods or admins. In short -- post freely. We don't bite... much. ;) Thanks for reading.