Rules and Guidelines

Free, open, general chat on any topic.

Moderators: Orlion, balon!, aliantha

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Rules and Guidelines

Post by Creator »

[mod edit for update]
Vain wrote:Please take a minute or two to read through the Guidelines below. They have been updated to make the whole experience better for both you and for our team of moderators; if everyone follows these Guidelines, the moderators really won't need to step in at all! Violators may be warned, suspended from posting, or barred from the forums

KW is a place where you can have your say, voice an opinion on current affairs or meet up with friends. Just choose one of the forums and see what's going on.

Please follow the common sense guidelines below:


Things you should probably not do, or else you will be mocked endlessly by Jay who will hack into your account and make you look silly, you twit !
  • Try to avoid over-sized avatars that mess with the layout of the forum - actually, this has been fixed because I used my Demondim Spawn powers and limited the size anyway
    Try to avoid fancy animated avatars - keep them to a reasonable size for our dial-up members (not everybody has broadband) - again, this has been fixed because I disabled the remote avatar linky thingy
    Try to avoid images in sigs - small ones are cool and keep it to one image only please. I don't have a techno gizmo to limit this so will edit your sig if yours too large
    Try to avoid overly long sigs - they just make you scroll down for longer to read the posts
    - Oh yes, try limit total sig height to no more than that which will be used up by 10 lines of text in the normal board font
General courtesy guidelines
  • Do be civilized and considerate.
    Do try and express your thoughts carefully and clearly.
    Do be sure to read what the other person is actually saying and not what you think they may be saying.
    Don't post when intoxicated! You'll find it harder to keep to the guidelines! :)
    Do try to keep messages on-topic and post on the appropriate topic board.
    Don't duplicate existing topics elsewhere.
    Do watch what you say – you are responsible for what you write.
    Don't post personal information about yourself (phone numbers, address etc) - it's for your own safety.
    Do respect the Moderators' decisions – KW Moderators reserve the right to edit, relocate and/or remove any message, at any time, for any reason. All editing decisions should be considered final.
    Do remember that the KW discussion forums are moderated by a group of people who have volunteered to put themselves in the position of making difficult judgement calls. Following these guidelines/rules makes their life easier, and everyone's experience visiting KW better.

More serious guidelines - May result in a warning from a moderator and a temporary suspension/permanent ban
  • Don't get personal; a good general rule: "criticize ideas, not people".
    Don't post personal/racial/ethnic/gender-based insults, slurs or offensive comments.
    Don't make posts that are inflammatory just to wind people up.
    Don't post contact details e.g. phone numbers and physical address details, or post other peoples e-mail addresses unless you have their permission to do so.
    Don't make slanderous statements, or anything else that might violate someone's privacy.
    Don't threaten other users. Threats will not be tolerated
    If you have an issue with someone, take it up in private with that person. KW isn't here for you to air your personal grieveances with any member of KW - if you insist on doing this then your post will get zapped and the offending account disabled.




A note on bans:
A ban may be temporary or permanent. If you receive a permanent ban well then you probably deserved it. If you receive a temporary ban then take the time to chill out, drink beer, read a book, feed the kids, have a shower, do some work - you'll feel so much better for it :)


Amendment

OK, because we don't actually like banning people, we have an alternative option if warranted and recommended by the mod squad (maybe we should call them the ur-vile wedge....hrmmmmm).

Forum restrictions (as opposed to a ban)

A forum restriction will come into effect if someone violates the general guidelines and the forum moderator/s feel that a specific forum restriction is called for instead of a full board-wide suspension. So, in essence, if you're restricted from posting in say General discussion, then you can still post in all the other forums (ain't it cool !!)

Forum restrictions will apply for a default period of one week - no more and no less

Jay will deliver all forum restriction messages to whoever it applies to. If jay isn't available then either danlo or myself will (but we hope that jay will be online 24/7 so that he can do the dirty deed).

Of course, we don't have the techno-gizmos to prevent anybody from posting in a specific forum so we'll have to rely on an honour system (i.e. you just don't) Any continued posting in a forum will by default result in a week long board-wide suspension - this includes from duplicate accounts

Carrying the issue over to any other KW forums isn't cool either so please don't do it otherwise jay will need to use his banstick for that mandatory one week board wide ban
Last edited by Creator on Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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The Gap Into Spam
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Post by Creator »

Now, a small note about thread editing and moddly duties. We provide a lot of latitude in the General Discussion forums (after all, it is a forum for "Free, open, general chat on any topic.") However, even in such a forum, we want to keep some decorum and control. So, here are some general guidelines:

Posts about specific topics ... will be reviewed so they stay reasonably on topic. For example, say a thread is on pictures ... it will be moderated to keep the discussion on topic - around posted pictures or discussions about the posted pictures.

Posts that are general and unspecified in nature will get less 'grooming' ... however, if we see the same topic thread multiple times (e.g, "Creator's drift thread"; "aliantha's drift thread"; "Balon's drift thread"; etc.) we will prune / combine those threads.

Obviously we will also watch for the normal things. Inappropriate language, personal attacks, etc. These have been outlined by the admins in general rules and are also posted here.

If we change / edit / delete a post, we will let the poster know what we did and why. Please understand that such decisions are an exercise of judgment and that reasonable people will differ. However, your mods have been asked to do our best for this Forum. We do not claim, infallibility; but we do commit to doing our best to be fair.

As always, if you have questions or concerns you can contact any of us or any of the Admins.

Happy Posting!!
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balon!
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Post by balon! »

Good advice for the recent activity.
[Syl Embattled] wrote:Despite the prodigious lengths that our admins and mods have gone to in order to stop or root out spam, it still happens. Until you hear from an admin (hint, not me), take this as advice, but...

Follow the old internet adage and 'Don't feed the trolls.' Look, it's not like email spam. They're not trying to get you to buy their products or even click on their links. They're trying to increase their search engine rankings. Responding to them, no matter how clever you think you are, only helps them. The more they're rewarded, the more it's worth their time to re-register and do it over again.

The registration should clue you in that these are people setting up the accounts, not bots. They get paid to do it (pennies, but it can add up) by small internet 'media' companies. The good ones can do it so well a normal poster wouldn't notice it's spam.

You want to help? Just PM the mod/s of the forum or other mods to let them know it's there. Beyond rewarding the spammers, adding posts to the threads makes it that much harder for the mods or admins to clean it up (unless they choose to just delete your post with it, which, unless it's a policy, still requires them to make that consideration.
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Post by Avatar »

Hey guys, heads up, new Gen Disc mod to help out. Big hand for Orlion who took the job to help take up any slack.

--A
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aliantha
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Post by aliantha »

Avatar wrote:Hey guys, heads up, new Gen Disc mod to help out. Big hand for Orlion who took the job to help take up any slack.

--A
Yes indeedy! Welcome, Orlion! May your visits here be more frequent than mine lately :oops: and your workload be light. :mrgreen:
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