LAST UPDATED: May 9, 2010 16:00

Moderators and Administrators on Forumwarz have the ability to ban accounts from community interaction (“community ban” ) or from entering the site itself (“site ban” ). If your account is community banned, you may no longer post in Flamebate, write on Stalls, Tubmail other users, etc. For more severe or non-community-related offenses, you may be prevented from logging in to play the game. In each case, all characters tied to your account will be similarly banned.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These rules are intended as guidelines. The absence of a specific rule prohibiting a specific action is not to be considered permission to engage in that action, nor is it a defense against any consequences for said action.

In other words, if you “push the envelope” or “dance on the line,” you do so at your own risk, and accept full responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

If you have any questions about whether something you want to do might be grounds for a ban, please contact a mod in advance for guidance.

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GLOBAL RULES

1) Do not create illegal alts.

2) REGARDING SURPRISE SHOCK IMAGES, BROWSER-HIJACKERS, AND UNDESIRED ACTIONS:

When dealing with extreme graphics (shock images, etc), they are never to be embedded anywhere, with the EXCEPTION of the RP forums on Flamebate (excluding Advanced Role-Playing, which has its own subset of rules; see the RP Forums section). If you don’t want to see images in Flamebate, you have various options to turn them off automatically.

URLs which lead to shock images, browser hijackers, links which cause people to perform actions unwillingly (such logging out) may only be used if they are CLEARLY LABELED as such. This includes the RP sections.

If there’s any doubt in your mind about whether something you want to post might violate this rule, it would be in your best interest to get clearance from any of the moderators before posting it. Tubmail any of us a link and we’ll review it when it’s safe to do so. Make sure the link is clearly labeled (not using shortened URLs or anything) and tell us what the link leads to, so we can Google it before clicking.

3) The use of programming scripts in chats, to run forums, to make posts, to send Tubmails, etc. is prohibited.

4) DO NOT DIVULGE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT OTHERS WHICH THEY DO NOT REVEAL ON FORUMWARZ

“Personal information” means information such as a person’s full name, e-mail address, date of birth, home address, Skype nickname, external contact methods, etc.

If someone is recognized or reported for posting such personal information, and cannot produce a link to a public Flamebate post (not an IDC chat log, Tubmail, or secret Klan post) where that information was willingly made available by the owner of that information, the offender will be issued an instant site ban (not a community ban). NOTE: Moderators will take into account if the linked-to post has been edited after the report.

5) NO NAKED OR HIGHLY SEXUALIZED PHOTOS/ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNDERAGE CHILDREN.

It is illegal to share these kinds of images in Canada and the admins don’t want to go to jail. Even insinuating that an image or illustration depicts a minor in a sexualized manner can get the site into trouble, so don’t do it.

6) Don’t pretend to be someone who is banned. By definition, claiming to be a banned player means you are using an illegal alt, which is a permabannable offense. If a mod researches your claim and discovers that you were only kidding, you will still be punished with a ban.

FORUM (FLAMEBATE) RULES

ACROSS ALL FORUMS

1): STICKIES

Threads are stickied for a reason. When posting in sticky threads, even in RP, you MUST stay reasonably on-topic. Although you may flame other players or post NSFW content, do not spam the thread or post text or images which do not directly relate to the thread’s original purpose.

For example, don’t post Goatse in a stickied camwhore RP thread (unless the picture is of you in the Goatse position), or frolicking Care Bears in a stickied shock pic RP thread (unless you’re asking someone to make Goatse-fied versions of them). Note that in Civil Discussion, the normal forum rules still apply.

CIVIL DISCUSSION FORUMS

1) Don’t be an asshole, no trolling.

The Civil Discussion forums are for discussing Forumwarz and the real world in a useful and entertaining fashion. Don’t troll them up with personal insults, nonconstructive criticism/suggestions/answers, off-topic posts, mini-modding, and the like.

Formatting and capitalization should be used in a manner which is easy to read and not deliberately annoying. While occasional use of all-caps will be excused, repeated use of excessive capitalization, bolding, large fonts, etc., will be treated as trolling. AlTeRnAtInG caps and l33t 5p3@k should never be used.

2) No nudity.

Images portraying nudity are not allowed in the Civil Discussion forums. This includes your avatar. (There is an exception in certain Contests, see below.)

3) No auction links outside of “Kyoubai” subforum.

We have another forum for advertising your auctions. Don’t advertise them in Civil Discussion forums.

RP FORUMS

1) Those rules which apply across all forums (see above, under “Global Rules” and “Across All Forums”­) also apply to the RP section of Flamebate.

2) In the Advanced Role-Playing (ARP) forum, you may only post as your class or established character. Deliberately breaking character, or the illusion of role-playing itself, is a bannable offence. See the forum’s Read Me thread for more information.

3) Embedded shock images are not permitted in the Advanced Role-Playing (ARP) forum.

CONTESTS FORUM

1) Don’t be an asshole, no trolling, UNLESS: The OP has stated that trolling is allowed. While it is at the discretion of any moderator whether the tone of the OP indicates trolling is allowed, even if the poster didn’t explicitly say it was, so if you think trolling should be allowed, contact a moderator before doing so.

2) Nudes are permitted in contests — IF the contest thread name includes “NSFW”.

3) You MUST offer BP for your contests (or some other reward of legitimate value). And you in turn may NOT receive any BP (or anything else of value) for hosting it. If you want to host an event where you as well as someone else get BP, take it to Ayn Rands.

4) Failure to carry through on the promised reward is a bannable offense. The length of the ban will be a judgment call on the part of the mods based on their opinion of the severity of the failure. (BP can be placed in escrow with a mod to remove doubt about the OP’s ability to pay.)

5) Contests which require a user to look at, or bid on, any particular Kyoubai auction are not permitted.

6) You may not use contests as a means to directly bribe people into artificially boosting your leaderboard status, if that leaderboard pertains to a legitimate talent- or skill-based competition within the Forumwarz universe. For example, no “I will award a random poster in this thread 1 BP if they also vote for me in the ‘Best-Looking FWZ Player’ contest.” For reasons of practicality, the exceptions to this rule include the Most Popular and Top Flamebaters leaderboards.

7) You may not use contests to promote your buildr ideas, have others collude with you in Domination, etc.

8) “Toxx clauses” (i.e., not following up on your promises, a term originating in the Something Awful boards) will be handled on a case-by-case basis. See the Contests forum sticky for more information on how to avoid Toxx situations.

9) You may not hold a contest for the purpose of harassing, griefing or generally annoying another player. This includes spamming another player’s Tubmail inbox.

10) To qualify for “The Big Give” or the “Host(ess) with the Most(est)” E-Peens, your contest must be open to anyone in the community. You can still hold “private” or “exclusive” contests, but you will not be eligible for the E-Peen.

TUBMAIL RULES

1) Do not spam. This includes sending messages to many multiple users or repeatedly sending messages to a single user.

2) Do not use multiple alts to avoid Tubmail cool-down limits.

WIKI RULES

1) Do not vandalize any game-related or canonical page of the Wiki. This includes the profile pages of Forumwarz Administrators and the “Moderators” overview article. You also may not “break” the Wiki by causing endless redirection loops or posting excessively long/wide pages that cause site lag. Do not excessively spam the Wiki with junk articles.

BUILDR RULES (FORUMBUILDR, ITEMBUILDR, ETC.)

1) Do not commit voting fraud. This includes any action on your part to solicit votes for or against any particular submission.

2) Do not copy someone else’s entry.

CHAT RULES (IDC, INCIT, etc.)

1) Do not spam.

INCIT RULES

1) Do not commit voting fraud. This includes any action on your part to solicit votes for or against any particular submission; you should not even indicate or hint that a given submission belongs to you or another player, whether in chat or within the submission itself.

2) Do not spam INCIT’s chat.

3) Do not vandalize INCIT by spamming the game itself. This means deliberately submitting gibberish, illegible strings of text, or non-sequiturs that are clearly unrelated to the image generated. These are considered “dump” entries, which have the effect of spoiling or derailing the game.

(Note: If you are unable to come up with a good idea within the time allotted, it is sometimes best to wait until the next round. Keep in mind the submission period will continue to extend until five entries are received. If you are concerned that your entry might be considered spam, it is advisable not vote that round to avoid accidentally winning due to the “dumpvoting” strategy.)

4) Do not plagiarize or copy previously submitted entries, including your own. This can mean copying well-known entries that have won before; copying other people’s submissions from previous rounds; or simply resubmitting the same entry (or variations of the same entry) regardless of relevance.

MISCELLANEOUS RULES

1) Do not use the “Help” tool or the “Contact Us” link for any purpose other than reporting a bug or making ONE contact about a legitimate issue.

2) If a moderator is trying to help someone (in IDC, Flamebate, etc.), don’t piss them off. It is at the discretion of any moderator/administrator to ban a user temporarily or permanently. Don’t make them want to.

3) If a user is known to be willfully hurting Forumwarz.com or its related properties, even outside the site itself, it is within the administrators’ discretion to ban the offending party from the community or site.

4) Posting libel with malicious intent in association with a player’s real name is not cool. It goes beyond the realm of role-playing and enters the realm of defamation. That is unacceptable behavior on this or any forum.