Rules, borrowed by Chronicles from Rafters, and now us.

[BloodKnight]

Rules and Guidelines for this forum.

No personal attacks will be tolerated.

Arguments, certainly. Debate is the nature of conversation, but if it turns personal, take it elsewhere.

If you have a problem with someone, PM THEM, or PM A MODERATOR. Do NOT make it public. Don't take it up on the forum itself. But, this is an open forum with freedom of opinion. Therefore, EXPECT NEGATIVE CRITICISM. Don't sulk and PM the moderators with complaints of adverse reactions. If you can't handle criticism, then don't post. It's as simple as that.

Please learn to differentiate between a personal attack and a joke. This is an important survival skill both in the real world and in the world of online forums. Attempt to develop it, lest you find yourself hating everyone who looks at you.

No porn, warez, or anything else of such nature. If anyone chooses to spam such things, they'll be deleted - followed by the user if they persist.


Members.

This is an open forum. Unlike Yahoo! Clubs/Groups, this forum is accessible to non-members. I don't see this as a problem, because in the history of Rafters, there's never really been any major discussion that outsiders needed to be kept away from.
Anyone may join, I believe we're all mature enough to accept this, and adapt to a bit of change.
If any old animosities continue on this forum, however, offending posts will be deleted, followed by offending users if they persist.
The first rule on this page overrides all others.

Don't immediately dismiss someone because they're new to the forum. Once again, this is an OPEN FORUM, not an elite club.


Posting guidelines.

Please try to remain on topic. If you have a new topic of conversation to discuss, please make a new thread. It's easier than everyone being lumped with all of the posts at once, like in Yahoo! Clubs/Groups. You won't be "punished" (for lack of a better word) for posting off-topic, but it's an ettiquette consideration.

If you're posting something in another thread and you think it could bear being a topic of discussion on its own, click the "new topic" button instead of "post reply", and start a new thread about it. Everything doesn't have to be organised around here.

Please avoid double-posting. If you need to go back and say something else, please use the "edit" function. Again, this is just an etiquette consideration.

Please avoid "I agree/disagree" responses, or responses consisting of just an emoticon. It's annoying to load a thread anticipating a new response to a discussion, only to find "lol icon_smile.gif".

If you post a thread which links to large images, or a lot of images, please indicate this in the thread title for the sake of users with slower connections. Likewise, if you're posting a response with a lengthy URL in it, please reduce the size of the link to avoid screwing up the width of the thread, thusly:

[code:2o0kt1k2]RAFTERS home![/code:2o0kt1k2]

Do not flamebait, Troll, or otherwise post-whore. Post whoring is when someone posts a ridiculous amount of messages with no real content. A good example of this is someone who posts a message of either agreement or disagreement to every single message on the first page of the topics list. It's fucking annoying, so don't do it.
There's a line between post whoring and just posting a lot. This line is drawn based on content.

No trolling means that you are not to post messages which are blatantly offensive, or seeking negative attention. For example, don't march into a Star Wars conversation and say "Star wars sucks!".

No flame baiting means that you are not to encourage others to make a personal attack on you. I.e., do not make impersonal attacks against another member in the hopes of riling them into a position where they should violate these rules. In legal circles, this would be considered entrapment. Do not do this.


Avatars.

You can upload an avatar directly from your computer. Avatars shouldn't be huge, and shouldn't exceed about 20k. Behave.

You can link to an off-site avatar. There are no size restrictions for this, but I'd appreciate it if you could keep off-site avatars under 20kb.

There is also an avatar gallery accessible from the profile page with a selection of pre-loaded avatars for you to choose from.

The use of offensive avatars will lead to the removal of the privelege of having one.


Signatures.

Please ensure that your signature remains a reasonable size, and does not contain more than one image of 15kb maximum.


Rankings.

We have rankings based on post counts. This isn't to encourage "post whoring" (excessive posting for no real reason other than to increase one's post count, increase rank, or gain "status").


Thanks.