Forum Rules Updates

[WingedZephyr]

Lately Tweak and I have heard from some of our forum members, who have expressed that the rules and warning system is too restrictive as is, and that it has been detrimental to people's experiences here.

We'd like to express our apologies to you if this is the case. We honestly do what we can to make sure you all enjoy your time here. We hope you understand, however, that some rules do have to stay in place, and likewise enforced, for what we believe is the benefit to the forum.

Considering these things, Tweak and I have made some changes in an effort to put you guys more at ease.

For one thing, the "English only" rule has been loosened to the following:

• Please do not write entire posts, threads, or extended conversations in a language other than English. The majority of a post should be in English, and writing English translations alongside other languages is recommended.
  
  Foreign phrases or a few sentences here or there are allowed, but please do not hold extended conversations in another language.
  
  If you abuse this to write things against forum rules, the consequences will be high.
  
  Please avoid using chatspeak when posting. Grammar and spelling do not have to be perfect (we all have typos or errors here and there), but some effort should be shown, and posts need to be legible.

Secondly, warning procedures staff members are told to follow have been adjusted to take some of the pressure off you all.

Thirdly, Tweak and I have decided to open up the Random Board many of you had previously suggested, to allow for a bit more free reign.


We hope these changes improve your experience here. Thank you for those of you who have given us input to make us aware of any situations.

[WingedZephyr]

The following forum rule has been changed:

• No extreme uses of profanity - including partially censored.
  
  Any use or variety of the "F" word is not to be used.
  
  Even with swear words that are allowed, please try to keep it to a minimum. Excessive use of foul language may be removed.
  
  Please do not use profanity to curse at or insult your fellow forum members.

To this:

• Please keep profanity to a minimum, and do not use it to curse at or insult other forum members.
  
  The forum as a whole is auto-censored by default, but you can turn off the auto-censor by going to Profile > Look and Layout > check "Leave words uncensored."
  
  Excessive use of foul language may be removed.

Profanity will no longer earn a warning, as long as you guys can be mature and reasonable about it. If the rule change gets abused, it will go back to the way it was.

Auto-censoring is automatically enabled by default, but if you aren't offended by profanity and want to turn the censor off, you can disable it via your Look and Layout settings.

Profanity and such will always be left uncensored within the Adult Area, regardless of your profile settings, as it always has been.

[Timmy Fox]

That is *** awesome for *** sake! Now I can go around saying *** all the *** time and not give a *** about what others may *** think because I am now *** allowed to say *** whenever I *** want to! ***!

...Sorry but I had to

[WingedZephyr]

Hey. Don't test our patience.

[WingedZephyr]

It also should be noted that the Random Board will now operate under semi-relaxed rules - details here.

And for those of you who have access to the Adult Area, there have been changes to those rules as well. Details here.

[WingedZephyr]

The rule regarding avatars has been adjusted a bit.

If using art that does not belong to you in your signature or avatar, it is strongly encouraged that you ask the artist's permission to do so, or at least provide a link to the artist to give credit. If you claim art is yours that is not, or if the artist has contacted us about disallowed use of the image, it will be removed.

This means if you take your profile picture from a website, we'd still like you to credit the artist who made it. You can usually find the artist pretty easily using Google's reverse image search.

[Alessia Starfurr]

***I presses button.*** Why did 'I' press the button?

Seriously though is my avatar okay? It's my character which he actually made a model of later after I made the char.... I don't want to plaugerize the images in my sig and avatar ,but what's the best way to do that 1. if I don't know and 2. if I don't know which of the 2 accounts (in the case of my avatar) to use?

[Tweak]

If you aren't sure who it was, that's fine. You can keep using it.

We prefer credit to be given, but we understand in some cases this isn't possible.

[WingedZephyr]

Rules for Discord have been added to the Rules page. Nothing new; just copying them over here so they're all in one place.

[WingedZephyr]

Added these two things to it:

• Please do not abuse any chat features.
  Excessive or inappropriate abuse of any chat feature, including emojis or the @ feature is discouraged. If it's a problem, we'll let you know.
  
  
• If a problem arises on Discord, please let us know via Discord DM, using @ to reach a staff member, posting in the Chat With Staff channel, or PM us on the forum.
  If you post in the staff chat, at least one of us is usually around to help you. If you see particular staff member(s) are online, you can also DM them or @ them in the chat. Please only use ONE method to contact us. If we're around, we'll get your message one way or another. If not, we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

[WingedZephyr]

Added this to the Discord rules:

Multiple Discord accounts cannot be used together on our server.
Using multiple accounts may result in a ban on the server.