General Syndicate Forum Rules These rules are designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members at this Forum. Please read it and become familiar with it as it's terms are retroactive and agreed by team and group members. Any updates to these rules will be posted in the Rules Forum and then updated here as well.
Forum-wide Policies Forum rules a) Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions before posting. Users consistently posting to the wrong forum may be given a warning (see policing below).
b) In reference to out-of-character (OOC) conversations on the forums, members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning. In-character (IC) posts that have, as part of a story, conflict between characters is allowed, but should also be tailored to not be too intense. (None of the Star Wars movies exceeded a PG-13 rating, and likewise, neither should your posts.)
c) Members are asked to not act as "back seat moderators". If members note an issue which contravenes something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it to the attention of the Administrator.
d) Members should remember this board is accessible and aimed at a general audience. Posting defamatory, offensive, knowingly false or inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning or banning. In particular, you agree not to post any material glorifying, inciting or endorsing ethnic, racial or religious hatred, strife or intolerance, promoting or advocating sexual violence, sexual activity involving non-consent of any kind, incest, paedophilia, bestiality or necrophilia. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, you agree not to post messages containing links to adult content (eg. pornography sites or sites containing any form of nudity), messages containing explicit, profane or otherwise objectionable language, messages in all CAPS and messages that are disrespectful to the The Mantell Syndicate, it's Culture, it's Staff, Forum Administrator(s), Moderator(s) & Volunteer(s).
e) Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or coloured text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned or banned. (Use of such formatting should
never be included in posts that are meant to be IC.)
f) Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. See specific item on spam and 3rd party linking for more information.
Every user plays a part in the forum, any user who is of the view that a posted message contains prohibited material (as described above) is encouraged to contact
The Mantell Syndicate management team(Please include a link to the offending thread/post). Our management team shall use its best efforts to ensure that the Forum remains clean and enjoyable for everyone.
Signatures To facilitate loading of pages by other users who may not be privileged with the use of broadband, users are advised to keep their signature sizes small for easy loading. This also helps the forums to look cleaner.
a) Signatures may contain up to five lines (one line being that displayed on a browser opened to 800px width) of text (of small or normal size) and/or one image, valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 120px high, 468px wide and 20480Bytes in size. Signatures containing an image this large may also include one line of small size text. If a picture is included, depending on the size of the picture signature, there should not be more than 2 to 3 lines of word either above or below the picture.
b) Text sizes should be between 9 and 12 (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons, etc.
c) Links are permitted in signatures. Such links may be made to non Mantell syndicate material, etc. Links pertaining to commercial ventures are strictly
not allowed. Links are included within the text and image limits above. Links to offensive sites may be subject to removal.
d) Users abusing these rules will be warned.
e) Only links to personal home pages are allowed in signatures and member profiles.
Avatars a) Users are permitted to utilise a gallery avatar or to link to one of their own (subject to previous points on misuse of bandwidth). User defined avatars are to be no larger than 100 pixels square, contain no image which attempts to portray the user as having an official status here (e.g. mimicking ranks or copying avatars of team members), may not exceed 20480Bytes in file size and have a consistently high availability.
b) Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, etc.
c) Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges.
Private Messaging Policy Private Stays Private - Forwarding private messages to the online forum is
not allowed without the express permission of the original author. This includes private replies to public posts and other private or personal communication including e-mail communication who may or may not be forum members. Forum Administrator and Forum Moderators have equal participation rights and responsibilities in our forums - everyone is a Member first.
Spam Policy Advertising or Spam is defined as posting a link for the purpose of selling, soliciting or promoting by someone that has ownership or other "vested interest" to the web site involved, including efforts to promote other online forums or web sites by web site owners. The Mantell Syndicate Forum has an 'open door' policy regarding links to other sites. As long as that is not a member's sole purpose for being here or isn't being advertised by a brand new member in their first few posts (otherwise known as obvious SPAM), we are perfectly fine with it.
However, our members did not sign up to receive SPAM on the forums or in their private message or mail inbox. Sending a link to any member containing such information ("Hey, come join this forum ..." etc.) is considered SPAM, especially if the member posting it is not an established member.
Our policy is simple:
Information determined to be SPAM sent to a member via PM or forum-generated email is not tolerated in any form. Members sending such information will be banned.
If you receive a PM/Email from a member advertising another website, please forward it to a member of the administration team.
The following are also considered SPAM:
- Double posts/threads. If you posted something and realized you made a mistake, use the edit/delete option to fix it. Please only put one thread in an appropriate forum, not several forums on the site.
- Grossly off topic posts. Off topic posts are posts which do not relate to the original post/topic, or are placed in the wrong category/thread. While we realize threads often expand into different topics, we encourage members to do their best to stick with the original topic. If, during the course of a discussion, an unrelated matter comes up that you want to address, simply start a new thread.
- Posts that obviously serve no purpose other than increasing one's post counts.
Additionally, posting of a website as a first and/or only post is also considered SPAM. Contributing members are more than welcome to post links - all we ask is that advertisement not be your sole purpose for membership. For this reason, we ask that you wait until you have reached the 10 post threshold before posting a thread containing a link to another website.
Policing a) Users will be warned a
maximum of two times for any and all offences. If the need arises for a third warning a temporary or permanent ban will be put in place.
b) Arguing with administrators and/or moderators after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed two strikes a ban will be put in place as above.
c) Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned user name, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account of evade a[*]n email ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
d) An exception to the two strike rule applies when users contact team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an
immediate permanent ban.
e) Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While we may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence.
f) Third Party Rights - No person shall have any right pursuant to the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 2001 to enforce any of the above terms and conditions.
The administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to the administrator and moderators and not users.
The above forum rules where applicable also apply to private messaging. Abuse of the private messaging system may lead to warnings (as above) and/or the revocation of private messaging.
We thank you for your cooperation & efforts in making this forum a friendly and enjoyable place. You and I play a part in the community forum.