The Gang Garrison 2 Forum
Gang Garrison Discussion => Announcements => Topic started by: mrfredman on September 28, 2011, 04:18:18 pm
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General forum rules
These rules are enforced everywhere on the forums, without exception. This includes PMs, although we won't find out unless they are reported.
Obey the law
This rule is very basic and should not surprise anyone, but it contains a few facets that you should be aware of. In addition to obeying the laws of your country, you must not post any content that is illegal under German law either, since these forums are hosted on a German server. Posts and threads containing illegal material will often need to be deleted. Here are a few of the points which might need clarification:
- Do not share or discuss pirated material. Don't link to places where you can download pirated software, cracks or similar, and don't ask where to find these things either.
- Do not use symbols or images directly related to nazis or the third reich. No swastikas, pictures of Hitler, people showing the Hitlergruß etc. You may use historical images if they are relevant to a discussion and add value to it, e.g. illustrating a historical aspect of WW2.
- Do not post lolicon or other drawings or texts of sexual content involving children or people who look like they are below 18. Of course, posting actual child porn would not only earn you an instant permaban, but we'd send the party van your way as well.
Treat others with respect
- Respect other people's privacy.
Do not post personal details of anyone without their consent, or pretend to do so. This includes pictures, locations, IP addresses and real names. - Respect other people's feelings.
No malicious posts, insults, personal attacks, harassment or threats unless they are understood as friendly banter. As such, a certain amount of hostile clan-banter and insults among friends is acceptable. The person insulted is the judge of whether a remark was friendly, so try to be sure when you post. It is not acceptable to answer hurtful insults in kind. In a verbal escalation like that, both parties will be punished by the moderators.
To illustrate the extent of this rule, consider someone asking for criticism for a new map. It is OK to say so if you think the map is bad. It is way better to give constructive advice. It is not OK to make fun of how bad it is, or ridicule the person's lack of ability.
If you feel that you are being personally attacked or are committing it: please abide by these guidelines
- If someone is harassing you, tell them to stop. Insulting them back will cause you to be treated as being just as at fault.
- If, after you've told them to stop, they persist, refrain from interacting with them and report the issue to the section moderator or a community manager.
- If someone asks you to stop, you stop. If you don't think what you were doing constitutes harassment, still stop, but go to the section moderator or community manager about it. Attempting to use these rules to get someone in trouble for something that isn't harassment is also an offense.
- Respect new users, too.
You were all dewey-eyed newblets once, and you know how it can take a little while to get familiar with gameplay and forum culture. Let's make it easy for new people to express their opinions and contribute instead of testing them through an onslaught of harassment. - Respect other people's identity.
No hate speech, period.
- Only post if you have something constructive and relevant to contribute to a conversation.
- Only use images or videos in your posts if they are relevant. Reaction images are not. Neither is gore, pornography or other material that is likely to offend people.
- Keep swearing to a minimum. A certain amount of swearing and other offensive language will be tolerated, but keep it out of topic titles at least.
The moderators don't notice every rule violation, so don't assume that something is OK just because someone else got away with it. In addition, moderating decisions often depend on how a situation looks to the moderator. Some cases in grey areas will end with a strike, some will not. This may be unfair, but it is also unavoidable. Don't complain if this happens to you, but stay clear of the grey area instead.
Consequences:
We use a 3-strike system to track offenses and monitor abuse of the rules.
Strike 1: You will receive a verbal warning from an admin, global moderator, or community manager. In certain extreme cases you may also receive a temp-ban.
Strike 2: You're temp banned (length will depend on the offense).
Strike 3: Perma-ban
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One note before I revise the forum rules in the future,
If someone is being outlandish and one or more moderators comes in to take care of the situation, please don't start jumping in to gang up on people. I appreciate that you want to help, but we can handle things ourselves.
Thank you.
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It has come to my attention that several members of this forum, including in some cases developers and moderators, have decided that since we are a quiet community they are entitled to just post whatever the hell they want irregardless of the actual topic.
In the past I was willing to look past this, but inaction on the part of the staff has seemingly egged several of these members to constantly do it in every thread, showing absolutely no respect or tact whatsoever. I am amiss to as to why all of a sudden the community feels the image of themselves they want reflected to any potential new players or contributors is that of a hive of shitposting and memes.
I'm not going to make an impassioned argument as to why these posts are the antithesis of clever and hilarious, but I can sure as hell tell you they are disruptive, no matter how DEAD you think this forum is.
There are plenty of people that I will not name specifically who continually shitpost and I am frankly getting fed up with it, and so is much of the staff.
Examples of this behavior include, but are not limited to:
- Continually derailing a thread to post stupid images
- Spam
- Disregarding moderator warnings to continue the derail
- Literally posting the word meme over and over again in some hideous post meant to be ironic
- Making idiotic topics not meant for any discussion, but rather to try and force memes or similar unfunny bullshit
- Derailing haxxy release threads to discuss unrelated matters
- Derailing gang garrison 2 gameplay threads to discuss unrelated matters
- Discussing your ban after being banned, for no other reason than to cause trouble.
I don't really care how funny you think this stuff is, and its sad I even have to post this, but from now on the tolerance for this will be far less than it once was.
There will be a strict three strikes and you're out system, with the third strike being a 1-3 day ban.
After that, repeat offenses will net you entrance into a ban cycle. This cycle will increase the duration of your ban each time, subject to change based on how much trouble you are causing.
I am all for having fun. But there are plenty of places you can spam to your hearts content rather than actual discussions. Like the IRC or GG2 Skype group. but not the Bro Lounge and not a General Chatter topic. Joking within reason is okay. Derailing within reason is okay. But I don't think anyone here is going to tell me with a straight face that devoting two pages to one word responses, half of which involve "memes" and macro images is okay.
Regards, Intel Guard
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I wanted to interject for a moment; I'm fine with enforcing such rules, but we're going to handle them on a per-incident basis. While I don't have a problem with you guys having a bit of fun, the quality of our posts on this forum is extremely important to me. For that reason, I've revised the rules a bit.
Annotated Forum Rules
Respect other users
- Everything that Fredman typed above applies here; Respect other users and their feelings, don't post personal information without a user's consent, no hate speech, and respect new users. Friendly banter is fine, but remember to actually keep it friendly
- Doxxing -- releasing personal information on forum users -- will result in a permanent ban. Do not forget; Doxxing is, in fact, illegal.
Obey the law
- This is in accordance to both US and German law, as the site is hosted on a German Server
- I'm going to copy Fredman's text here. In the occasion that I either forget to do so or simply don't do it; users, please scroll the page up
Stay on topic.
- Deviation from the original topic is fine, but for example, when you enter a thread about balance discussion and end up talking about trains for four or five pages, we're going to have to intervene. If it happens consistently, we will restrict your posting privileges for a set period of time.
- Off-topic discussion and forum games belong Here (http://www.ganggarrison.com/forums/index.php?board=31.0)
Do not post NSFW content. This is not an R18 website.
- The exception is the Art section, where tasteful nudes are allowed
- Use your head while posting, and spoiler NSFW content on that board (in accordance to their board rules)
The quality of posts is extremely important to this community. Contributors are encouraged to provide high-quality images and informative comments.
- I pulled this directly from 4chan's set of rules, because it works. As a reminder, though, this is NOT 4chan, and there are some unspoken rules of etiquette that members should remember to follow
Do not spam the forum
- ie, don't shitpost. There is a distinction between a low quality post and a shitpost, where the latter is the intentional act of making bad posts. We will advise against the former, while outright punishing the latter
- We also don't allow commercial spam, but we're fairly certain that none of our users are robots in the traditional sense, so that shouldn't be an issue
Keep off-site drama off-site.
- Off-site drama has no place on our forum. It will not be tolerated.
Follow board rules set by section moderators.
- Each board has its own unique set of rules, and they are expected to be followed. If you have issues with a forum's rules, open a civil discussion with its section moderators to try to get them changed. We also have a board for that kind of thing (http://www.ganggarrison.com/forums/index.php?board=5.0)
Also, remember:
- Have fun while posting. What's the point of posting if you're not having fun?
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Hey guys, you may have noticed a user throwing a temper tantrum and attempting to undermine the rules. Now on almost every forum I have been on, its been an unspoken rules that staff can minimize or maximize punishment as they see fit to the situation. But since that certain person cannot wrap his head around that, here is a revision so he can't complain anymore!
The length of your punishment is at the discretion of the staff!
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you don't even need an amendment for that
>I wanted to interject for a moment; I'm fine with enforcing such rules, but we're going to handle them on a per-incident basis.