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| Saturday May 19, 2012 / 6:24am GMT / 0 members and 46 guests online! | |||||||||||
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Rules Last updated on 5th July 2011 Here at Rareware Archives we do try to be as flexible and forgiving as possible within the forums. We want this to be a fun place to visit after all, not some dictatorship regime. However, sadly there's always someone who thinks the rules do not apply to them and that they can do what they want. I'm afraid not! Rule breakers will be punished. We don't like it but its the only way to keep the forums in a good condition for the benefit of the majority who are happy to follow the rules and enjoy the forums the way they were intended. Please be sure to read all of the following to familiarise yourself with everything. By signing up for membership here you are confirming acceptance of these rules which is why it is so important that you read them. The Rareware Archives staff reserve the right to refuse membership or to immediately ban any active member who they feel will adversely affect the site and its forums. Remember that we operate under a "ignorance of the rules is no excuse for breaking them" policy so if there is anything you do not understand then please let us know. Don't just leave it and run the risk of falling foul of the rules. Some members think "I won't bother asking because the staff will think my question is stupid". Let us clear this up straight away; there are never stupid questions! We were all new to something once and the only way we learn is to ask. The admin and mods are all here to help and will be happy to assist or clarify the rules if you're puzzled. There's nothing too hardcore in here; most of it boils down to common sense anyway. There are three kinds of punishments for rule breakers; First of all is stage one and, depending on what you have done, you'll receive an e-mail or a PM from the staff giving you a warning. The number of warnings you receive will depend on what you've done and how frequently you do it but we do keep a log of everything so don't think you can break the rules every few weeks and that we'll forget. We don't forget. Stage two is called a time out. You receive a time out if you do something quite serious straight away or you've received a few warnings. A time out means you lose all forum privileges (you effectively become a guest). The length of the time out depends on what you've done but you will be informed of the length, and what you've done to earn yourself a time out, when the staff member involved messages you, but it's normally a few days. The final stage is being banned. You'll get banned if you've done something really bad or received one too many time outs for your own good. If you are a persistent trouble maker then you run the risk of being banned too. Once you are banned you won't be coming back. A lot of banned members complain to us saying "I was banned for a really stupid trivial thing, it's not fair!" What they forget is that this 'really stupid trivial thing' is just the latest in a long line of trouble-making and rule-breaking which is why they've been banned. It's no good complaining after. Behave yourself to begin with and you won't have any problems. So, without further ado, onto the rules ... 1. Coarse / bad language We'll start with the obvious but you'd be surprised at the amount of members who just don't get it ... coarse / bad language is a no-no. Our forums are open to people of all ages and we do have members of a young age here (such is the nature of the Rareware games), or we have their parents stopping by to see what their children are viewing online. To have them come in and see bad language is not the best way to encourage them to let their child to continue to visit. So, no bad language please ... if you really feel compelled to use a swear word then you should censor it out completely like this; [bleep]. Only censoring one or two letters of a word isn't going to cut it, we're afraid. We know that every now and then the mood dictates that a swear word or two will creep in. We're okay with the odd word, but it must be in context and just posting "[bleep] off you [bleep]ers" is only going to get you in trouble. 2. Flaming / insults Flaming is a term used to describe any non-constructive negative comments directed at other people (for example, "you suck") and this, along with insulting other members, is not allowed. Bit of a no-brainer, I know, but you'd be surprised how many people don't understand this. Flaming and / or insulting someone else will earn you a warning, but carry on and you'll receive a time out pretty quickly as there's no place for it here at Rareware Archives. We're all friends after all! If the time out still doesn't teach you the error of your ways then you're heading into ban territory! 3. Trolling Rather than actually flaming someone, you act in a manner where you're basically asking to be flamed by another member (for example, posting a topic called "Banjo-Kazooie is rubbish" is trolling of the highest degree). As with flaming / insults, if you are found to be trolling you'll be given a warning, but any repeats will see you get a time out. If you return from your time out and you keep at it then you'll get yourself banned. 4. Responding to flaming / trolling If you should discover someone who you think is either flaming or trolling then tell a member of the Rareware Archives staff and let them deal with it. Do not try and deliver the mother of all put-downs to show off your superior intellect or go steaming in all set for an argument; all you're going to do is kick off a big slanging match and earn yourself a warning in the process. Please also bear in mind that people who do flame or troll are doing it just to get a reaction. Any attention is good attention to some people. Don't sink to their level, just ignore them and report the offending member to the staff. We'll take it from there and you can carry on enjoying the forums instead of receiving a time out. 5. Disruptive posting Posting topics with the sole purpose of annoying a certain person or a group of people. We will defend the right of free speech to the death but there are times when it is better to say nothing. We all need to realise that our thoughts should be kept to ourselves sometimes. Everyone has different opinions and we know that we're not always going to agree, but if that is the case you should disagree with a constructive and considered response, not an angry rant about how you're right and they're wrong. We need to respect other opinions, but bashing people in the process isn't cool. 6. Spamming The bane of all forums, spamming is where someone posts something completely irrelevant / stupid / useless. This includes the majority of one word answers. For example, if someone has posted something that you agree with, posting a message saying "Yes." is going to be considered as spam. Please don't do it. If you're going to post, make it a post that will be worth reading for everyone else. 7. Backseat Moderating This is basically where a user decides to take justice into their own hands and cast their own judgment upon the posting of others. It includes but is not limited to posts of "this is spam" and "inb4 lock". If you believe another member has broken a rule, notify the admin or the moderators and let them deal with it. 8. Disrespecting Staff The moderators try their hardest to make this site great for everyone and you must keep in mind that they are volunteers; nobody gets paid for their time here. Posting in the forums to complain to or about staff regarding how they do their job or enforce the rules, as well as rudeness and disrespecting the staff members all have no place here and will likely result with offenders having a time out. If you have a problem regarding a member of staff and you feel they have unfairly punished you for something, please e-mail or PM an administrator about it in a respective, calm, civilized manner. Anything other than that will get you a time out. 9. Gravedigging Simply put, posting in an extremely old, dead and useless topic for no reason. Basically don't go hunting for topics on the last page unless you really want to add something significant to them. 10. Asking why another member was given an infraction, suspension or ban or that the staff change their mind on a decision If a member has been banned, it's none of your business to be asking why he or she was or questioning if the staff were right or not. They broke the rules, simple! You have no business debating the rules with the staff or other members if you weren't the one being punished. If you really believe that the decision of a moderator in banning a member was not justified then you can PM or e-mail an administrator about the issue and let them decide. 11. Advertising your own site If you have made your own site and want to tell people about it then you can post about it within the General forum, or place a link within your signature. However, do this just the once please. If the first time doesn't generate any visitors for you, posting advertisements over and over will likely result in a time out for spamming. 12. Giving out your password Why anyone would want to give away their password to someone else is beyond us, but let us be clear; do not do it! The Rareware Archives staff will never ask for your password; we don't want it and we have no need for it! If anyone contacts you saying that they are a staff member and they need your password (it's happened before!) they are a fake and they should be reported to the admin straight away. If you are found to be giving out your password to other members you are going to get yourself time out. Whatever your reasons might be, we can only assume the worst and that you are doing it for dubious reasons. Anything that happens on your account is your responsibility; if you have PC that other members of your family use, or if you use a PC at your school / college then you should be sure to log out whenever you are finished visiting us. It doesn't matter if your dog did it while you weren't looking, it's your account and it's your job to make sure that no-one messes with it. If your account breaks the rules, even if you yourself didn't do it, then you still get the punishment. The ability to post in the Rareware Archives forums is a privilege, not a right. Please do not abuse it. 13. Alternate accounts Alternate accounts (also known as alts) are where one person has created two or more accounts on the same forum and they are not allowed. One account per member is more than enough and by creating an alt we can only assume you are doing it for dubious reasons and to deceive someone. This is not tolerated and the offending member will be banned with all their associated accounts locked and deleted. If you are banned from the site, do not create another account. Simple as that. We try to keep the forums as clean and friendly as possible, and if a member is banned it's done for a good reason. Access to the forums is a privilege and if you can't follow the rules then you have no place here. Do not try and get around this by creating an alt. 14. Obtaining another member's password Getting hold of another member's password and logging on to their account (whether it is with their permission or not) is not allowed. We can only assume that your intentions for doing this are not good and it will not be tolerated. 15. Direct links to / posting of inappropriate content Posting links to pornography, hentai and other various nasties will get you banned. Pages which contain porn in their advertising should also not be linked to, regardless of whether you warn users before clicking the link or not. We don't need to list specifics but it's quite obvious what falls into inappropriate content. Want to post porn? Go do it elsewhere. You don't need to share it with everyone else over here. 16. Dangerous and malicious links Do not link to dangerous or malicious sites. Any site which gives lots of pop-ups, resizes or moves the browser window or contains spyware, adware and / or viruses should never be linked to, even if your intentions were only to joke. Make sure you check what you're linking to before posting that link for all to see. Break this rule and you will be banned. 17. Hacking the forums and site, and glitch abuse If you find a glitch or oversight in our website coding, we request that you report it to an administrator as soon as possible. Failure to do so and acting upon said oversight, whether for personal gain or just out of interest, will earn you a time out. Don't say you weren't warned. Attempts to hack or tamper with the forums or other user accounts will result in a ban, straight up and without warning. 18. Secret Splooging Rareware Archives has secret trophies hidden around the site. If you find one click it immediately and it will be yours to keep. Find them all and you'll get a special prize to show for it. While members have certainly enjoyed this feature, there will always be some people who try to spoil things, by giving away their locations. This will not be tolerated, and while we cannot control the discussion of secrets outside of Rareware Archives, there will be consequences for those who are caught. Think of them as a nice Christmas present waiting to be discovered - don't spoil the contents for others before they have a chance to look for themselves. 19. Hotlink from other web sites Hotlinking is basically when someone copies a file from a website (e.g. Nintendo) and then puts it somewhere else (in these forums). This is illegal and will waste the webmaster's bandwidth you've stole the file from (e.g. an image). Bandwidth is the amount of communication that can carry across a network. Each website has a certain amount of bandwidth. Each time someone copies and pastes something from their site onto another website this wastes their bandwidth as you're consuming it by using it elsewhere. Unless you have authorised permission do not to "hotlink". Hotlinking is illegal and webhosts can see where their images are hotlinked to. If serious, this can result in legal action against the site with the hotlinked files. Don't worry, this doesn't apply to things like YouTube. However it includes any files that you do not have any permission to use that are on someone else's site. For example, hotlinking an avatar from a website that tells you to save the image to your own webspace would be considered illegal. Upload the image to your own webspace such as on PhotoBucket or ImageShack. Please do not hotlink without authorized permission. PhotoBucket = http://photobucket.com/ ImageShack = http://imageshack.us/ 20. Begging for Rareware coins Posting topics asking for people to give you Rareware coins or pestering people via PM and asking for coins is not allowed. Do it and you will receive a time out. Everyone has to earn coins in the same way, unless a member decides to donate some - but it must be their choice, not because you've been on their case. 21. Sig Rules Below are a list of guidelines and rules to follow when using signatures. Please follow these or you may lose your signature priveledges. Images must follow these limits: 500 pixels width COMBINED. Anything over this width will stretch the page lengthways and put the sidebar out of view. It looks messy and isn't good when all the pages of the forum are different widths according to images. 150 pixels height COMBINED. This means the total combination of images in your signature cannot exceed 150 pixels when stacked. If they are side by side then they all need 150 pixels or less in height, but a combination of no more than 500 pixels wide. Right click and click properties to see the dimensions of an image. If you are using images stacked on top of each other, make sure that the total height does not exceed 150 pixels. Find the dimensions and add them together to check. No more than three (3) images in your signature. We don't want the forum looking like a photo album, that's what the Face to the Name topic is for. We're a bit lenient on this one, but if your sig has obviously too many images, then we may take away priveledges. Keep YouTube videos, flash players (including blingy blob) and music players OUT of your signature. These slow down the loading times of the site significantly, especially for those still stuck with a slower internet connection or dial-up. Please be thoughtful of others. Text signatures are limited to 6 lines of text. No more. If you have an image in your signature, this rule also applies if you wish to add text as well. 22. Chat embeds / plugins These are not allowed here and this includes having a link to XAT or similar programs on your profile. You have the Who's Online chat if you want to talk, otherwise your best bet is to swap IM, MSN or whatever it is you guys use. Anyone found with one of these chat thingys or a link to one on their profile gets a time out and failure to remove it when they return sees them at risk of being banned. 23. Custom backgrounds Please no entering of html to alter the site background. Anyone caught doing it gets a warning and repeat offenders run the risk of a time out. 24. "My First Blog" While this technically counts as spam this deserves its own rule as so many of you do it. Posting a blog called "My First blog" is not allowed as very often they are just one line affairs and a complete waste of time. As we said earlier if you are going to post please make it worthwhile for other members to read. Admittedly a difficult one to call but as a general rule it needs to be more than a couple of paragraphs to count as blogworthy. We'll be deleting any blogs that we feel break this rule, and you may very well lose your right to post blogs if you do it. Buying the right to post blogs is a privilege, please do not abuse it. 25. Derailing topics This is addressed specifically towards people who have been complaining of the little activity going on around here, and those who frequently derail topics, whether their actions were intentional or not. There are two types of users on message boards: Old and New. This site's full of old users. To get new users, we need to have a community where people are willing to stay. Unfortunately, you guys aren't the most attractive users when it comes to participating in topic discussions. New users are put off by this, resulting in them rarely staying, and in turn causes old users to see little or no activity, and they inevitably leave. Case in point: Your behavior when it comes to topic discussion is disgustingly unacceptable. Remember - if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Next time you feel like a topic is uninteresting or pointless, do not argue, do not reply, don't even think about posting. Maybe if your contributions to the message boards were contributive and considerate of the topics at hand, more users would find the site a bit more interesting and friendly. As of now, your behaviors certainly aren't helping the site expand one bit. Anyone caught doing it gets a warning, repeat offenders will find themselves getting timed out pretty quickly and one more instance of it once you return will see you getting banned. ... and that concludes our rules section. Remember, if you are unsure about any of these, please get in touch with the staff. We will do our best to help you! Please note that we reserve the right to amend these rules at any time but don't worry, we'll let you know if we do! Thanks for reading.  | ||||||||||
