The Official Middle Ground:
The Community Guidelines have been altered and added to, to reflect the work that has been done. Revisions---I've added spoilers to hide unchanged information, but included the unchanged information so you can see the context of the new changes in the overall post.
What was added: Minor vs Major/Severe Offenses, added language to Bigotry area, cleaned up Vacation Flavor Area.
Forum Basics
Flames are posts or parts of posts which, directly or indirectly, insult, belittle, bully, name-call, or otherwise attack another user is not allowed.
- In no circumstances is bigotry allowed.
- Bigotry includes racism, aggressive homophobia, religion bashing or wishing violence on any minority group.
- Bigotry takes into account historic events, emotional baggage and generally accepted associations with a term, phrase or intent - posting "White Power" in a thread has a history and is bigoted, posting "Green Power" makes you an environmentalist.
- It doesn't matter if another user rubs you the wrong way, that's not an excuse to flame or attack them.
- Attacking a person instead of the user is NOT ok - it's all fun and games until it becomes personal.
- Using a person's real information, picture, address, blog or anything else "personal" is NOT ok.
- Yes, we are liberal on course language, but this does not mean cyber-bullying or Bigotry is acceptable anywhere. You will be removed from the community for cyber-bullying or bigotry.
Flaming will get your post edited/deleted and will get you a warning from a mod. Cyber-bullying and bigotry will be removed, and a mod will probably come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Rule Enforcement
For users who break the above Guidelines, as they say, "there will be consequences and repercussions." The Mods and Admins will always take into account when past offenses occurred, and the severity of the current offense and any past offenses, in addition to the intent of the offense.
There are essentially Two Levels of Offense in Conquer Club: Minor and Major/Severe.
- Minor Offenses are those that are more annoying than hurtful with intent. This includes but is not limited to: Spamming, Off Topicing, Forms of Flaming/Trolling, Necro-bumping, Oversized Signature, Avatar Abuse, etc.
Minor Offenses follow the traditional vacation escalation scale of:
- Warning, 24 Hour Vacation, 72 Hour Vacation, One Week or One Month Vacation, Permanent Vacation.
- Major/Severe Offenses are those that are more than just annoying, but are intentionally hurtful to a user, group of users, or the community in general. This includes but is not limited to: Cyber-bullying/Harassment, Bigotry, **Point Dumping** etc.
Major/Severe Offenses follow a shortened vacation escalation scale of:
**Note: Due to the nature of Point Dumping having an impact of the integrity of the game, your account will be suspended first until the issue can be resolved.**- Warning, One Month Vacation, Permanent Vacation.
The general order of Rule Enforcement is as follows:Forum Vacation Flavors
During a Forum Vacation a user cannot post in the Forums and cannot access their Inbox, but they can still play games. Forum Vacations will be used when Warnings are not heeded. The range of Forum Vacations you may receive depends on if your infraction was a Minor or a Major/Severe offense. Flavors of Vacation you may receive:
- 24 Hour
- For users who have yet to learn. Calm down, cool it, regroup, be happy.
- 72 Hours & 1 Week
- For users who have yet to learn. Time away does the mind and heart some good.
- 1 Month
- For users who have yet to learn. More time for reflection.
- Permanent Forum Vacation
- For users who never learned from their previous offense actions. The ultimate zen.
Permanent Website Ban
- Bans are the most severe of the Rule Enforcement methods. These are not vacations you come back from: No forums, no games, no Conquer Club.
- Used with Admin discretion, based on the severity of the offense and past history.
Miscellaneous Cases
I hope we have reached an acceptable and enforceable end. Thanks for all your work, everyone. Well done.
--Andy
