Friendcodes Site Rules and Guidelines -Updated 8/25/08

[Dani]

Many thanks to The Nesh for the banner ^^

The Friendcodes Staff expect you to follow these rules when posting on the forums.


Contents

1. Respect your fellow members.
a. Spamming
b. Insulting or flaming other members
c. Inappropriate language
d. Religious/Racial/Sexual discrimination
e. Serious/controversial discussion
f. Pornographic Material/Warez/Advertising
g. Unfair or Impermissable Gaming
h. Hacking/roms/emulation discussion
i. Fraudulent or deceptive conduct
j. Sharing personal information
k. Fun & Games
2. Posting Guidelines
3. Signatures
4. Game Hubs, Profiles, Blogs and Social Groups
5. Forum Accounts and Name Changes
6. Feedback and Problem Resolution
7. Specific Rule Announcements



1. Respect your fellow members.

The most important thing about being part of a community is to respect the members, the staff, and ultimately yourself. What you give is what you get. Treat others right, and you will be treated the same.

Being a respectful FC member means to not display any inappropriate behavior. If the staff find that you're violating these expectations, you will be given a warning on the first offense, and an infraction from the next offense onwards.

Inappropriate behaviour includes the following:

a. Spamming

You've no doubt heard the word "spam" before. They are Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages. When posting on the forums, make sure your posts are worthy of discussion, interesting, easy to understand and relative to the forum's description.

Don't make posts which consist of one or two words, or "jibberish" (anything that is not an actual word or has no meaning, such as "jehfgjehfgsa").


b. Insulting or flaming other members

This is extremely important. Don't make comments intended to offend/insult other members, or start arguments. Any threads with signs of hostility or arguments arousing will be closed, and the members in question will be warned/infracted as necessary.

This also applies to staff members. Don't create threads or make a public displays aimed at any moderators, admins or other staff members; they will be closed or deleted immediately.


c. Inappropriate language

Swearing/cussing is not permitted on this site under any circumstance. There are children and teenagers of all ages here, and we are a family-friendly site. Anyone swearing profusely or making attempts to evade the swear filter will be infracted immediately. Severe cases of offensive language may issue an immediate ban.


d. Religious/Racial/Sexual discrimination

Discrimination of a religious, racial or sexual manner is not tolerated at all.


e. Serious/controversial discussion

Friendcodes is a family-friendly community. We don't encourage discussion with highly political or religious content. Off-topic discussion is allowed, but anything that may create controversy or ensue flaming will be closed by the moderators. This includes sexual references or implications of any nature within posts.


f. Pornographic Material/Warez/Advertising

We don't allow any posts containing links, images, or references to porn, including hentai. No matter how "mild" a member may think it is, if it has sexual content or implications it will be removed or edited. The user in question may receive a warning or infraction, and in extreme cases an immediate ban.

Any members posting simply to sell or advertise materials is not allowed. Advertising your website must be kept to one thread in the "Visit My Website" forum, your signature or your profile. Don't harass members via private message or pager to join your website.

Additionally, no links may be posted that lead to scripted windows that cannot be closed without pressing ctrl-alt-del. Pranks like this can cause members to lose unsaved documents, and are taken very seriously by the Friendcodes staff.


g. Unfair or Impermissable Gaming

A major aspect of WiFi gaming is to make sure you have fun and play fairly. Be friendly and trustworthy to your opponents or WiFi friends. This will ensure you have a noteable WiFi reputation amongst other members.

If staff members receive many complaints from other members about your playing habits, you may be warned or infracted.


h. Hacking/roms/emulation discussion

This is not allowed including any discussion to do with AR (Action Replay) or other devices which alter your gameplay to make it different from what the developers of the game intended. We also don't support roms or emulations, so don't create threads or posts regarding these. Homebrew discussion is allowed.

However, the Pokemon Rules have been revised, please see here.


i. Fraudulent or deceptive conduct

When posting articles, news, essays, art, or any original work; if it was not created by you, make sure you either cite the source or gain the owner's permission to use their work. Plagiarism is not tolerated, and if you refuse to give credit where it is due after being advised and warned, you will receive an infraction.


j. Sharing personal information

Information such as messenger handles, personal websites, age and gender are allowed to be shared, but please refrain from creating threads about it. If a moderator suspects that you're asking members for this information for malicious or harassive purposes, your posts/threads may be removed and you may be warned.

Sharing of real names or addresses are not allowed for the safety of our members.


k. Fun & Games

It's true. This is where you come to calm down and have fun. As long as you don't post any inappropriate content here, you can get away with it. Unless you start flooding the entire board with posts, insult other members, or try to create utterly pointless threads - then our moderators will step in and put their foot down. Any posts made here won't go towards your post count.



Note: Moderators and Administrators reserve the right to ban a member at any time with or without warning/infracting if the member's behaviour is extremely offensive and/or a general threat to the community.

For more information on infractions, check out this FAQ: User Infractions

Refer to next post for Section 2.

[Dani]

2. Posting Guidelines


a. Please don't multiple-post (post right after your last post) unless you run out of room in your previous post.

b. Don't create multiple threads about the same topic. Stick to the last thread you created. When creating a thread, check that a thread hasn't been created about the same subject already.

c. Only bump threads if you have something relevant to add to the topic. You may bump your own threads if you have updated your first posts with more information, but don't bump simply to get attention.

d. When posting images, please limit yourself to 5 images per post if they are large. We encourage this out of courtesy for users having to scroll through threads with masses of images. Please also make sure that your images are not so large that they stretch the browser window horizontally, making members have to use a scroll bar.

e. If you see any posts which you think may be offensive or violating the rules, click the report button to send a message describing the offense to the staff.


3. Signatures

Signatures must be within the following measurements:



A limit of 6 images and 100kb in total is allowed for sigs. Global Moderators and Administrators have the right to edit signatures which are too large or have any offensive content.


4. Game Hubs, Profiles, Blogs and IRC Chat

The Friendcodes Game Hubs are occasionally moderated by staff members, who have the right to intervene if they see any inappropriate behaviour, by banning members from hubs or closing them. In many cases, you won't know there's a moderator in your hub, so make sure you're not violating any rules at any time. Members in a hub may also use a reporting feature to report any offenses to the staff.

If a staff member notices anything particularly offensive in your profile comments or blog, they may decide to edit or remove these as necessary.

The chat is managed by a dedicated team of operators and an IRC administrator. There's a separate set of rules for appropriate IRC conduct, so if you visit the chat, please make sure you check them out.


5. Forum Accounts and Name Changes

One account is permitted per person. If you're caught having other accounts for your own personal use, the other accounts will be banned or deleted permanently, and your main account will be banned for two weeks. Any attempts to evade this two week ban, or any further accounts being created after the ban has expired, will lead to an IP ban.

The staff are completely ruthless here when handling multiple account users or ban evaders. If you use any other means to access the site after your IP has been banned, we will not hesitate to report you to your ISP.

Additionally, members are responsible for their own accounts. Anything posted on your account is your responsibility. If an account gets hacked and does enough to get banned, the original owner of the account will not be able to argue against the ban, even if it really isn't their fault. So, please, keep your password to yourself.

The Admins will not issue you a name change unless the following has occurred:

1. You have chosen an offensive or inappropriate name
2. You have chosen a name that was completely thoughtless and impractical to use, such as a jumble of letters and numbers with absolutely no meaning, making it hard for other members to refer to you, or
3. You have accidentally entered your email address as your username

Otherwise, you will have to stick to what you've got, no exceptions. Any requests trying to seek favouritism for a possible name change will be ignored.


6. Feedback and Problem Resolution

If you have any suggestions or questions about the site in general, please visit the Feedback/Questions forum. If you want to report any posts or hubs make sure you use their reporting features as mentioned in section 2. and 4.

PLEASE DO NOT MAKE FALSE REPORTS TO THE STAFF. If we find you doing this, you may receive an infraction.

Problems with particular members should be reported to any available Moderator, or for very serious issues contact a Forum Administrator via pager message or private message.


7. Specific Rule Announcements

To All Seeders and Members!

You are responsible for your own account!

Ban On Jumping Rick Rolls

Making False Reports for Posts/Hubs/Profiles etc.

[Dani]

Lately, many members have been sending their questions to the wrong staff. Before you send a message to a staff member, please check here first to make sure you're contacting the right person.

It would probably be best to send a message to a staff member who is currently online. If no-one is online, just pick one from the right group below.


1. If you have a question about a thread/post (moving, closing, deleting, etc.), a ban, a warning, an infraction, a profile comment, or people causing problems in the hubs, you need to ask a Moderator.

The current moderating team:

[ Send PM ] -AJ-
[ Send PM ] Adam
[ Send PM ] Baseballer
[ Send PM ] Ben
[ Send PM ] Cameron
[ Send PM ] Hiroko
[ Send PM ] Moonchild
[ Send PM ] NinBoy
[ Send PM ] Rogue
[ Send PM ] Yanni



2. If you have a question about an official review you need to ask the Reviews Editor, and if you have a question about an official news article you need to ask the News Editor.

The current Reviews Editor is:

[ Send PM ] -Sobriquet-

The current News Editor is:

[ Send PM ] Budge007


3. If you have a question about the chat and you can't contact one of the operators in the chatroom, you need to contact the Chat Administrator.

The current Chat Administrator is:

[ Send PM ] Jag


4. If you have a question that a Moderator couldn't solve, or you have a complaint about a staff member, you need to contact a Administrator.

The current Administrators are:

[ Send PM ] John
[ Send PM ] Linkeh
[ Send PM ] Sockpuppet
[ Send PM ] Snakepit

5. If you have a question or complaint about the site or staff that couldn't be solved by the Moderators or Administrators, or you find something that needs to be fixed on the site, or want to request affiliation, you need to contact a Site Manager.

The current Site Managers are:

[ Send PM ] Dani
[ Send PM ] R1kk1



6. And finally, if you have an urgent question for the owner of friendcodes.com, you need to contact Corey. Please make sure this is a question only the webmaster can answer, as he is always extremely busy. Most questions can be answered by the rest of the staff.


7. If you want to make a suggestion, feedback or request help you can always post it here.

[Büdge007]

I don't believe this has been stressed enough, because it seems that every week, someone PMs me asking if they can become an administrator, moderator or some other staff position. I'm just going to make one point clear to those who have asked and those who are thinking of asking: If you ask to be on staff, you're destroying your chances of ever getting the job.

You don't get to choose to be on staff, its up to the whole staff as a group. If we all agree that a certain member can be chosen to moderate or write reviews etc, then we will let you know. Before you even think about asking, you need to consider the following:

1. You have good spelling and grammar.
2. You treat other members kindly.
3. You have a good post record. (no spamming/flaming)
4. You act mature on the forum.
5. You have been an active member for a long time.

I know it isn't really my place to in force these rules, but I do want members made aware of this. Stop asking to be on staff, because your ruining your chances by doing so.

[Corey]

Before I start my little rant, I need to explain how important it is to use the reporting feature. By reporting offensive things to moderators you are actually being a moderator yourself and are contributing to the community in a big way. If nobody reported anything this place would be a mess. I appreciate all of you who help the moderators out by doing this.

That said...

We have been seeing a big increase of bogus reports. The following are not reportable offenses:

1. Giving bad karma. The karma system always evens out in the end. You will win some users over, and some users will never agree with your every post. If you can not handle getting bad karma you are able to disable karma in the user cp. From this point on no members of the staff will reverse karma, so please do not bother reporting a user for giving you bad karma.

2. Somebody posting something bad about you in their own profiles.

Unless they are using foul language or are being unreasonably offensive, do not report it. Examples of what not to report:

"He called me a liar. I am not a liar."
"He said I am a seeder".
"He was mean to me"

All of these issues can be resolved by simply not going to that user's profile anymore.

3. DO NOT report people for not accepting you in their social groups. Whoever created the social group owns that group. If they want you in, they will let you in. If they don't want you in, find another group to join.

If people keep abusing the report feature our mods may start issuing Fraudulent Report infractions. Please respect them and only report things that truly need attention.

4. Do not report users for kicking you out of their game hubs. Just like social groups, the game hubs are owned by the member who created that hub. If they keep kicking you, create your own game hub or join another one.