General Forum Rules and Guidelines!!

Welcome to TeamWarfare! The administrative and senior staff works hard to provide you with the best competitive atmosphere we can. There are a few guidelines and processes that should be followed that will make our lives - and yours - as easy as possible!

This is the General forum. Please post all general topic threads here and not in your game specific forum. Additionally, please do not post recruiting or site support questions here as we have forums for those as well (click on links!).

BAN GUIDELINES

• Harassing new or inexperienced TWL members, especially by those informally known as "the regulars."
  
• Posting Outwar links, Mini City links, MyBrute links, or links like them will warrant a permanent ban.
  
• Ignoring staff warnings or testing patience / boundaries.
  
• The use of any term describing a group of people based on ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, etc. regardless of whether that term was applied to the group or a member of the forum.
  
• Posting information not pertinent to the thread with the sole purpose of derailing the discussion (trolling).
  
• Flaming will not be tolerated here. If you want to have a "heated" discussion with your opponents, that's what rantboards are available for, not the General forum.
  
• Troublemaking. Starting problems for the sake of stirring up waves will get you removed.
  
• Porn, nudity, links to either will not be tolerated. We are not a thumbnail gallery nor are we a link database. If you're that hard up, Google your way to happiness.
  
• Abuse to staff will not be tolerated under any circumstances. The staff are volunteers, but they didn't volunteer to take your abuse.
  
• Abuse to other TeamWarfare members will not be tolerated either.
  
• Using our forum to promote some other gaming league / ladder or server rentals will earn a lock, deletion and ban (not necessarily in that order).
  
• Posting links to cheats and cheat websites.
  
• Posting for someone who is banned can warrant up to a site ban. Additionally, creating a new account to post if you have been banned is strictly prohibited and may result in up to a site ban.
  
• Creating "Free" banned member threads.
  
• Quoting someone, then editing their quote in an attempt to make them look bad or get them banned.
  
• At no time are members allowed to insult or disparage a sitting President, regardless of Party affiliation. Attack his policies, rail against his actions, dispute his opinions, and deride his proposals, but maintain a civil and mature argument. If it degenerates into juvenile name-calling, vacations will be forthcoming.
  
• Advertising in the forums will get you banned. This includes the promotion of any type of site, period. If you want to link to your site in your sig, that's fine, but that's it. If you have something of interest that you think you'd like to post, then ask permission first.
  

LOCKING / DELETING GUIDELINES

• Anything dealing with King of Chaos, Fall of Nations, etc.
  
• Blatant stupidity.
  
• Flaming and usless insults. This may result in a ban.
  
• Cheat accusations. Email your game admin with this stuff.
  
• Reopening locked topics - If a topic is locked, then there was a reason to close it. If you reopen it, it gets locked. If you persist, you get banned. Simple.
  
• Duplicate threads - by that I mean creating a new thread on a topic already covered in an existing thread. Stay on topic in the original thread and you can avoid this sort of thing.
  
• Flooding - To inundate a thread with vast quantities of pertinent information in an attempt to delay, obstruct or, stifle discussion through filibustering.
  
• Discussing the proliferation of copyrighted material is not allowed including but not limited to methods used to aid in such activities. If you want to make a political statement by declaring your resolve in not purchasing MP3 music is one thing, but discussing methods, the distribution of, or anything related will get your thread locked or deleted. Making a habit if this will get you banned.
  
  TWL does not condone the pirating of software or other digital property and does not wish to be associated with any such activities. We will take a harder stance on this than is probably necessary but it's better for us to err on the side of caution.
  
• Disgruntled that your favorite drug is illegal? Email your congressman This is not the site to make such statements.
  
• Posting links to news articles or video sites. This is permissible if certain requirements are met. See below.
  

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• To see a list of TeamWarfare staff click here.
  
• If you have any problems or complaints in relation to the General Forum, please contact SiteSupport with such matters
  

POSTING LINKS TO NEWS STORIES / VIDEOS

The following are affixed to the GF rules to allow people to properly evaluate if they want to follow links that are used to start threads. GF suffers from information overload at times, so these are required to help alleviate the situation.

• News stories - in order to start a thread based on a news story link, at least 2 paragraphs from that story must be quoted (or 1 paragraph, if it's a long one).
  
• Video Embeds - in order to start a thread based on a video embed (e.g. from YouTube), a minimum of 2 descriptive sentences must be included that summarize the video and the length in time of the video.
  

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Signature ("sig") Removal Guidelines

• Your signature needs to follow the guidelines posted here in the General Forum. The sticky SIGNATURE GUIDELINES thread lists all sig criteria. We have people that are on 56k. (Yes, it's true!) Some viewers (including almost all staff) visit this site at work as well.
  

Overview of Signature Guidelines

These guidelines must be followed without exception. If we need to
repeatedly edit your sig we will take more drastic actions.
SIG SIZE:

This is the MAXIMUM size for your entire sig, including pictures and text.

If your sig cannot fit within this box, or is larger than the maximum filesize specified, then you're in trouble:




NOTE: It would be preferred you keep it under this size instead of at this size


SIG CONTENT:

• Your Sig, including image(s) & text, must not exceed 500 width & 150 height (as shown).
  
  
• Images must be under 60kb. There is no reason for a jpg that is 500x150 to be over 60kb.
  
  
• No embedded sounds in sigs, not even on mouseovers.
  
  
• Symbols or insignia of fallen oppresive/murderous regimes or terror organizations will get sig removed.
  
  
• No drug references at all.
  
  
• Anything dealing with Outwar, King of Chaos, Fall of Nations, Tribal Wars, etc.
  
  
• No nudity whatsoever, obvious, implied or otherwise, regardless of sex. Bathing suits are fine, skimpy bikinis are not. Violating this is an instant ban
  
  
• Sigs that cause extremely slow page loads due to slow hosts will be immediately removed and a warning will be placed in your sig area advising you this. Putting it back and causing the pages to load slow again will be an immediate ban. Please respect the others that visit this site.
  
  
• Abuse of your HTML privelages (example: causing java popups when opening a thread) will result in an immediate ban. Length to be determined by Senior Operations Staff.
  
  
• Use of deragatory terms and profanity is highly discouraged, frowned upon by staff, and may be removed.
  
  
• Use of Teamwarfare Images or material without express permission is prohibited.
  
  
• X-Fire sigs are not allowed due to cookie issues
  

Testing the boundaries will probably get you banned.


TeamWarfare Staff reserves the right to add to this list at any time.

Thread Creation Guidelines
A forum is defined as being a public meeting place for discussion or lecture. Being that TeamWarfare is a website that supports competition for online gaming, the vast majority of the forums here are game specific and do not tolerate non-gaming related topics. Therefore, a place was created specifically for the discussion of non-gaming topics, and thus, the General Forum was born.

This forum, the General Forum, is for the open discussion of general topics, with the emphasis on the word discussion. It isn't a personal playground, a soapbox, or a private stall in which to club a dead pony. We don't get to create useless threads for our own personal amusement, to annoy others, or to test the patience of the dedicated volunteers who take their own personal time away from family and friends to try and oversee and moderate these forums. These threads that I have just mentioned do in fact fall under the title of "troublemaking" as per TotalCarnage's rules specified in the above post.

For those of you that do not frequent the General Forum here at TWL, I'm going to reiterate some rules about posting. We have had alot of members posting news or othere items without any correct linkage or summary, or creating topics that contain a few words and no substance. In order to make this forum and the aforementioned threads readable and tolerable I am reinstating what has come to be known as the "Questor Section".

This includes the following:


• A link to the page. If this is a news story, than include a link from a credible news source such as CNN, FOX News, Reuters, Yahoo News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and the like. Lunatic-fringe quasi-news outlets and blogs do not qualify as "credible" and are considered "spam".
  
  
• A Summary of the topic. Include paragraphs that you feel are pertinent. As an alternative, you may paraphrase the story in your own words. No more pasting page long articles, this habitual cutting and pasting makes these threads very unbearable to read. No more blind posting of links to images or audio/video files, you must provide an accurate & adequate summary or description plus a commentary about it. (Here is a good example of how to post a thread about a video.)
  
  
• A Comment, in sentence form and at least two sentences long, in your own words stating your opinion, additional facts, or some other piece of relevant information pertaining to the article.



Example of a valid thread:



http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/16/cane.attack.ap/index.html



SOUTH BEND, Indiana (AP) -- A 79-year-old woman has been charged with using her wooden cane to strike police officers who arrived at her home to check on her welfare.



So somone was worried about her and called the police. When they show up and enter, she clobbers them with her cane. Why would an elderly woman attack uniformed officers? Maybe she was delusional or had something to hide. Meth lab in the basement maybe?

Threads do not have to have links to articles or topics and they can merely state a point or express an opinion for discussion. In that case you must you must still provide an adequate Summary of the topic, in sentence form as outlined above, and clearly state a Comment, as outlined above, about the topic to facilitate discussion. For example- Threads titled "I like cheese" containing only the word "Discuss" or even "Cheese is good. Mmmm, cheese" do not meet the requirements. Creation of these types of nonsensical posts will warrant a temporary forum ban.


Failure to comply will result in your post being wiped until it is fixed. Continued noncompliance may result in harsher penalties such as a forum ban.


Post edited by T. Wrecks at 7/18/2006 1:13:03 PM

SIGNATURE GUIDELINES

These guidelines must be followed without exception. If we need to
repeatedly edit your sig we will take more drastic actions.
SIG SIZE:

This is the MAXIMUM size for your entire sig, including PICTURES and TEXT.

If your sig cannot fit within this box, or is larger than the maximum filesize specified, then you're in trouble:




NOTE: It would be preferred you keep it under this size instead of at this size


SIG CONTENT:

• Images must be within the sizes and weight specified above.
  
  
• Your Sig, including image(s) & text, must not exceed the maximum height specified above.
  
  
• No embedded sounds in sigs, not even on mouseovers.
  
  
• Symbols or insignia of fallen oppresive/murderous regimes or terror organizations will get sig removed.
  
  
• No drug references at all.
  
  
• Anything dealing with Outwar, King of Chaos, Fall of Nations, Tribal Wars, etc.
  
  
• No nudity whatsoever, obvious, implied or otherwise, regardless of sex. Bathing suits are fine, skimpy bikinis are not. Violating this is an instant ban
  
  
• Sigs that cause extremely slow page loads due to slow hosts will be immediately removed.
  
  
• Abuse of your HTML privelages (example: causing java popups when opening a thread) will result in an immediate ban. Length to be determined by Senior Operations Staff.
  
  
• Use of deragatory terms and profanity is highly discouraged, frowned upon by staff, and may be removed.
  
  
• Use of Teamwarfare Images, logo, or other material without express permission is prohibited.
  
  
• X-Fire sigs are not allowed due to cookie issues
  

Testing the boundaries will probably get you banned.


TeamWarfare Staff reserves the right to add to this list at any time.


Post edited by Questor at 11/2/2008 2:11:49 PM

TERMS OF USE

The previous sticky may now be found here.