Official Rules

Things to guide you through this site.

Official Rules

Postby TCS Staff » Sat Apr 13, 2013 11:43 am

1. Official Rules
2. Warning Schedule
3. Current Bans

Official Rules

These are the rules we have agreed upon.

1) No insults directed at other members. While it is okay to express anger, attacks directed at other members are not acceptable. The use of profanity directed at another user is generally considered an insult, but profanity is not necessary to insult someone.

Friendly jokes are acceptable, but if it's hard to tell whether you are joking or not, mods may ask you to stop. If a pattern of such behavior develops, mods may decide this falls within the realm of insults, however, they will talk to you about it before taking disciplinary action.

2) No hateful speech (including in usernames). This is defined (by TCS staff) as incitement to hatred or violence against any group based on national origin, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, beard length, or disability. "Hatred" is not disagreement, or dislike, or any calm expression of opposition to a group. We do not prohibit alternative views, but prohibit the expression of hatred towards groups, including the targeted use of slurs.

Hateful words used sparingly in the context of discussion or jokes about ignorance or in a piece of creative work are acceptable but subject to mod scrutiny; you may be asked to edit your post if it is considered hateful.

3) No spam, flooding, excessive smileys, etc.

4) No death or rape threats.

5) Rape jokes towards specific users and/or users' family members will not be tolerated on this site or on the chat.

6) Do not pretend to be moderators or admins of The Comment Section. For the purposes of the rule, pretending to be TCS staff is defined as claiming or implying you are a moderator or admin when you aren't, or claiming or implying you have the power to enforce the rules when you don't.

Users are allowed and encouraged to remind each other to be civil and to report any complaints, but while doing so should not give the impression that they have authority over other users.

7) Sockpuppets are a bannable offense. For the purposes of this rule, sockpuppets are defined as a second account made without the knowledge of the staff, whether that is in order to establish a second identity or to circumvent disciplinary measures.

8) Novelty accounts are okay, as long as they are tastefully handled and declared to a Mod/Admin via PM.

9) Taking any measures to circumvent a ban, whether through the use of a friend's account or through a sockpuppet account, will be considered ban evasion. This will extend your ban by a minimum of 1 month to a maximum of permanently.

10) No nude images or links to NSFW sites. This includes any visual material that would be deemed NSFW (Not Safe For Work). Material that is close or for artistic purposes may be posted under a spoiler tag that is clearly labeled NSFW.

11) Do not post links to illegal websites (like those for illegal downloading) on the site or chat. Keep that shit away.

12) Do not post evidence of yourself engaged in illegal activity, or material encouraging illegal activities

13) No sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is hard to pin down, but people know it when they're feeling it. Jokes are one thing, but if you are seriously asking for or offering nude pictures, unprompted, that generally falls under sexual harassment. We will not tolerate a serious demand for 'Tits or GTFO.' It goes without saying that if a user asks you to stop sexually suggestive behavior with them and you continue it, that is sexual harassment and it will be taken seriously. You might think that someone making a dick joke is an invitation for you to seriously suggest that you should become acquainted with his dick. It is not. These guidelines apply to PMs as well as threads.

As with all things, if you are feeling harassed, please don't hesitate to contact us; don't worry that we won't take you seriously, and don't worry about causing trouble for the other person if you're afraid they're just joking and accidentally taking a joke too far. We take every case on an individual basis and will listen to everything you have to say, and do our best to be as fair as possible.

14) No doxxing. It can lead to people being hurt in real life, and it opens up TCS to some liability. Doxxing includes, but is not limited to, posting information about an individual's address, phone number, real name, or any other personally identifying information that the individual does not want made public. This includes information obtained both legally and illegaly, whether by hacking or research. It especially may not be posted with the intent to harm the individual in any way. You may only post personal information about an individual if it's intended to be publicly available, for example their contact information or personal details that are listed on their official site.

On a final note, moderators retain the right to use their discretion to act on any unforeseen threat that clearly cross the line. Just because we don't have a rule specifically against posting pictures of tortured animals does not mean we will not censor it (for the record, yes, that sort of graphic and gratuitous violence has no place here). We strive to be fair in all things, and of course, the normal channels for appealing a moderator decision will be open.



Banning and Disciplinary Schedule

For the Forum the schedule is:

Initial Warning
Second Warning
24 - 48 hour ban
1-2 week ban
1 month ban
- - -
3 months ban
6 months ban
Permanent ban

People who break the rules will be issued first with up to two written warnings. These will be clearly stated and differentiated from general warnings that do not carry disciplinary weight by the use of the term "Official Warning" being used (ideally in a PM to the user explaining the offense).

Subsequent rule breaking will receive bans of increasing length up to one month. At this point, further rule breaking will be met with at the very least a month long ban. However, at discretion of the moderation team this can be extended as appropriate to 3/6 months. Each offense receiving a month long ban carries the possibility of being increased, being given a second month long ban does not preclude the third being longer.

Staff reserve the right to increase the level of ban according to the offense (for example in cases of deliberate trolling).

Permanent bans will be applied only in the worst cases, and require the agreement of the whole moderation team (discounting unavailable staff who cannot be reached within 24/48 hours).

Staff reserve the right to apply an emergency ban of up to 48 hours to allow time for this to be considered where appropriate, this time will count towards the time the user is banned for in the event a longer ban is applied.

Where a user that breaks the rules goes for a period of 6 months without further offense, the ban/warning level will not be escalated if a further offence is committed.. For example, after a 24 hour ban a user doesn't break the rules for 6 months, a further offence would be met with another 24 hour ban.

Ban appeals will be made on the specific ban appeal form. Further correspondence will be conducted via the TCS gmail account. Any banned user gets one appeal of any single ban and if this is deemed a fair ban, no additional appeal will be permitted.

A general notification will be made in Rules & FAQs listing current bans, the ban length, the date the ban was added and a link to the post which is the reason for sanction. This is purely for the purpose of transparency, so no bans are enacted without some way of users knowing this. Temporary bans will be removed from the list when they expire.

Current Bans

Ban list
UserLengthReason
SheogorathPermanentInsults, ban evasion, sock puppets
QuincyMorrisPermanentInsults, sock puppets, trolling
DamianaRavenPermanentInsults, harassment, trolling
A Combustible LemonPermanentInsults, disruptive hostility, disregard for rules
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