Last Revision: February 8, 2009

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General Idea: I understand that the vast majority of people aren't going to want to read through this entire topic since it's kind of lengthy, so I'll just summarize the main points below in four or five bullets. All I ask of you is that you keep these simple things in mind when posting on this forum.

• Be respectful at all times and do not aggravate, insult, or flame other members.
• Take time to format and proofread your posts, use proper grammar, and spell words correctly.
• Do not post in all caps, all bold, or various fonts and colors; doing so makes posts look unprofessional and difficult to read.
• Make worthwhile posts, create threads in the correct place, and stay on topic when providing your input.
  

Welcome to Banjo Universe! For those of you who are inclined to read on, I admire you. The subjects that are outlined below are, more or less, actually longer, more drawn out versions of the general bullets listed above; however, there are some separate things that are yet to be mentioned previously, too, so I sincerely encourage you to read on if you have the time to do so!

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Part I - Getting to know the Community

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The Banjo Universe community is certainly a small, yet friendly and welcoming fellowship that's eager to have you a part of it. We're sure you will, no doubt, not have any problems when posting and trying to fit it; but, regardless, here are a few pointers, anyway, that might make it easier for you to accomplish that.

• After arriving, you may wish to create a new topic in the Meet 'n' Greet board and introduce yourself.
• Try and make your first topic interesting, and detail a few things about yourself; but if that's not your thing, even a simple 'hi' will suffice.
• Remember that first impressions are usually lasting impressions; other members will judge you based on what you say and how you act.
  

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Part II - Spamming—Flame Wars—Respect

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Every once in a while, someone may make an 'annoying' or 'pointless' post that serves absolutely no relation to the topic at hand, or has any real value to the members who read it; this is referred to as spam and will not be tolerated as it's, well, annoying and pointless; so please refrain from engaging in this kind of activity on the forum, and report any posts that you feel may be stepping out of these boundaries to a moderator. If you're wondering how you should know if a post should be reported or not, use yourself as your standard of judgment.

That brings me on to my next point - a flame war.

• A flame war is basically a fight among two or more members who disagree on a particular subject—and no, it's not debating; it's similar, but it's a more childish and disrespectful form that won't be practiced here.
  

Unlike the above two subjects that I don't want to ever see here, this next one is one that I do want to see every member participate in, and use throughout this forum - respect. All members who sign up here will be treated with equal respect from the start, and it will be up to you to either raise the amount of respect other people have for you, or, unfortunately, lower it - that's your decision; however, no one here will be disrespected or insulted for having a differing opinion, custom, or practice than someone else may have - it's not needed.

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Part III - Private Messaging (PMs)

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Private Messaging is a great way to communicate with other individuals without creating a new topic or posting something irrelevant in an already-made thread. If you have a small question or something similar to ask someone, please private message them as it's a quick and convenient way to exchange information with someone that you may not want other people to know.

• Please try not to use private messaging as a means of chat where you send continuous pm's back and forth containing 1-3 words.
• Please do not insult someone via pm; all rules outlined here are still in effect regardless of what you're doing on this forum.
• If someone asks not to be private messaged, please do not keep bothering them because it's rude.
  

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Part IV - Attitude and Swearing

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The attitude you demonstrate on these forums will reflect the way people look at and respond to you; and the way you go about looking at and responding to things is entirely your choice, provided you aren't habitually trying to make people hate or flame you. Having a generally bad attitude overall, and purposely trying to make people angry won't be tolerated in the forums; posts conjuring or hinting at this kind of behavior are subject for deletion.

On the topic of swearing, it is tolerated and you won't be called out for doing so provided you don't abuse it; a swear word filter is still in place, however, so perhaps it will encourage you to find a better emphatic word to use; profanities, when used at the wrong time, generally lose their rationale of accentuation in writing anyway. Any word used to insult, disrespect, or provoke an individual will not be ratified and, based on severity, it's author is subject to having their posts moderated in addition to a warning or ban.

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Part V - When Posting...

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This is a general outline of things to keep in mind when providing your contribution to a thread.

• Try to refrain from posting unless you have something worthwhile to add to the conversation and avoid one-word posting.
• Stick to the initial topic and do not pollute threads with unnecessary or irrelevant statements; it's rude.
• Create topics in the correct places; before making them, read the board descriptions so you know what should be posted there.
• Please do not double post unless you have a reason for doing so; in all other cases just use the 'edit' button to add to your last post.
• Please don't spam; any spam posts will be deleted, and the poster will be warned/banned based on the severity and re-occurrences.
• Do not overuse or spam with smilies; if you can, try to limit your post to three smilies or less.
• Anyone posting or linking to any illegal sites or pornographic images will, most likely, be immediately banned.
• Speak reasonably; if yo r gawyne tak liek dis, maybe you should come read this or leave.
  

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Part VI - Avatars and Signatures

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A lot of people like adding personal images or text to their postbit, and you can do so by adding an avatar (personal picture that appears next to your name) or signature (appears at the bottom of one's post) from your profile. That's fine if you do, but in order to keep things controlled (mainly signatures), please follow these simple guidelines.

• Keep images used as avatars or signatures clean and do not use any that may hint at any type of racism or sexism.
  • Avatar dimensions are 100 x 100 pixels or smaller.
  • Signature dimensions are (w)800 x (h)150 pixels or smaller.
    • The total combined width/height of any image(s) used in a signature may not exceed these dimensions.
    • Without an image, the text limit may not exceed any more than six lines of text.
    • With an image, the text limit may not exceed any more than two lines of text above or below the image(s).
      • Please do not make any text used larger than the default size.
        
  • Being able to use images in your signature is a privilege; please don't abuse it and ruin it for everyone else.
    
• Any avatar or signature breaking these guidelines, even slightly, has the right to be deleted by Mods or Admins without warning. (Update: Signatures that are larger than the suggested dimensions will be auto-sized to meet them, so no more worrying about that.)
  

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Part VII - In the Chat

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All rules outlined above are still in effect when participating in the chat with other members. Anyone attempting to breach any rules or impersonate and pose as another member will be subject to a forum-wide ban based on the severity of what they did. The chat is not integrated with this forum in any way, so you will have to register a user name and password for yourself; please use your forum user name or something that is as remotely close as possible.

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Part VIII - VGallery

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The VGallery is a place where members can upload, view, comment, and rate videos. Like other things, this is a privilege and any videos uploaded that are even moderately inappropriate or contain any racist or sexually oriented content will result in a banned user; the time served based on severity.

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Part IX - Other Things

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Here is a list of a few other things to keep in mind when visiting this site.

• Do not make alternative accounts. This is when you sign up with another account after already making one. Anyone caught doing this will receive a warning in their PM's and any alt accounts will be terminated.
  

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Part X - Last Words...

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Thank you to those of you who took interest in this site and signed up. Please try to keep these understandable, common sensual, and simple to follow things in mind when posting or participating in activities around this website. If you have any further questions, feel free to PM an admin or moderator and they will try to help you out to their best extent.


By signing up at this website you agree to everything, read or not, that has been outlined above. This thread is subject to change at any time without notice or warning. It is your job to view this document periodically and scan for any changes that may have taken place.

I just finished totally rewriting this. I suggest that everyone read through it again, or at least view the general idea at the top. Thanks.

Wow...
Those are the best written rules I've ever read!

Oh, why thank you! That's good to hear. I tried to put a lot of organization and summarization into it rather than just typing ten huge paragraphs of text because that's honestly a pretty major turn off. I don't even think people would bother reading that.