Forum Rules

[Dan]

GENERAL RULES

1. To use these forums, you must be at least 13 years of age or have parental consent.

2. Use of these forums to convey any material that is obscene, intentionally offensive, damaging to computers, or illegal is strictly forbidden.

3. Please be polite and respectful to everyone. This is a podcast about a hobby, so people are probably here to have fun.

3a. Any action taken with the specific, obvious intent of distressing another user will not be tolerated. This includes trolling, flame wars, personal attacks, harassment, and inciting conflict.

3b. We respect a wide variety of opinions, and you are free to disagree with anyone. However, such disagreement should always be expressed with decency and courtesy.

3c. Hosts, contributors, and moderators do not fall outside these rules. Neither statements made by them nor toward them may violate the standards that apply everywhere else.

4. All users are expected to abide by the Forum Decency Standards, as described in the following post.

5. Please refrain from discussion of extremely divisive topics (such as politics and religion) unless they are directly related to topics discussed on the shows housed here. Even then, please only discuss them in the correct threads and with the utmost care and respect.

6. Please keep any advertisements that are not directly related to Fear the Boot or the topics we discuss in the "Shameless Plugs" section.

7. When starting a new thread, please post under the forum that most closely fits what you want to discuss.

8. While we will do our best to enforce these rules, we can't be aware of everything that's posted. We encourage you to inform site admins and moderators of any infractions you see. But please understand that ultimately you use this forum at your own risk.

9. Sockpuppets of any kind will not be tolerated and will be punished harshly.

10. Respect the moderator's decisions. It's not fun chasing down bad posts and chastising people. It's not a power trip; it's an annoying job. The mods are here to make sure this forum is enjoyable for everyone, please keep that in mind.

[Dan]

FORUM DECENCY STANDARDS

If people listen to our podcast, it's reasonable for them to expect our forums to adhere to the same level of decency as the show. Therefore, posts in any of our forums should conform to the same standards we adhere to on the podcast. Any pictures, movies, or content posted or linked on this site should be no worse than what can be shown on American broadcast television during prime-time hours. If you're unclear what that means, feel free to contact any moderator or administrator.

Some profanity outside of those standards will be tolerated, but please keep it to a reasonable minimum. For example, using the f-word here and there is ok, but f-word laden posts are not acceptable.

If you mark a thread with "NSFW" (meaning "not safe for work") in the title -- or post an off-site link with "NSFW" clearly indicated above the link -- you may post content that goes a little bit beyond the standards set above. It may include realistic or graphic depictions of violence, or pictures of people in suggestive clothing. All individuals in pictures must be clothed - at minimum regular size bikini top and panties for women, underwear for men. If you are offended by such content, or it might get you in trouble at work, please use common sense and don't open the thread or click the link.

Under no circumstances may anyone post or link to nudity, sexual acts, "hate" material, or pictures that are obviously meant to disgust or offend. Images should not contain religious or politically inflammatory material. These restrictions include both real pictures and illustrations/cartoons.

We realize that many of these standards are subjective. The moderators reserve the right to remove any posts or images they feel violate the letter or spirit of these guidelines. If you have any question whether an image you'd like to post violates these guidelines or not, please PM a moderator requesting their go ahead before you post it. Reasonable people can disagree on matters such as these, and we'll be happy to discuss any decision made. But please understand that we must ultimately conduct these forums by our own judgment.

[Dan]

I'd like to remind everyone to please keep shameless plugs in...well...Shameless Plugs. If you have a link to an interesting product or useful resource, that's perfectly fine. But if you're just trying to draw attention to your own RPG, podcast, blog, etc, please keep it in the Shameless Plugs area.

[Dan]

Clarification on my prior post! You can link whatever you want in your sig. Well, anything within reason. If it's controversial, NSFW, etc...just use common sense. The point was about posts being used as plugs, not people's sig lines. Sorry for the confusion.

[Dan]

We have a lot of user accounts cluttering up the database. Some of them are spammers that failed to make a spam post but still have empty accounts sitting out there. In the interest of trimming those, I intend to start deleting accounts that meet both of two criteria:

1. They have not logged in within 60 days.
2. They have never made a single post.

If you have logged in within the past two months or have a single post made at any point in history (no matter how old), your account will not be touched! So if you're a lurker, please just be sure to login every so often or at least make a single post of introduction.

[Dan]

As I'm sure you're all aware, Kicked in the Dicebags has decided to relocate their forums to this site. Since they openly discuss topics that neither FtB nor Postcards touch, we chatted with their hosts about how to merge their discussions into our culture.

The answer we agreed upon was fairly simple. Forum rule #5 already limits discussion of divisive topics to those directly related to what was covered on a show. We will simply leave that convention in place. If an episode of KitDB brings up a political or religious topic, you are free to discuss it in their show area, but per rule #5, it must be kept in its appropriate thread and done ONLY with the utmost courtesy, respect, and restraint.

I don't want to see this community get drug down by the petty bickering that blankets most of the internet, so violations of the spirit or letter of that rule will be viewed no less severely than they were in the past.