Site Rules - Historical

Applied By Unillogical: Nov 1, 2011 at 10:13 PM

Site Rules
I. Free speech

NKVD was in part founded upon the principles of freedom of speech and expression, and to that end; users are welcome to express themselves without fear of censor unless the following is breached:

1) Personal Attacks will not be tolerated. This includes any material which is vulgar, defamatory, libel, harassing, hateful, threatening, invading of others privacy, sexually oriented, racially motivated, or violates any laws. You will be given a warning or a ban, temporary or permanent, depending on severity if you violate this policy.

2) No pornographic, sexually offensive, sexually explicit material. This includes suggestive images, graphics, and comments.

3) Respect the privacy of others. Do not post other's phone numbers, addresses, pictures, etc., without their permission.

4) No spamming, flooding the forum with useless content, or continuously posting useless comments. All spam and useless posts will be deleted. All spammers will be subject to consequences as laid on in subsequent sections.

5) While political speech is generally tolerated, there are certain limits towards what is considered political, and what is considered hateful. The site recognizes hate speech as:

a. Speech that carries no meaning other then the expression of hatred for some group, such as a particular race, esp. in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence.

b. Further, genocidal comments, defined as "expressing the desire to cause serious physical and mental harm with the intent to destroy, partially or entirely a group of people" will not be tolerated.

c. Groups include, but are not limited to

i. Race

ii. National origin

iii. Gender

iv. Sexual Orientation

v. Religion

6) The above section is not limited to posting, but includes signature, avatar, and profile content as well.

a. Additionally, staff reserves the right to edit/delete signatures or avatars that are deemed excessively large and obtrusive. Loose guidelines can be found in the Signature Sizes Thread (See Appendix A)

i. Staff is required to private message the user after editing their avatar / signature, and provide them with their reasoning.

6.1) Multi-accounting

No user is permitted to have more than one account. If a user is discovered to have more than one account it will be treated as a tier 2 offense. Limited exceptions may be made with prior consent of the staff. Non-primary accounts will be banned immediately upon discovery, unless it's one of the previously described exceptions.

7) Staff reserves the right to delete posts, lock topics, move topics, and follow the otherwise laid out rules and regulations pursuant to this topic

II. Piracy

NKVD is a community founded by gamers, for gamers, and shares a special relationship with both the gaming community and industry. As a result of this special relationship, the pirating, of copyrighted software, regardless of the source, is strictly prohibited

III. General Posting guidelines

In order to provide the best experience possible for NKVD users, we encourage all users to read and follow the official posting guidelines. Additionally, there are certain types of posting that are detrimental to the community as a whole, and will not be tolerated:

1) Double Posting

a. Do not post more than once consecutively, if you forgot to add something in your original post, use the edit post feature.

2) Necroposting

a. Do not dig up old threads. If you want to continue an old discussion (older than six months), create a new thread and reference the old one in your post.

b. Necroposting will be considered in relation to the nature of its content. That is to say, while you may use older threads to discuss topics, if you don't add something new or innovative to the topic, the post will still be considered spam.

3) Malicious Content

a. Any post that causes script errors by entering any type of code in a message post.

b. Any links or codes that causes harm to another users computer.

4) In addition, we encourage users to use the report post button to bring any issues to the attention of the staff.

IV. Infractions

NKVD uses a tiered infraction system with the corresponding point values as follows:

1) Tier system

a. 1st Tier offenses (1 Point)

i. Insulting another user

ii. Reusing a signature/avatar after staff had previously removed it

iii. Double posting

iv. Necroposting

b. 2nd Tier offenses (2 Points)

i. Insulting another member after being previously infracted

ii. Inappropriate Material

iii. Posting of another users private information without the expressed consent of that user

iv. Piracy

v. Hate speech

vi. Multiple accounts - One Week Ban

c. 3rd Tier offenses

i. Malicious Content

ii. Spamming

iii. Third tier offenses will result in instant and permanent bans

iv. Third tier offenses are only appealable if the user can show evidence that his account had been hacked and the actions taken were not his.

2) Banning

a. The accumulation of 3 points in a one month time period, will result in a 7 day ban

i. Upon completion of initial ban, users will remain at three points for exactly 30 days unless further infractions are given

ii. Users who are infracted within the first 30 days after coming out of a ban will be given a 1 month ban

iii. Users who are infracted in the 30 days following this 2nd ban will be permanently banned

b. Users in good standing who have been infracted will lose points at a rate of one per month

3) Correspondence

a. Users who are infracted will be informed of their status via private message by the staff

b. In order to help the user fully understand why he is being infracted, and to prevent further infractions, staff members will cite both the violation, and the section of the site rules the action violates

4) In certain cases, NKVD Staff has the right to deviate from the above guidelines and issue custom infractions and if needed, ban any member in violation of any site rule.

VI. Appeals

In order to insure users are given a fair experience, users who have been infracted by a staff member have the right to appeal their decision.

1) Appeals will be heard in a timely manner, and involvement will be limited to the plaintiff, infracting staff member, and a third party staff member.

2) Appeals will take both parties arguments into consideration with regard to the site rules, and applicable ruling precedents.

3) Appeals will take place via private messaging unless otherwise designated.

4) Once the Appeal is complete, the decision cannot be further appealed, and the decision is final.
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