SITE RULES

General Rules

1. RESPECT. Respect, respect, a thousand times respect! As someone who has been a member of and an administrator of forums before, I know that people don’t always get along. You’re not always going to like everybody, and people might not always like you either. And let’s face it, there are jerks and drama queens/kings out there. But please respect the other members. This means no bullying, no name calling or trash talking, and no ganging up on members to make them feel unwelcome.

If someone is bullying you or you’re having a problem with another member, please come to me! I’m here for you guys, and I will always be willing to listen and try and help you out with your situation. If a member is sending you hateful messages outside of the site (like if you’ve exchanged kiks or skypes), I can’t formally discipline them because it didn’t happen here, but I will certainly talk to them if you’d like.

However, if a member is being a bully on the site, that will not be tolerated. Please come to me about bullying problems, preferably with screenshots of the incident. Specific punishments are discussed later on in this post.

2. On a related note, respect the staff. As you can see right now, the staff consists of just me. At some point, when the member base grows big enough to warrant it, I’ll very likely hire on one or two mods as well. Regardless though, it’s a lot to manage. So if a staff member asks you to do something, please do it. I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just want to keep the peace here and keep the site running smoothly. If you disagree with something I’ve said or done, I’ll be more than happy to have a discussion with you over private message! But please don’t make drama by being rude/disrespectful or by making a scene in front of everyone. It's no one else's business.

3. No drama in the chatbox. Disagreeing is fine, but if you and another member are starting to get into a fight, please take it to PMs.

4. Regarding cursing/foul language. Eh, personally I’m not really offended by it, but I understand that some people might be. This is one of those things that I’d rather leave alone unless it specifically becomes a problem. So let’s just say that IC (In Character) cursing is all right, and OOC (out of character) cursing is permitted as long as it’s not being directed at anyone (i.e. you’re a *beeeeeep*!). Cursing at other members is not okay.


Rules Regarding Claiming and Creating Characters

1. All characters are claimed on a first-come-first-served basis.

2. There is a limit of 20 characters per member.

3. Of those 20, only 5 can be canon. If you have 5 canons and would like another, you'll have to get admin approval. If you use all your current canons regularly, then your request will likely be approved. We just don't want people hogging canons and then not using them. Consideration will also be given to which specific character you want, and which ones you already have (i.e. Do you already have most of the main Axis/Allies characters? Or are your current canons mostly supporting or minor characters?)
*Note: This rule may be modified in the future, depending on what the general trends are on the site. If most people prefer OCs, then the few who want canons may be able to have more than five since there isn't a ton of demand for them. However, if everyone wants canons, then the number allowed may have to be reduced so that every member is able to claim a few.

4. If your preferred canon is taken, keep in mind that other versions of that character are still fair game! If you wanted Spain, but he's taken, you could instead consider taking Fem!Spain or 2P!Spain. You could even mix it up and make Vampire! or Ghost!Spain. This applies to OCs as well.

5. Once someone has not logged into their account for 60 days, it will be deleted, making that character/place back up for grabs.

6. If someone has a canon (or canons), and logs into their account often enough to keep the account from being deleted but never actually plays the character, this could potentially incur a message from a staff member reminding that person not to hoard canons they don't use. If the problem persists, they may have to give up that character.

7.Original characters are more than welcome here! They can be real places, places from books/movies/comics/whatever, or you could make up a place! Pretty much anything is fair game.


Rules Regarding Roleplay

1. No godmodding, powerplaying, metagaming, ect. If you're not sure what those words mean, check this out:
http://i2.wp.com/forumroleplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/bad-roleplay1.png

We all make mistakes sometimes, we're only human, but please make ever attempt to avoid these things. They frustrate others and can make it difficult to roleplay with you.

2. No Mary Sues/ Marty Stues! Just... no.

3. Spellcheck loves you, and you should love it too.

4. In the chatbox, if you decide to roleplay smut or strong violence, it must be in spoiler bars. This way, no one will see it unless they specifically click on it. You can put something in spoiler bars like this:

[spoiler=Here’s your title]Your smuttiness goes here.[/spoiler*]

I've added as asterisk at the end so that you can see the code. Remove the asterisk, and it'll look like this:

Here’s your title:

In the forums, smut is allowed as long as your thread title warns any unsuspecting members that it will contain M-rated content. If you don't want other people reading it, consider moving your rp to PMs (private messages).

Basically, you’re allowed to do almost anything (as long as everyone involved in the rp is all right with it), but just be sure that you’re not accidentally making it so that other members can’t avoid it- because some of them might not want to read about your characters getting it on when they log into the chatbox.


5. The chatbox is for casual, script format roleplay. The forums are for paragraph style rp. One liners are not allowed in the forums. Try to keep responses to a minimum of one paragraph (3-4 sentences) long.


Punishments

So here's the part no one likes. What happens if you break these rules?

1. If it's a minor infraction and/or the first time this has become a problem with you, you'll get an unofficial warning. It's basically a staff member telling you 'hey, just a friendly heads-up that what you're doing is against the rules'. For example, if you and another member are starting to get into a fight in the chatbox, expect an unofficial warning.

2. Now let's say you and that other member ignore the staff member telling you to stop fighting, and things get out of hand. This will likely result in one or both of you getting an official warning. Official warnings are mostly given after you've gotten an unofficial warning but haven't changed the behavior. It will also result from major infractions such as cursing at other members.

3. After three official warnings, you will be banned from the chatbox for two days. After six official warnings, you'll be banned from the chatbox and forums for five days, after ten official warnings, you'll be banned from the chatbox and forums for one week. After that... wow. I've never seen anyone even come close to that! Seriously though, why are you even here if you've reached that point?