Terms of Service:
This is a community, and thusly, we expect everyone to abide to rules and regulations. Each rule is important in it’s own way. Each rule has penalties for violations. So, please follow them.
The terms of services have been updated to pertain to all aspects of the site, and will soon receive their own page, with fancy HTML and everything.
How do they work?
Well, the rules basically spell out basic limitations on what you can, and cannot do on this site. These are not an exhaustive list of what is, and isn’t allowed, but should serve as a guideline. Basically, that means there are no loopholes, and we can, and will, edit these at any time we feel necessary, and you may be punished (usually a warning) when we decide that new rules are necessary, or when we believe you have done something wrong.
There are 3 types of punishments, and they follow:
Warnings: warnings are formal notices on your account, they go into your modlog (a log for staff about your previous violations), as well as into the warning system, which will alert you, and the staff, when an active warning is in place. A warning may last 30 days, or in some cases, forever. Usually if the 30 days expires, and you are warned again, the second warning does NOT expire.
Suspensions: a suspension (also known as a temporary ban), is a period of time when you are temporarily blocked from using your account. In some cases, an IP block may accompany this. This is not a permanent ban.
Bans: the worst punishment, a ban. A ban blocks you from using this site forever, this is for the most serious offenses, or repeated abuse of privileges.
1. Community Standards and Etiquette:
a. Do not flame other users or staff.
b. Do not forward chain letters, or otherwise spam the forums, or abuse the services (IM, e-mail, PMs, etc.)
c. Please be careful when using curses (foul language) please use good judgment, and be courteous to other users.
d. Please do not advertise. This fits in with the spamming category, but still. It’s fine to show off a bit of your own materials, but please don’t go around trying to recruit for another site (i.e deviantart, livejournal, etc.)
EXCEPTION: The Internet forum (see the etc. category) is where you can advertise for your favorite websites, BUT ONLY THERE! And even then… talk about them, provide links, don’t overdo it.
e. Avatars may NOT contain adult materials, NO WAY, NO EXCEPTIONS!
PENALTIES:
1st offense: 30 days warning first time. After 30 days, permanent warning. If during warning period, it goes to 2nd offense. Severe cases may warrant treating it like a 2nd offense.
2nd offense: 1 week to 1 month suspension of account, depending on seriousness.
3rd offense: 1 to 2 month suspension of account, depending on seriousness.
4th offense: Permanent ban.
2. Proper Classification and placing of Materials
a. All submissions, including RPs, writing, gallery items, etc. must be properly classified according to the requirements set out in The Keywords and Ratings System Notice.
b. All submissions must be in the proper section.
PENALTIES
1st violation: Accidental(s): Warning(s). Purposeful: Permanent warning, no second chance.
2nd purposeful violation or many many accidentals: 2 week suspension
3rd violation: 1 month suspension
4th violation: Permanent ban.
3. Plagiarism and Theft:
a. Do not use other’s characters without their permission. This means, if the user does not give explicit permission on the character sheet, you must gain permission via IM, PM, or e-mail to use their characters. You must be able to show proof to a staff member at any time.
EXCEPTIONS: Anime characters, game characters, etc. are allowed; it would just be cool to give the original creators credit for them.
b. You must not post work by anyone else on this site! This applies to stories, pictures, RPs, etc. Characters are the only exception, please see 3.a for more info.
PENALTIES
A and B. 1st violation: 2 week suspension.
A and B. 2nd violation: 1 month suspension.
A and B. 3rd violation: Permanent ban.
C. 1st violation: Permanent ban.
4. Age Restrictions:
a. You must be 18 to post, or view sexually explicit material on this site. You have agreed to these terms by becoming a member of this site.
Note: Any user may be subject to an age verification request if thought absolutely necessary.
PENALTIES:
If you falsify information in an attempt to gain access to the restricted forums, you will face the following:
1st violation: 1 week suspension from site, and suspension until 18th birthday from restricted forums.
2nd violation: Suspension until 18th birthday from the site.
3rd violation: Please see rule 7, as this would be under “additional accounts”
5. Activity Requirement:
a. Users must remain active in the site, unfortunately, this is a requirement due to bandwidth/resources and their limited availability. To notify us of your absence, just post a notification on the “Vacation” thread in the “HELP” section.
b. After joining the forum, you are required to introduce yourself so we can ascertain which group you belong in and that you are not a bot.
PENALTIES
a. After 2 months of inactivity, your will receive a warning notification (via PM and e-mail) that your account has been inactive for a long period of time.
You will have a period of 1 month to either notify us, or become active again. After which your account will be PERMANENTLY DELETED (not just banned) SO BE CAREFUL!
b. If you do not introduce yourself within a week of joining and we are unable to contact you (because you have made no posts and are rarely online) then we will send a warning notification to your email.
You will have one week to either introduce yourself or drop a message with one of the administrators. Should you fail to do so, your account will be made inactive (If your account is made inactive, DO NOT MAKE A NEW ACCOUNT!). You will then have one month to get a hold of one of the administrators (send us an email if you like: YaoiRP.net@gmail.com) and let us know that you intend to be an active member of the community. If you do not, your account will be deleted.
6. Additional Accounts:
a. Do not attempt to bypass account suspension/bans by creating additional accounts. Even if you think you were suspended/banned wrongly.
b. Username changes are permitted, please request it at the helpdesk, as is creating a new account, provided that your other account is not used for nefarious purposes (i.e voting more than once, flaming, other ToS violations, etc.).
If you would like to discuss the suspension/ban with a staff member, DO NOT MAKE ANOTHER ACCOUNT TO DO SO! You can still contact the staff via IM or e-mail. At this point, we do not know whether you are able to see e-mails and IM addresses while you aren’t logged in, therefore, see “Staff Contact” forum in the help section.
PENALTIES
1st violation: Additional 3 month suspension on original account. New account ban. (if you had a permanent ban on original account, ban still stays, but you do not yet get an ISP report filed against you)
2nd violation: Permanent ban on all accounts and ISP report filed.
7. Quality of Works:
a. All posts must use proper grammar and spelling (mistakes happen, so don’t worry about a few errors). NO CHAT SPEAK! Emoticons are OK in moderation (except in the random section).
b. All RPs must remain in character, OOC is NOT tolerated in the forums (minor amount only), and OOC must use the offtopic tags.
PENALTIES
Occasional violations: Warning(s)
Repeated/multiple violations: 2 week suspension
Yet MORE repeated/multiple violations: Permanent Ban
8. Roleplaying:
a. Absolutely NO GOD-PLAYING! That is, you can only control your OWN character. Under no circumstances are you to make another character that is not yours say, do, (etc.) anything.
b. No single person’s character is invincible. As in, all characters must be able to die. Your own character can not have so superior over everyone else’s that it is impossible to defeat them.
c. While it is true that your characters must be able to die, you are NOT to kill off another person’s character without consent from the owner. How would you feel if you signed online only to find out your character had been destroyed while you were gone?
PENALTIES:
A and B, 1st violation: Warning.
A and B, 2nd violation: 1 week suspension.
A and B, 3rd violation: 1 month suspension.
A and B, 4th violation: Permanent ban.
C, 1st violation: Permanent ban.
9. ABSOLUTE NO-NOs:
a. IT IS UNACCEPTABLE, to at ANY time, pose as a staff member. All users are reminded to ensure that they are speaking to a staff member, your best bet is to use contact information on their page, or to contact them directly on the site. ANY USER caught posing as a staff member is subject to IMMEDIATE BAN, as well as an ISP report. SO DON’T DO IT!
b. ?It is UNACCEPTABLE to at any time attempt to hack into the site, or any account. Any compromised accounts will be immediately banned, as the person who compromised the account.ANY USERS DOING THIS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE BANNING AND ISP REPORT! (compromised accounts may be unbanned by contacting an administrator)
PENALTIES:
EVERYTHING HERE IS SUBJECT TO AN IMMEDIATE BAN AND ISP REPORT! SO DON’T DO IT!
To report violations, contact a staff member, don’t post more flames, or try to take matters into your own hands. PLEASE contact a staff member, link to the violation, and we will take it into our own hands. Thank you.
The management reserves the right to suspend or ban any accounts at any time for any reason. We will try not to do this without a good reason, however.
Thank you for obeying these rules, and if you have any questions, go to the “help” forum for more information!