General Forum Rules

This guide was created to provide an easy to access and up to date source of general information for the "Imperia" community. All members are expected to read this guide and are otherwise subjecting themselves to the risk of breaking the rules, in which case we will be forced to take action. Please note that you will receive the full penalty of the consequences regardless of whether you have retained this information or not. Besides the rules and expectations of the forums, this guide provides important interpretation of those rules as well as other helpful information.

1. Do not spam.
2. Do not flame.
3. Do not harass.
4. Do not double or multi post (unless in a solo topic).
5. Do not flood.
6. Do not swear/cuss excessively. Changing letters in the word into numbers or symbols is more acceptable but still counts. Keep it to a minimum.
7. Do not post/link any explicit material containing sexual, racist or disturbing/upsetting content.
8. Do not link to any form of pirating or make any illegal transactions on the forums.
9. Do not publicly trade accounts (trading accounts is banned).
10. Do not scam.
11. Do not impersonate any regular or staff member.
12. Do not rip.
13. Do not advertise or promote other websites/services as a whole anywhere outside specified zones.
14. Do not act like a moderator/admin if you are not one.
15. Do not publicly discuss moderators or their actions unless given permission to do so by a Global Moderator or higher ranked member.
16. Discussions that solely belong on partnership sites should only be posted on their forums, not on ours.
17. Do not evade your bans.
18. Do not cause unnecessary drama.
19. Do not share classified information.
20. Do not post excessively flashing/strobing images. Example
20a. Images that flash more slowly, however, are allowed. Example

All rules apply to Private Messages, Signatures, Avatars, and User Profiles.

Moderators have the right to create and enforce rules in their own respective sections. You must follow those rules and listen to any request the moderator makes. Section Rules or special rules for single topics override Global Rules.

Spam: A message and/or topic that is pointless and off-topic.

-Anything that does not answer the question the topic starter asks (for example: "I don't know")
-Topics with misleading titles, regardless of the message content
-Quoting someone without adding anything extra of your own (for example: Quoting and posting only "Agree", "Same", "What this guy said" or simply only quoting.)
-Reserved posts not filled within 48 hours
-Posts made in a language other than English.
-Irrelevant topics (for example: "Look at my signature", "Come to my chatbox", "Click this link")

A topic not posted in its designated section will be locked or moved.


Flame: Any posts meant to offend or hurt any member in a manner which is offensive and/or insulting.

Light flaming: Harsh criticism and anything offensive, but nothing "major".
Examples: "That sucks h4rdcor3!" (if talking about a poem, signature, etc.), "noob", "you are stupid", "you need to grow up, kiddy".

Moderate flaming: Any sort of offence/insult that is neither extremely offensive, nor light flame. It's basically in a "middle region".
Examples: "idiot", "retard", "moron".

Heavy flaming: Anything racist, profane, sexist, or extremely offensive.


Harassment: Constantly annoying someone with offensive or negative messages in an attempt to make them feel unhappy, annoyed, or embarrassed. This includes by PM.


Double Posting: Posting twice in a row without other people's posts in between.
Multi Posting: Posting 3-5 times in a row without other people's posts in between.

If you want to add something, you should use the magical tool we like to call the "edit button."
If you double (multi) posted unintentionally, edit all unnecessary posts to state it was a mistake. Those posts will be deleted and you will not be warned.


Flooding: Intentionally posting many times in a short period of time. 6 or more posts in a row, or many multi posts in one topic will automatically be considered as flooding. Necro-Posting (reviving dead topics over a month inactive without reason) on various topics can also be ruled as a type of flooding. Flooding can also take place if you create many useless/similar topics, or send many Private Messages to users in a short period of time. If one post takes up a whole page and the content in that post is simply smilies or spam in general, it will be considered as flooding (i.e. Post with a very long image, too many images/smiles in one post, quoting a flood post)


Ripping: Taking someone else's original content and claiming it as your own. Even if you slightly edit the content, it will still be considered "ripped".
This includes:
-GFX
-Piece of Writing
-Layouts


Drama: A statement or any sort of indirectly content which is "controversial" with the intent of annoying, and instigating a fight against another party. It is basically a post which causes members to fight among themselves.

Examples
-drama-boi676: "you won that war only because you were playing cheap, you have no skill".
-DramaCauser11: "He was using vulgar language then blocked me on MSN".
-drama_starter5: "I was on chatbox of this clan and there were many idiots".
-clanDr4ma9: "Captain of XYZ kicked me from the clan! He should be kicked instead of me for this!"
-drama_man: "XXX clan is full of cheaters! who agrees with me?"
-drama591: "people playing this game are idiots!"


Classified Information: Any information that is meant to be kept secret from members.


Ban Evading: Accessing the forums while you are banned. This includes using any account (created in the past or now) to view the forum. Even if you only look at topics (without posting) or use your friend's account, you will be banned (and your friend too). Be aware of consequences of ban evading by reading the Table of Punishment.

This section explains how you can bump a topic without breaking the double-posting rule. It is really simple and you should be fine as long as you follow the guidelines. Bumping is primarily used in application topics.

A bump may only be used at least 24 hours after the last post on the thread, not 24 hours after your own last bump post. If you bump before 24 hours it is spam (most people will not time you to the second so wait a minimum of 23 hours). Also, having post after post between you and another person of just the word "bump" is not bumping the topic, but indeed spamming it. Please keep this in mind when you want to bump a topic.

In Short:
1) Bumps are only to be used 24 hours after the last post on the topic.
2) Mis-use of bumps is spam.
3) Do not start a discussion with someone having "bump" in every post.
4) This applies to all of the forums. Not just in the clan section.



Speaking of grammar:

Be Literate wrote:

Take the time to at least capitalize the first letter of your sentences. It makes it a bit easier to see. Proper nouns you can leave alone, I forget so it's not like I can yell at you for that. However, capitalizing would help too.

Please PUNCTUATE. It becomes rather hard to read if you string together multiple ideas without any sort of break. It takes under a second to type in a period, or a comma, or even a semicolon ( ; ) if you're daring.

Abbreviations: Take the extra second, PLEASE, to spell out two more characters. It's nearly effortless to do this, and clears up a good amount of confusion. This also includes R, Hu, Wut, Y, etc... While abbreviations such as b/c and w/o and IDK etc. are fine, one to two letters is really not asking much.

Spelling: at least make a conscious effort to spell correctly. If you don't know how to spell a word, or if your finger slips, that's fine; but don't rush so much that you start yo splap the ketyboad like this. This is not a race; people take an extra few seconds to take your time.

1337: 1337 is not cool. It's STUPID. Don't try to complicate by typing in 1337.

Caps Lock: It is not wise to type in ALL CAPS LOCK LIKE THIS! It is annoying and people will have the notion that you are yelling at them. Be wise and look at what you are typing every so often.
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If you just follow those guidelines, things will be a lot clearer, as well as make you look smarter, and well all want to look smart, now don't we?