Fan Forum

***Jerry D*** · 04-03-2013 until 04-03-2015

Hi everyone,

As you all know, we have a Requests System to add new forums. These forums are initially moderated by members of the Moderator Support Team. After a certain period of time has passed we post Moderator Opening Announcements to add permanent moderators, just like we do when the moderators of existing forums resign.

Recently, we posted Moderator Opening Announcements for some of the new forums, and no one applied to moderate them. This is very disappointing, because people took the time to organize campaigns, voted for and ultimately posted on these new forums. Taking all that into account, it’s hard to understand why no one wants to take responsibility by applying for one of the moderator positions on these new forums.

Similarly, we’ve posted Moderator Opening Announcements for some existing forums where the last permanent moderator resigned and Moderator Support Team Members were put in place as temporary moderators. While there were some regular posters who indicated that they’d like the forums to remain open, no one applied to moderate them. This is equally disappointing, because the success or failure of any forum depends on the enthusiasm and dedication of the moderators and its posters.

If no one steps up to be a leader for one of our forums, then it may mean that there isn’t enough sustained interest to keep it open.

In light of this, the following policy will be implemented:

If no qualified candidates apply for a moderator opening where there are no permanent moderators for a forum, we will extend the application deadline.
If no qualified candidates apply for a moderator opening where there are no permanent moderators for a forum after the extended application deadline has passed, we will extend the application deadline one last time and issue a warning on the Moderator Opening Announcement that the board will close if no qualified candidates apply for the forum.
If no qualified candidates apply for a moderator opening where there are no permanent moderators for a forum after the second extended application deadline has passed, we will post a closure notice on the forum and close it one week from when the closure notice was posted.

Please note that we can’t have Moderator Support Team Members moderating forums indefinitely, so this is a notice to the entire Fan Forum community.

Therefore, if you like posting on a certain forum and you want it to remain at Fan Forum, we encourage you to apply to moderate that forum and ensure that it will be around for years to come. Thanks.

***Jerry D*** · 12-20-2007 until 12-20-2017

Fan Forum Rules and Guidelines

Note: Any recent updates to these rules and guidelines will be shown in blue.

Hi everyone, and welcome to Fan Forum! We want your posting experience here to be an enjoyable one, so we’ve set rules and guidelines for the discussion forums on this website. We’ve divided these rules and guidelines into specific areas:

Basic Membership:

No advertisement posts or threads are allowed on our forums. Solicitation of any kind, including direct linking to events such as charity auctions, is not permitted unless it’s pre-approved by the Management Team. Posters engaging in this type of behavior will lose their membership rights and be removed. If you notice that anyone is posting this type of spam in the forums, please report them here.
Direct links to illegal television episode or music download websites are not permitted. The purpose of threads for television shows or music from those shows is to discuss those shows or that music, and they’re not meant to be used as a means to illegally download television episodes or songs.
Be respectful. Not everyone is going to agree with you at all times. It’s perfectly fine to disagree with someone as long as it is done respectfully, but do not attack other posters. Please treat other members with the same respect and courtesy that you would want for yourself.
Don’t register multiple accounts here. Using multiple accounts here can result in the loss of posting privileges for all of your registered accounts.
Anti thread titles should be respectful, related to the show, and only directed at the fictional characters or couples. Anything considered by management to be derogatory towards real people will be removed and may warrant an infraction.
Avatars and signatures that are designed to put down any fictional character or couple or their fans or which make any kind of threatening remark are not permitted, because they can be seen all over Fan Forum and they take away from the positive posting atmosphere that we strive for here.

Note: Failure to adhere to the above rules can result in the loss of your posting privileges. Rule infractions may result in warnings or points assigned to members’ accounts at the discretion of the Moderator Managers and Website Administrator. Members who accumulate too many points will be automatically banned according to the following levels:

3 Points = 3 day ban
4 Points = 7 day ban
5 Points = 2 week ban
6 Points = Permanent ban

Conflict Resolution:

If you have a problem with anything or any person at Fan Forum, don’t deal with it on the forums here. Please send a Private Message (PM) to a Moderator or a Moderator Manager describing the problem, and they’ll work with you to try and get the problem resolved.
If you have a problem with a moderator on one of the boards that you post on, send a Private Message to a Moderator Manager describing the problem. Do not contact one of the co-moderators of the moderator that you’re having problems with, as it’s the Moderator Managers’ responsibility to resolve disputes between members and moderators in a fair and impartial way. You can also send a Private Message to the person that you’re having a problem with directly if you do not want to involve the Fan Forum staff.

Posting Etiquette:

Fan Forum is considered to be a PG-13 forum community, so please keep that in mind when posting here.
Before starting a new thread, please look to see if there already is a topic discussing the same thing. Duplicate threads will be closed down. Also, please make sure your thread title accurately reflects what the thread is about.
Keep “chatting” type conversations down to a minimum on the discussion threads on our forums, as they detract from legitimate discussions. Every forum on this website has an off topic thread where you can chat with your fellow posters, so use those threads for that purpose.
Do not post in all caps, as it’s considered Internet lingo for yelling. If a thread title or post is typed in all caps, it will be edited or deleted. dO nOt PoSt LiKe THiS, eItHEr (this is also known as sticky caps). Also, don’t abuse the privilege of being able to post using different font sizes and colors, or your post will also be edited or deleted.
Do not bump threads, or post solely to increase your post count. This is called “star posting,” and doing it can result in the loss of posting privileges. Also, don’t post sequentially on a thread (meaning don’t post right after yourself) just edit your first post if you have something to add to what you originally said.
When a continuation thread has reached 300 posts, please start a new thread.

Posting Pictures:

Do not post the same picture or avatar (icon) over and over in a thread. Also, do not quote pictures or avatars (icons) - if you quote someone, please edit out the image before submitting your reply. If you don’t follow these rules, your picture(s) or avatar(s) (icon(s)) will be deleted.
Please note that when you post pictures directly from another website, (also known as hot linking) you’re basically using that website’s bandwidth. Every time someone at Fan Forum views the picture on our forums, the owner of the website that hosts the image gets charged for bandwidth use. This is known as “bandwidth theft.” We would prefer it if you would post a text link to the picture using the [ url ] tag instead of displaying the picture in a post using the [ img ] tag, because then the owner of the website only gets charged for bandwidth use if people click on the link.
We do not authorize posting or linking to copyrighted pictures, and if we discover that anyone has posted copyrighted pictures, those pictures will be removed.
Please don’t post pictures any wider than 800 pixels so you don’t stretch the post table. In consideration of members on dial-up, please post links to larger pictures (also known as HQ pictures) or post thumbnails of those pictures.
Please respect people’s privacy and don’t post any celebrity pictures from private sources. This includes fan art (manipulations, wallpapers, avatars etc.) made from such pictures.
Please be aware that the message boards here are public forums, so if you post pictures of yourself or any other personal information on these forums, that information can be viewed and copied anywhere on the Internet.

Questions and Information:

We have an Info Center Forum where members can go for help and support, so please take any questions you have about how the boards work there.
There is a thread on the Info Center Forum called Index & Introductions that is very helpful to new members, and we also have a Questions thread on that forum where you can find out information about this website and your account here.

Fan Fiction:

You can directly post fan fiction and open threads to discuss fan fiction on the individual message boards here.
You can link to Fan Fiction websites, but you can’t link to other Fan Fiction message boards.

Spoilers:

No spoilers about any new or current television shows are allowed on the television show forums, and they should only be posted on the Spoilers Forum. Information is considered to be a spoiler if it details something that has not yet been broadcast anywhere in the world. Promos that have aired on television anywhere in the world or are from general promotional material at official websites and/or aired on places like YouTube are not considered to be spoilers, but extended sneak peaks which give away a lot of information about an upcoming episode are considered to be spoilers.
Spoilers are allowed on the Male and Female Celebrity Forums as long as the spoilers are limited to information about the character that the actor or actress is playing on the television show that they’re on, and they’re not about the overall show. Spoilers on these forums should only be posted to discuss the upcoming work of the actor or actress, and they must be posted in separate topics and be clearly identified with the word Spoiler in the title.
Spoiler threads for upcoming movies are permitted on the Movies forum or on forums that are devoted to a movie franchise, as long as they’re clearly identified with the word Spoiler in the title.
Spoilers should not be discussed on the general threads on these forums, and posters should not post icons, animations, videos, or links to anything related to a new movie in any thread other than the thread that’s been designated by the moderators as the place to discuss that movie.
Spoilers for new books can be discussed on the Books Forum prior to the official release of the book as long as the threads that discuss those books are clearly identified with the word Spoiler in the title. After the book has been officially released, the word Spoiler can be removed from the title.

Pictures
Pictures from promos that have aired on television, been shown at the movie theatre, or are from general promotional material at official websites and/or aired on places like YouTube or published in magazines are not considered to be spoilers.

Pictures of clips, episode stills and filming pictures of scenes from an upcoming episode or movie that are available on the Internet and have not been aired on television or have not been shown at the movie theatre before the movie is released are considered to be spoilerish, and they should only be posted in designated threads for the upcoming episode or movie.

Avatars
Avatars made from promos that have already aired on television, been shown at the movie theatre, or are from general promotional material at official websites and/or aired on places like YouTube or published in magazines are not considered to be spoilers.

Avatars made from sources other than the ones mentioned above should not be used until after the episode airs or until the movie is released, because avatars can be seen all over Fan Forum, and we want to respect the wishes of members that don’t want to see any spoilers for an upcoming episode or movie.

Signatures:

You may use normal font options like bolding, italics and colors, but the largest font size allowed in a signature is Size 3.
The only thing allowed in a signature other than text are Fan Forum smilies, up to a maximum of four.
Links to other websites are fine, but direct links to other message boards are not allowed.
Signature blocks should be no taller than a 100 X 100 avatar.

Members can check each forum to see if they have any rules in addition to the site-wide rules listed here, and please contact the forum moderators if you have any questions about those additional rules.

Graphics Team:

We have a Graphics Team here at Fan Forum that creates the graphics that we use to customize the forums here. The Graphics Team Leaders are BriarღRose, Lexipedia, and sidhe-seer. Please contact them with any questions you have concerning the forum customizations or for any questions about the Graphics Team.

The Fan Forum Management Team:

Administrator: Jerry D

Overall responsibility for Fan Forum and the direction that this website will be taking in the future, along with Goldenboy, who is the owner of Fan Forum. He oversees the Management Team.

Avatars Manager: Tina

Responsible for running the system that we’ve established to add new standard avatars here and to upload those avatars in the Control Panel so they’ll be available to our members.

Communications Team Managers: Kervy and Lexipedia

Responsible for overseeing the Communications Team. This team is responsible for contacting webmasters of entertainment related websites and coordinating with them to be added as either a Forum Affiliate or a General Affiliate. Please follow this link to see what websites are Forum Affiliates or General Affiliates. This team is also responsible for outside promotion of Fan Forum through creating LiveJournal, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other social networking accounts to get the word out about this website and provide information to our members at these accounts.

Moderator Managers: boot-n-rally, Chris, Deep Abiding Loveღ, effie, heaven85, Lemurian, Mandy, Nad, and Tina

Responsible for helping to pick new moderators and for overseeing the Moderator Team. They are the main contact people for the moderators and members when they have questions about site policy.

System Manager: Raonaild

Responsible for overseeing all server and software issues along with Goldenboy.

Website Managers: Andie and Johnnie

Responsible for overseeing the Requests System, which is used to add new message boards at Fan Forum, and they manage the Moderator Support Team.

If you have any questions or concerns about site policy, or if the moderators on any message board are unavailable, please contact one of the Moderator Managers.

Thanks for being a member here, and have fun!


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