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Administrator
Joined: Jan 1999
Posts: 92,778
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Official Fan Forum Rules and Guidelines - Updated 4/16/18
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.
- Please don’t post solely to increase your post count. Please contribute to the discussions here with your posts. Whenever possible, please edit your post if you have something to add to what you originally said instead of immediately posting after yourself.
- 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.
- Please credit the person who made the avatar you’re using in your signature whenever possible. In addition, if you post fan art here, please credit the person who made it. If you see someone using an avatar or fan art that you created without giving you the proper credit for creating it, contact a Moderator or a Moderator Manager.
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:
Information is considered to be a spoiler if it details something that has not yet been broadcast anywhere in the world. - The following limited spoilers are allowed in a designated discussion thread on the forums here as long as the title includes the word Spoilers:
- Information officially released by the network such as sneak peaks, filming pictures and episodes stills, or cast interviews that hint at future storylines can be posted in the designated spoiler discussion thread at all forums.
- Spoilers regarding the character an actress or actor is playing in a TV show are permitted at their own Male or Female Celebrity Forum. These discussions should be limited to character information and not overall show spoilers.
- Spoiler threads for upcoming movies are permitted on the Movies forum or on forums that are devoted to a movie franchise.
- Spoilers about upcoming book releases are allowed in their discussion threads at the Books and Writing Forum or forums that are devoted to a book franchise. The word Spoilers can be removed from the title after the official release date.
- Spoilers should only be discussed if they meet the above limited conditions and any further spoilers should be discussed at the Spoilers Forum.
- Animations, artwork, icons and other such material can be posted within these threads but they must not be used across Fan Forum or any other thread.
- Discussion and information sharing must be limited to the listed threads that have spoilers indicated in the title.
- If you're unsure about what might be considered to be a spoiler please continue to use the spoiler tags, shown here: [sp][/sp]
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.
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: spacekru- 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: dancing in the rain and looking at the stars - 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.
Graphics Team Managers: calling me home, spacekru, and vale decem- Responsible for overseeing the Graphics Team. The Graphics Team creates the graphics that we use to customize the forums here. Please contact them with any questions you have concerning the forum customization's or for any questions about the Graphics Team.
Senior Moderator Manager: Chris- Responsible for overseeing the Moderator Managers Team, and she works with them to help pick new moderators and oversee the Moderator Team.
Moderator Managers: ♥ Gale's Fragile Beauty ♥, heaven85, L i N d $ @ y, One Thing Remains, *Stephie*, and sweet creature- 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 Manager: Johnnie- Responsible for overseeing the Requests System, which is used to add new message boards at Fan Forum.
Moderator Support Team Managers: ♥ Gale's Fragile Beauty ♥, Johnnie, and NikNak- Responsible for overseeing 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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