.Do note that if you are a new member, you will only be able to post new threads in this board, and will otherwise only be able to respond to topics created by people other than you until you have 10 posts. This is a measure against spambots.
1) FLAMING - There are a few things we consider flaming on WMB, and our scope is probably broader than the average forum.
A-Blatantly insulting another person.
B-Insulting a faith, race, sexuality, or ideology. Serious Discussion has different rules, but keep politics and religion out of things in general here. We're an open community, and thus our differences should be celebrated.
NOTE: It is not flaming if someone is clearly joking. Before you take offense to something and call the mods, think about whether it's possible that your "offender" was simply cracking some poorly conveyed humor. If you get uptight over a joke, you may be convicted of Drama (see below).
2) SPAM - Spam is, by definition, a Stupid, Pointless, Annoying Message. Here, we have fairly strict regulations on spam.
A-Any post that doesn't contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. For instance, "I agree," or "...". Post counts really don't do anything here, so why post things like this? There must be something you'd want to say. As a rule of thumb, anything under two sentences can be considered spam, though we're fairly lenient about that, and as you learned in elementary English, one sentence can actually be two sentences in one
.B-Repetition. Duplicate posts or threads will be deleted on sight and a warning issued.
-Double-posting. This is considered spam, as it's needlessly taking up space. There is an Edit button on your posts - use it rather than double-posting. Double-posting is only allowed when you're bumping a thread, and if this is done it must be done for a good reason (i.e. posting a new song, news, etc.)
C-Poop. This is something that links to something else, or quotes it, and doesn't really introduce anything original and meaningful. For instance, "*link to YouTube video* discuss."
D-Off-topic posts. For instance, if you talk about how awesome cheddar cheese is when the thread is titled "Midna's Hands".
3) TROLLING - Trolling is the act of intentionally offending a member in order to cause drama. Obviously, this is something we don't want in our forums. This is generally done by targeting someone's beliefs, values, or emotions, i.e.:
-Preaching Satanic values to a devout Catholic.
-Linking to a picture of a mangled cat in a thread about a dead pet.
NOTE: Trolls become ineffective if you simply ignore them. Reporting a post is much more efficient than doing so along with giving the troll what he wants by getting angry.
4) DRAMA - The antipode to trolling. This is purposefully becoming emotional or defensive over something that does not warrant it, and is heavily frowned upon both here and in real life. Drama is hard to define, but if a post of yours is one of the ones clearly responsible for taking a thread down the touchy trail, you're in the hotseat.
-Getting angry at someone for joking around
-Bitter response to the polite correction of a behavior or a post.
-Offense towards language used (we now have censorship, so there is no excuse).
5) UNCLEANLINESS - We at WMB like to keep things clean and as professional-looking as possible. To avoid making both yourself and us look bad, follow these rules:
A-Overuse of swearing. Just about every word that doesn't have intent of discrimination is allowed as long as it's censored, but posts full of black bars are not very nice to look at.
B-Speaking improperly. "lol wel i just dont tink u shud do dat u no?" What's wrong with this post? It makes the poster look like he recently incurred a severe brain injury. We're all intelligent people, so act like it. Even if English is your second language, you shouldn't have a problem passing our cleanliness expectations so long as you remember you're not playing World of WarCraft.
C-Pornography. Innuendos are fine. Mentions here and again of genitalia are... Okay. Anything directly pornographic or obscene in nature, however, is strictly disallowed. Keep up the talk and only use of the Anatomically Correct terminology for the male and female reproductive systems will be allowed, and only in the case of talking about what they do. There will be no sharing of Pornographic or Erotic images, photographs or otherwise.
tl;dr:
Odolwa wrote:1. Yitik, Yadda, centralservices, DaKing9 and Flibster are your Mods. You shall have no other mods before them.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idea without sharing it with the other members.
3. You shall not take the name of a WMB member, your fellow user, in flame.
4. Remember the Serious Discussion rules and keep the forum holy.
5. Honor your Yitik and your Yitik, when he says "NO DOUBLE POSTING!!!!"
6. You shall not kill the ideas of other members.
7. You shall not commit terrible overuse of swears.
8. You shall not steal copyrighted material, or otherwise lightly photoshop it.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's exact words. (NO SPAMMING)
And that's that, for now. Enjoy yourself here, do what you can for the initiative, and both you and our community will prosper
. See you later!
). We've only had to ban one person, and what it came down to was that we don't want that sort of person representing us. He used all caps, very little punctuation if any, and swore more than my grandmother. The final straw was a reference to Midna hentai as a "joke", and a threat to members. So we're pretty relaxed here: the baseline is just to at least appear intelligent, and respect your fellow members 
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