I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that while the moderators here at Overwritten.net like to take a hands-off approach to managing this community site, we do in fact have a Terms Of Service agreement that everyone accepted when they registered. I cannot seem to find a link that would allow someone to go back and review it after-the-fact, so I will post it here. Please take a few minutes to read over the TOS again, and please be aware that moderators can take action if any of the board rules are infringed, if they see fit.
Following are some things you'll want to keep in mind while posting on the Overwritten.net Message Boards. Please read the rules so you will be familiar with them:
* Copyrighted Material
Overwritten.net board users agree not to post any material that is protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary right without the express permission of the owner(s) of said copyright, trademark or other proprietary right. This includes but is not limited to magazine, book and newspaper scans, television broadcasts and copyrighted photos and pictures. Violations of copyright will result in the offending item to be removed.
* Flaming, Bashing, and Trolling
Hate posts and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Observe the Golden Rule: treat others on these message boards as you would expect them to treat you. Talking trash about another user or posting topics specifically to provoke a negative response from an individual, a group, or an entire community is not acceptable. These posts will be deleted at the moderators' discretion and may result in having the privilege of posting on the boards revoked.
* Controversial Topics
Discussions about controversial topics and even posts disclosing opinions which may be controversial are permitted at Overwritten.net in the Serious Topics forum. It is felt that open, honest discussion about virtually any subject is good for the community as a whole. That said, understand that the Overwritten.net community is made up of individuals of many categories of race, ethnicity, nationality, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender, and religious orientation. Comments, posts, or entire threads may be subject to deletion at the discretion of the moderators if they are deemed to be inflammatory in nature.
If this seems confusing, think of the difference between these two subjects: "Why do you think God exists?" and "Bible-bumpers are such morons." The first would likely facilitate good discussion about the subject. The latter simply serves the agenda of putting-down and enraging a large group of people, and this would most likely not be tolerated by the moderators.
* Profanity
Profanity is allowed, but it should used in moderation. Please be respectful of other users' tastes. Its use in the context of an attack on another user is prohibited.
* Spam
Purposely spamming a message board with senseless, vacuous, or empty messages to gain more stars is highly frowned upon! This includes such things as party posts, chain letters, two-word "I agree" or "me too" responses, continually posting the same topic on a particular board, posting the same question across several boards and using the Quote feature without contributing anything new to a thread.
The use of our users' e-mail or IM address in order to send spam is prohibited. We consider spam to be any attempt to sell a good or service or to acquire financial assets from our users for which the user or users expressed no prior interest. Engaging in this forbidden behavior will result in the contact of your ISP.
* Piracy, ROMs, and Warez
Discussions about these items is permitted, though it is discouraged. It is not permissible to link to any form of pirated media whether it be the actual media or simply a torrent file or similar. The use of these items is highly discouraged and this site should never be used as a distribution channel for such items.
* Impersonating Other Users / Accessing Another User's Account
You may not impersonate another board member or create an account specifically for the purpose of provoking other users. Also, accessing or using someone else's account or attempting to access another poster's account is strictly prohibited. If you engage in this type of behavior, you will be barred from the boards permanently.
* Off-Topic Posts
Off-topic posts, while not forbidden, are highly discouraged. Everyone should try to keep the discussion on-topic in order to facilitate the threaded, topic-based format of online forums such as this one. If a thread is severely diverging from its original subject, the off-topic posts may be split into a separate topic at the discretion of the moderators.
* Spoilers
Be considerate of the other users who may not have seen a movie or played a game that you're talking about. Simply type something eye-catching like BEGIN SPOILER before any text that may give away any significant information about the plot and END SPOILER after the text in a post. You should also avoid posting spoilers in a subject line altogether.
* Posting Huge Images
Out of respect for your modem brethren, please let them know if your thread contains a large number of images by indicating so in the subject line (e.g. "56k warning!"). Very large images - either in terms of resolution or file size - should be provided as links rather than embedded images for the benefit of all our users. If a image is posted as embedded and is deemed detrimental to the thread (it might stretch out all of the posts horizontally for instance, requiring horizontal scrolling to read), moderators may resize the image or change it to a link at their discretion.
* Moderator Power Abuse
Moderators of Overwritten.net are given a wide-range of power, including altering posts or deleting entire threads at their discretion if they deem them inappropriate or not in line with this Terms Of Service document. These actions are supported. However, moderators should never use their special abilities to play pranks or edit or remove other users' posts in a manner not consistent with this document.
Moderators are to use their ability to discern users' IP addresses only to help enforce site policy (ban by IP address, determine if a single user is using more than one identity, etc.). Never should moderators use their ability to see users' IP addresses for any other purpose such as attempting to connect to a machine they posted from.
Moderators deemed to be abusing their moderation power will have their moderation power stripped, and potentially be banned from Overwritten.net, depending on the severity of the infraction(s).
* Questionable Content
Since we can't have a rule to cover everything, this is the rule to, well, cover everything. These are public boards, so act like you would if you were in a public place. The Overwritten.net moderators reserve the right to choose the guidelines of objectionable content based on their knowledge of users and site policy. These issues are left to the discretion of the individual moderators, but may include any material that is knowingly false and/or defamatory, misleading, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, racist, sexist, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy or that otherwise violates any law or encourages conduct constituting a criminal offense.
