Post by ookami on Jul 24, 2015 7:35:03 GMT -6
RULES AND GUIDELINES
Part one; OOC
Here at Badlands we expect each of our members and staff to hold themselves to a certain degree of politeness. We ask that you show respect and kindness to your fellow members and staff. Just have fun, enjoy conversation, and write some crazy stories.
Propriety Standards
1: Don't get mad. If someone picks a fight, tell an admin or chat mod. OOC spats, fueds, enemies, and attacks are forbidden on all fronts. If you are unable to put aside your differences and become friends with someone, we ask that you kindly ignore each other until you come to an understanding outside of the site.
2: Treat one another respectfully. If someone's writing skills are not up to par with yours, do not speak negatively about it, but instead offer to mentor and guide the writer in their literary journey. This is a place of support and acceptance. This brings us to Standard #3...
3: No insults, no taunting or trolling, no harassment. Do not contact a user with the intent of hurting their feelings. Do not speak of a non-present user in ways that you know would hurt their feelings. Cliques and smack-talking are unecessary. Spur-of-the-moment insults, "it just slipped out!" insults, and insults clearly intended to cause an individual great distress are all unacceptable. If you do not agree with someone's views or opinions, calm discourse is allowed for the purpose of gaining knowledge. In short; be kind, be respectful, be responsible.
4: No drama. Drama is not allowed in this forum. Do not speak about it in the CBox, do not bring it up in General Chat. There is a board titled "Jar"; if you feel the need to rant, vent, or discuss something serious and OOC, please do it here, and leave it here.
5: No advertising. Please do not private message links to other sites, post in the CBox or anywhere on the forum other than the "Advertising and Affiliations" board.
7: Keep bumping to a minimum. Bump threads no more than once every seven days.
Part two; Forum
Account
Only one account is allowed per person. If more than one individual in your household is a member, please contact an admin. Duplicates and accounts sharing an IP address will be deleted.
Swearing
Cursing is allowed OOC.
Images
- Sizing
In order to maintain a polished look and to avoid stretching the board, we have image size guidelines in place.
No signature image is to exceed 450x500px. If multiple images are used, they must total as those dimensions. Try to keep your signatures shorter than this to prevent unnecessarily stretching the length of the page out.
Images in threads may not exceed 700px in length. If this is unreasonable for your image, you may use a cropped "preview" image and create a clickthrough link to the full image. - Internet images
Here at Badlands we strongly support the use of the users' own personal imagery, be it photography or drawn images, but understand that this is not always feasible. To protect all parties involved and the creator of these images, please only use images you have permission to use. Flickr has a handy Creative Commons function in the Advanced Search that will allow you to find images you can legally use in photomanipulations. Please be able to provide a direct link to any images you use in order for admins to see that they are legally accepted on our site.
Part three; IC
Godmoding
Controlling, injuring, or killing another user's character is not acceptable.
Powerplaying
Please be aware of your character's status in the world of Badlands. Your character may not have information on events, situations etc that your character has not actually come into contact with, or the ability to use that information against another player character.
Character Creation
As a new member, you have four potential character slots. As you post and become part of the team, you'll earn in-site currency that you can later use to purchase more character slots - among other things. Please follow the guidelines and use the form available in the Character Creation area.
You may only have one pending character at any point in time. If you are still waiting on that character to be accepted, you may not create another yet.
You may not use a name currently in use by a cat in the same clan.
Use natural colours and physiology for your cats. It may help to decide on a few breeds to mix into your character and splice in dominant features from those breeds to create a realistic character. Strange eye colours such as violet and black are not permitted.
Please keep personal relationships between your own characters to a minimum.
Word Count
There is no word minimum, but please try to respond appropriately. If someone has written you a beautiful 500-word starter, it is very sweet of you to at least try to hit 200. If you can't, no worries! We all start somewhere and we all have off days. Please don't hesitate to offer your wisdom as RP mentor, or to ask for assistance in diving into detail and hiking your wordcount up.
That being said, please do your best to avoid posting one- or two-sentence replies.
Grammar
Please maintain a readable level of grammatical correctness. Quirks, rhythms, and tendencies that suit your character's inner monologue and personality are just fine, however! Please feel free to use interesting cadences, spellings, and odd sentences in order to portray your character accurately.
Chatspeak is 100% forbidden IC.
Swearing
Human swears are not allowed. Do your best to use warrior cats curses and insults IC. A full list of clan terminology and speech is located here.
Time Flow
The Badlands have seasons just like any other place in the world! When roleplaying, liquid time is only partially allowed. You may, within a single thread, flow through a few days at a time, as well as have multiple threads going at once - but please refrain from spanning through seasons. Jumping ahead by months would create timeline conflicts with character relations, which are necessary to perpetuate a peaceful coexistence between clans.
Post Order
Adhere to proper order. In a thread with more than two contributers, the initial post order must be maintained. If Individual #1 posts, then Individual #2, Individual #3 may only post after Individual #2, and Individual #2 may only post after Individual #1. If one member of the thread has not replied in more than 14 days, you may break the posting order.
Graphic Content
Mature roleplays of a detailed and graphic nature are permitted, and realism encouraged. Please mark any threads that may or have become sexually or violently graphic with a <M> or <Mature> tag so that younger users and those who don't wish to partake may avoid them.
Fighting
IC fights are permitted and expected, but please private message the user whose character you wish to fight with to ask permission before initiating aggression and always be respectful of their terms. Once again, godmoding and powerplaying is not tolerated.
When beginning a fight, a "header" must be created. This is a short OOC form of terms and conditions between users upon which the fight is based. Then you may post a link to your thread in the -- board and an admin will be assigned to your fight. They will oversee the process to ensure rules and respect are abided by, as well as decide who won the fight.
Breeding
Breeding is allowed only during Leaf-fall and Leaf-bare, with kits being born after one season. It is clan tradition to only bring kits into life when the badlands are most hospitable and abundant with water and prey. Kits born during Newleaf are typically much stronger and have a higher likelihood of surviving than those born during Leaf-bare.
Character Adoption
Adoption occurs under these three most typical scenarios:
- If a player leaves the site and wishes for someone to continue their character's storyline
- If a character is no longer wanted
- When a litter of kits is born