PDA

View Full Version : New AGN Terms of Service



cyberkitten
02-24-2004, 03:49 PM
Effective today, February 24, 2003, all members are expected to abide by the current Terms of Service (see below).

1. No Flaming
A flame is defined as a personal attack toward another member. Namecalling is also considered flaming. Flaming in the New Member's Forum will be grounds for an immediate ban

2. No spamming
Spamming is defined as posting nonsense for the sake of disrupting a thread or solely for upping your post count. If something you post could not stand alone as a sentence and make sense, it's probably spam.

3. No advertising
Advertising is generally defined as linking to a personal website or forum for the sole purpose of driving visitors away from the site they're on in favor of the website being advertised. Advertising also includes linking people to websites for your personal gain, such as sites that pay per click or sites that increase your rank or status for each person you direct to the site. Advertising is permitted in signatures, however, and we urge you to place your link in your sig rather than post a topic and wind up banned.

4.No multiple nicknames
There is a limit of one account/nickname per person at AGN. Whether it's because you cannot decide on a nick or because you're trying to evade a ban, registering more than one account is not permitted.

5. Bringing back old topics, ie. "gravedigging"
Very rarely is there a legitimate need to post in a thread that's more than six months old. If you wish to spark a discussion about a topic that was last discussed more than six months ago, please start a new thread.

6. No pornography or illegal content
This includes the material itself or links to porn, ROMS or other illegal/copyrighted material.

7. Multi-posting
Multi-posting (double posts, triple posts, etc) is considered spam. While we understand that occasionally due to server problems it does happen, if done frequently the staff will take appropriate action.

8. Rent-a-modding
Rent-a-modding occurs when a member points out another member breaking the rules by flaming, double posting, or any other infraction. Rent-a-modding is annoying to other members and the staff. If you are genuinely concerned about the content of someone's post, please use the "report this post" feature to get the attention of a moderator rather than attempting to handle it yourself.

9. Grounds for immediate banning
Include but are not limited to: impersonating a staff member, flooding, gaining access or attempting to gain access to another member's account, hacking, posting illegal content or using AGN to spread viruses. We cannot cover every conceivable action by members who are out to cause trouble, and therefore the staff reserves the right to take action for cases not covered specifically by this set of rules after discussion with other staff.

10. Forum Specific Rules
While Armageddon Games is one community, each forum is run with some forum-specific rules (for example, sexual discussion is acceptable in ASWGL, but wouldn't be acceptable in the New Member's Forum). Because of this, all moderational powers not exercised by the senior moderators and above, that are not explicitly prohibited by the official TOS, are left to the discretion of individual forum moderators.
All requirements of the TOS should be strictly adhered to unless allowed by specific forum exemptions, or permission is granted by a Senior Moderator, Administrator, Owner or moderator of the forum being posted in.



Generally, infractions will be handled as follows:
First offense = warning
Second offense = 3 day temp ban
Third offense = 10 to 14 day temp ban
Fourth offense = indefinate ban (perma-ban)


If you feel that you have been unjustly warned or banned:
You may appeal the decision by contacting a higher ranking staff member by PM or chat. DO NOT request an appeal by creating topics in the public forums. Any such topic will be closed and the member's ban extended It is unfair to the other forum members to have to put up with this kind of disruption. AGN's chain of command is as follows: moderator, senior moderator, admin/developer and finally, owner. Going outside the chain of command will likely result in the staff's refusal to hear your appeal. Decisions made by upper staff (admin/developers and owner) are final and not up for discussion. We have to take into consideration what's best for the entire community and allowing a handful of members who simply cannot follow the rules to disrupt the entire community is not in anyone's best interest.

"Clean Slate" policy:
We realize that nobody's perfect and even the best members can have a lapse in judgement occasionally or just have a bad day and do something out of character. After 6 months, members with one warning and no other violation of AGN's TOS will have that warning "drop off" and no longer count against them. Members with more than one violation against them will have the oldest violation drop off after one year, provided they have not had any additional warnings or bans in the previous 6 months. Members who are indefinately banned may request a review of their ban status after one year from an administrator or developer.

bigjoe
02-24-2004, 05:05 PM
May an exception be made to Rule #4 if ,by some freak accident or such, you no longer have access to your original account, and you wish to contact an administrator? Because, I recently(but before today) told someone who couldn't access his account (because it's unverified or something) to make a new one and to contact either Shadowblazer or Warlock, and I'd hate to be the cause of that person's delinquency.

Eckels
02-24-2004, 06:35 PM
Aww cmon, what kind of wimpy terms of service are these! There's no clause about selling our information to third parties, nothing about retaining the freedom to change the rules at your will without notification, and certainly nothing about hidden charges!

Cmon, guys. Don't you see the profit potential!? Get on the AOL Bandwagon already!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

har har

Melonhead
02-24-2004, 07:47 PM
May an exception be made to Rule #4 if ,by some freak accident or such, you no longer have access to your original account, and you wish to contact an administrator? Because, I recently(but before today) told someone who couldn't access his account (because it's unverified or something) to make a new one and to contact either Shadowblazer or Warlock, and I'd hate to be the cause of that person's delinquency.

I had this situation happen to me once. I just registered a new name(Melonhead2) and PM'ed someone. I think that as long as it is reasonable it should be tolerated.

ShadowTiger
02-24-2004, 07:54 PM
I think these rules are very well written, and equally thought out. May I inquire as to your methods of keeping track? On one of the equivalent forums parallel to AGN, they have a "Rap sheet" subforum in the staff forum, in which every time someone receives a warning or ban, it is written down as the topic. The number of bans or warnings is always next to their name, along with "other notes" to be examined by the other staff and analyzed. This has been a very useful system. I trust AGN has the same, judging by your speediness and alertness in your judgements.

Gerudo
02-25-2004, 02:12 PM
May I inquire as to your methods of keeping track? On one of the equivalent forums parallel to AGN, they have a "Rap sheet" subforum in the staff forum, in which every time someone receives a warning or ban, it is written down as the topic. The number of bans or warnings is always next to their name, along with "other notes" to be examined by the other staff and analyzed. This has been a very useful system. Well, that is indeed a good idea... Before my site went under (the server box crashed), I had a forum under the collection of staff only forums (staff,dump, and 'jail')...

Kudos you you guys for getting the new ruleset out, and it looks very good, reading over again.

cyberkitten
02-25-2004, 03:16 PM
bigjoe, i would encourage them to try to contact a staff member in chat first, however if that's unsuccessful, as long as they don't try to post with the secondary account and are locked out of it when their primary account is restored, i think it would be ok.
BH4, we do have a way of keeping track through subject lines of topics in FS. so yes, i'd imagine it would be similar to yours.
eckels, damn, i can't believe you let me forget the ability to change the rules without notification. shame on you.

Fiyerstorm
02-25-2004, 04:12 PM
I'm cool with these TOS mainly cause there's no mention of a dungeon or steel bindings. :D

Way to go, rule girl!

AlexMax
02-25-2004, 04:13 PM
I see a disturbing lack of "By clicking Agree, you agree that your soul is now the property of Armageddon Games Network"

ShadowTiger
02-25-2004, 04:29 PM
Actually, me too. :odd: You guys should honestly have that, because.. you KNOW it's true. I mean, look at us. Alucard's wanted to leave so many times, but always comes back. And many of us are here for the full 4-5 years! :eek: That's pretty dayamn impressive, if you ask me! :ooh:


"Warning: Should you decide to click the following link, your soul will be held in Shadowblazer's jar o' souls for the duration of the forum's existence. You will find that escape is then impossible despite all attempts to do so. Enter at your own risk. You have been warned. n00b."

deathbyhokie
02-25-2004, 04:33 PM
it's not his hard drive, it's the jar o' souls. get it right

and are we to assume the abilty to amend and change the rules at any time has been added CK?
(you also missed editing posts, like the first post of a thread, or editing a flame out of a post to make the resulting attack look unprovoked)

Melonhead
02-25-2004, 07:32 PM
it's not his hard drive, it's the jar o' souls. get it right

and are we to assume the abilty to amend and change the rules at any time has been added CK?
(you also missed editing posts, like the first post of a thread, or editing a flame out of a post to make the resulting attack look unprovoked)

How could they change it if they left it out in the first place?

But what it really needs is a "common sense clause."

slothman
02-25-2004, 08:19 PM
I see a disturbing lack of "By clicking Agree, you agree that your soul is now the property of Armageddon Games Network"

We can't have that or none of the members will be able to laugh. And Warlord and co. will have too many cohorts in the dreamlife.
And what about us who are married, not me..., who have already given our souls to another. You can always add a "If you don't agree to these terms well then you suck." like in the previous "not authorized" page when someone when to a restricted forum. I wish that was back. Not that I used it of course :naughty:

Sephiroth
02-26-2004, 07:07 PM
I had problems with my first account here also.. I never recieved my validation e-mail and I wasn't allowed to PM an administrator/owner. So I created this nick and used it ever since..

If you want to know, the first nick was just "Snort" and it's still unvalidates and I'm still waiting on something to be done.. I woulr like my post count and stats transferred over to the other username, but Ill stay with this one if it's not possible..

Breaker
03-01-2004, 02:56 AM
I had problems with my first account here also.. I never recieved my validation e-mail and I wasn't allowed to PM an administrator/owner. So I created this nick and used it ever since..

If you want to know, the first nick was just "Snort" and it's still unvalidates and I'm still waiting on something to be done.. I woulr like my post count and stats transferred over to the other username, but Ill stay with this one if it's not possible..

You have 590 posts... It's not impossible, but it's also not going to happen.

kariqual_insanity
03-01-2004, 04:09 AM
Members who are indefinately banned may request a review of their ban status after one year from an administrator or developer.

Request? Review? I was unaware of all this. ::shrug:: I don't even know how long I was gone. Oh well, the title says it all.

The TOS reminds me of when I was in elementary school and if we got a certain amount of "strikes" in a time period we had a detention. The only thing more sad than the TOS reminding me of that is that they do need to be there. I mean, you never know when someone is going to break out and revolt, causing mass chaos and utter confusion. Ya know?

Breaker
03-01-2004, 05:18 AM
Request? Review? I was unaware of all this. ::shrug::


It really shouldn't be difficult to understand that these rules are "new", hence the title. You were unbanned (good thing your title says so, otherwise I would have never known) before these rules were enacted.

Prior administrative action taken against members were not applied with the new ruleset. Of course you were unaware of reviews, it's new!

If you still don't understand, stop by chat. I'll say "new" a few more times and ban you.

kariqual_insanity
03-01-2004, 04:15 PM
OMG< THX BREAKER! I <3 j00 BREAKIE! Without you I would be lost. Or just floating in AGNness looking for my soul I sold. But you make me forget that I would ever fall victim to such a thing! THANKS!

Breaker
03-01-2004, 07:33 PM
You're annoying.

Sephiroth
03-01-2004, 07:35 PM
..and breaker likes to kick people from chat when all they say is Hi. That's annoying. :p

Melonhead
03-01-2004, 07:42 PM
..and breaker likes to kick people from chat when all they say is Hi. That's annoying. :p

...and the only people he kicks from chat like that are annoying. Or because its funny.

cyberkitten
03-01-2004, 11:54 PM
..and breaker likes to kick people from chat when all they say is Hi. That's annoying. :p

what does this have to do with the rules exactly? if we thought breaker was abusing his "power" in chat, he'd have had his ops taken away.

kariqual_insanity
03-02-2004, 03:07 AM
You're annoying.

Mission accomplished.

Gerudo
03-02-2004, 04:17 AM
..and breaker likes to kick people from chat when all they say is Hi. That's annoying. :p

...and the only people he kicks from chat like that are annoying. Or because its funny.
what Melon says is quite true, but dont worry Snort, if Breaker didnt kick you, someone like CK, Eckels, Shadowblazer, or Kryten will/would have... because it is indeed funny...

Foxx
03-02-2004, 08:43 AM
Mission accomplished.

BWAAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Someone seems to be having fun pushing her newly discovered luck.

kariqual_insanity
03-02-2004, 09:44 PM
8. Rent-a-modding
Rent-a-modding occurs when a member points out another member breaking the rules by flaming, double posting, or any other infraction. Rent-a-modding is annoying to other members and the staff. If you are genuinely concerned about the content of someone's post, please use the "report this post" feature to get the attention of a moderator rather than attempting to handle it yourself.
[/i]

And, yes actually I am having fun and not breaking rules at the same time! o_o

Eckels
03-03-2004, 06:36 PM
what Melon says is quite true, but dont worry Snort, if Breaker didnt kick you, someone like CK, Eckels, Shadowblazer, or Kryten will/would have... because it is indeed funny...

Very true.

But understand, we kick you because we love you.
We also kick you because we hate you.

Pretty much, at some point or another you're all gonna get kicked, so suck it up and take it like someone with a sense of humor, and see the humor that we see in it. Otherwise we simply ban you, and then where are you left?

Such is Chat.

theplustwo
04-13-2004, 10:30 AM
Very true.

But understand, we kick you because we love you.
We also kick you because we hate you.

Pretty much, at some point or another you're all gonna get kicked, so suck it up and take it like someone with a sense of humor, and see the humor that we see in it. Otherwise we simply ban you, and then where are you left?

Such is Chat.

And if you get banned from chat, don't post a thread about it, just PM a chat op.

Gerudo
04-13-2004, 10:59 AM
thats if they care enough... maybe you'll get lucky and it'll be deleted before they get enough ambition to read it... :laughing:

Eckels
04-13-2004, 11:52 AM
If someone gets banned from chat, and they pm me on the chat server, nine times out of ten i'll let em back in, unless they got banned for doing something really stupid.

Flash Man
04-16-2004, 05:30 PM
If someone gets banned from chat, and they pm me on the chat server, nine times out of ten i'll let em back in, unless they got banned for doing something really stupid.
One fifth of those times they private message me and Eckels unbans them while I take the credit.

Direct Efx
08-07-2004, 11:34 PM
Better rules....Much better.
-----
I got a question, I was posting in a fairly old sticky topic. So that is considered gravedigging too huh? I assumed it was just reviving old topics. I didn't know sticky topics were included in that group.

Coder GT
03-13-2005, 11:33 PM
I want to appeal a warning I got, but no admin every replies to PMs. Warlord still hasn't read my PMs from two years ago or something, neither has the other ones in power.

Eckels
03-13-2005, 11:36 PM
you cant appeal a warning. it's a fucking warning.

Ganonator
03-13-2005, 11:41 PM
Even if you could, War Lord is not the person you should appeal to. Try appealing directly to the person that gave you the warning, or an active senior moderator.

Coder GT
03-14-2005, 02:22 PM
you cant appeal a warning. it's a fucking warning.
Read the rules, because you can.

Shadowblazer
03-14-2005, 02:35 PM
Since we're reading the rules:
DO NOT request an appeal by creating topics in the public forums. Any such topic will be closed and the member's ban extended And so help me, if you say that you didn't actually create a thread, or that you didn't actually appeal your warning, I'm going to ban you myself. The point is that you're starting shit. Take your warning like a man, learn from it like you're supposed to, and quit breaking the rules.

As for the matter at hand: the warning stands. There, your appeal has been heard by an Administrator and rejected. Have a nice day.

Rainman
03-14-2005, 03:38 PM
LOL there's no point in appealling a warning because as long as you don't do anything else wrong than it's not a problem. Appeal when.. er if you get banned...

SUCCESSOR
06-05-2007, 03:28 PM
The chain of command is there to help you. This may be hard to swallow so allow me to loosen your gag reflex. 90&#37; of the time a moderator will be more understanding-possibly even lenient-than the higher staff. You have to understand that when an administrator looks at you, he or she does not see a beautiful misunderstood soul, they see a piece of meat that in all probability tastes better marinated in barbeque sauce and grilled.

But that is just my advice.

(so the topics out of date, I have trouble with paying attention. I never see anything interesting in announcements anyway.)

DarkDragon
06-05-2007, 03:53 PM
Warnings are an official recommendation that you shape up; they're not punitive by nature, so what's the point of appealing them?

Besides, about the only people who get banned these days are advertisers and members who go out of their way to antagonize the rest of the forums. If by some strange twist of events you accumulate enough warnings for a ban, that would be the time to file an appeal.

Sam Atoms
06-05-2007, 07:38 PM
Well, as disruptive as Pineconn_lolz might have been in his short stay, I do think he was one of the most entertaining acts to come to town in a long time.

SUCCESSOR
06-05-2007, 07:42 PM
Where did that come from?

broken soul
06-11-2007, 06:30 PM
stfunoob
heil zeldafan500