KC:MM Forum Rules (Updated 10-13-12)

[ピカノ]

October 13 2012: Small edit to the Advertising rule, which now applies to Off-Topic too.
September 21 2012: BrawlVault-specific rules updated and moved to another thread.
June 8 2012: Added a more explicit "Footnote" to explain more about what is necroposting and what isn't.
May 23 2012: Removed rule about CSPs not belonging in the Vault, since the Vault now supports them.
November 20 2011: Added footnotes for necroposting, double posting, and trolling. Moved the exception for necroposting from the main rules page to its footnote.

Brawl Vault

The rules of the Brawl Vault gallery can be found on this thread.
Make sure to read them before submitting or reporting anything in the Vault.

Forum

Disruptive Posting

Everything from Flaming to Advertising is forbidden:

• Flaming: Directly or indirectly insulting other members.
       Examples: “You idiot”; “Anyone who believes that is a moron”; “Just shut up”; attacking someone based on race, gender, sexuality, etc.
• Trolling:¹ Posting with the sole purpose of annoying other users, provoking flames.
       Examples: Going into a person’s texture topic and saying “You suck” without offering any actual criticism; posting false information.
• Spamming: Posting worthless topics or messages that contribute nothing to the topic of the forum or thread.
       Examples: Repeatedly bumping a topic; double posting²; necroposting - making a post with no useful content in a thread that has had no other posts for over 3 weeks³; posts that consist of just emoticon(s) or text repeated over and over.

• Disruptive Behavior: Posting in a manner that makes things generally unpleasant for other users.
       Examples: Posting in ALL CAPS, in topic titles and/or messages; posting illegibly; posting topics in the wrong forum; posting images that are too large (creating horizontal scroll bars or making your post longer than a page); posting unmarked spoilers (game, movie, book, etc).
• Advertising: Encouraging users to visit other websites for personal gain. This does not include links provided when another user asks for them, but includes advertising for hacking teams.
       Advertising is allowed in signatures.
• Signatures: Images in signatures should not be more than 695 pixels wide or 250 pixels tall. You may have no more than two images in your signature; if you choose to have two, each must be at most 347x250 if they go on one line or 695x125 if they are on separate lines. Signatures generated by Brawl Vault do not count.
       Moderators have the right to remove any signature that affects the readability of the board (i.e. a signature with multiple flashing colors).

Whether a post falls under one of the above categories is not always clear and is at the discretion of the moderators.

Accounts

• You may have as many accounts as you like.
• Moderations are applied to a user, not an account. This means that any moderations you receive will apply to all of your accounts, not just the one that broke a rule.
• Creating a new account to evade a moderation will result in the new account receiving a moderation at least equal to that on your old account.

Offensive Material

• Obscene material is not allowed. We’ll permit nakedness if sexual areas are censored. Sexual acts are strictly prohibited, regardless of censoring, as are gore and any image that could be considered disturbing.
• Many slurs attacking race, sexuality, nationality, et cetera are censored. Bypassing these censors (for example, using $ instead of s) is not allowed.⁴ Note that finding a word that is not censored is not considered permission to use it.
• Using any non-censored word (i.e. “gay”) to imply an insult (i.e. “stupid”) is considered offensive.

Illegal Activity

• Linking to or asking for a ROM, ISO, music, or any other copyrighted material, or to any site that provides such material, is prohibited.
       This does not apply to files from the Brawl ISO.
       It does apply to providing music in the Music Requests section. If someone says they'll do your request if you provide the music, you must send it via PM or e-mail.
• Encouraging someone to break a law is prohibited.

All of the above rules apply equally to regular posting and PMs unless noted. (See Illegal Activity for an example of exemption for PMs.)

Warning Levels
There are five warning levels:

Level 0, Normal: This is what your average user has right now.
Level 1, Warned: No functional difference from normal, but another infraction will bump you to Level 2. Goes away after two weeks.
Level 2, Moderated: All posts must be approved by a moderator before they appear on the forum. Goes away after one week.
Level 3, Mute: Read-only. Goes away after one week.
Level 4, Banned: Cannot view the forum. May or may not go away.

The level you receive depends on the severity of the infraction and the discretion of the moderator. Your current warning level appears under your name in posts and near the bottom of your profile summary. (You don’t see anything if you’re Level 0.)

When the time on your level expires, you will return to Level 0 unless you were banned, in which case you will return to Level 1.

If you are warned, you will receive a PM directing you to your moderated post, where you’ll find a reason for your moderation. You will receive a PM when your warning level is reduced as well.

Reporting an Infraction

These rules and punishments are worthless if they are not enforced. However, moderators cannot see everything, so we need your help to keep everything orderly.

That means if you see an infraction, report it! At the end of every post, just above and to the right of the signature, you’ll find a “Report to moderator” link. Click that to let us know what’s going on, and we’ll take care of it right away.

Contesting a Moderation

If you receive a moderation and think it was unjust or have a question about it, you can use the Moderation Corner to have the moderation team address your issue.

Note that the moderation corner has its own rules that must be obeyed.

[Miacis]

Footnotes

The following posts will contain more detailed information on certain rules, for the curious or confused.

**********************************************************************

4
With the recently added option to disable censoring (Profile > Look and Layout Prefences > "Leave words uncensored"), there's no reason to censor bypass. If you want to swear, just check that box and swear away. No need to censor yourself or bypass our censor.

If you still want to self-censor, here's what you need to know to avoid getting marked for bypassing: If you can tell what the censored word is outside of context, then you've bypassed the censor.

Example: "f***" vs. "****ing tired." You can tell that the first one is the f-bomb regardless of where it appears, whereas the second one needs the extra information (-ing tired) in order to know what those *s represent. f*ck, fack, fukc and the like are also considered a censor bypass.

In other words, if you're going to censor yourself, do it as completely as our own censor does.

* A post that contains an excessive amount of swear words, censored or not, may be considered Disruptive Posting.

*When posting a link, image, video, etc. containing offensive language, write a notice to that effect before it. If it's an image, also wrap it in a spoiler tag.

*Finally, for reference, a full list of currently censored words:

fuck
cunt
nigger
faggot
nigga
bitch
dick
cock
douche
prick
asshole
douchebag
shit
fag
goddammit
goddamnit
pussy
fucking
fucker
fuckers
mother[censored]er
mother[censored]ers
mother[censored]ing

Obviously this contains a lot of offensive language, bypassing the censor so you can see what they are, so open at your own risk.

[Vyse]

2
Note on double posting:

If a Moderated user double posts, it is almost certainly not the user's fault.

Moderated users' posts go into a queue, awaiting mod approval before appearing on the forum. We can approve multiple posts at once, and if we do this, they all appear at the exact same time. Thus, if a moderated user posted in a thread more than once, it will look like (s)he double/triple/n-ple posted, though this is not actually the case. You can tell by looking at the post times: they'll all be exactly the same.

If you see this occur, still feel free to report it, and a mod will merge the posts (Moderated users can't edit their own posts -- this prevents them from getting a post approved and later editing it to contain something we didn't approve). Just know that it's not against the rules.

[Vyse]

3
Notes on necroposting:

Examples of "useful content":

• New releases/updates in your own hacking thread.
• Answering an unresolved question in Help or in a Tutorial thread.
• Contributing to a topic in Serious Discussions, per that board's more stringent definition of "contributing."

Examples of what "useful content" is not:

• Asking a question in a dead tutorial. If you want to ask a question about a dead tutorial, make a topic in the relevant Help section, link to the tutorial, and ask your question there.
• Any kind of spam.
• Things you post in a hacking thread that isn't yours. Moderators may make exceptions here.

Once someone has revived a thread with useful content, the thread is no longer dead and anything may be posted (following the other rules, of course).

Exemptions from necroposting:

• Stickied topics.
• Request threads.
• "General" threads in Off-Topic.
• Any thread in Forum Games.

[Vyse]

1
Note about trolling:

Impersonating another user is trolling. Even if it's not a full impersonation, e.g. taking just the sig or avatar. Taking a user's name, avatar, or sig and changing it to mock the user is also obviously trolling.

Anyone who does this will be warned for trolling and lose his/her profile editing privileges, perhaps indefinitely.