Desert Hideout Forums

So you wanna sign up for the forums page and interact with other fans eh? Well, first off, you'd better go over these rules. Some are purely preferential, while others are in place because some people's mommas didn't raise them right.

Many of these rules were borrowed from the Daizenshuu EX Forums because I admire how that forum is run. There's a few rules I've changed because I disagree with them personally, but that's my prerogative here.

MESSAGE BOARD RULES:

By signing up for and posting on the forum, you agree to these rules.

A. GENERAL RULES

RULE # 1: GRAMMAR
You're typing on a message board. You want people to understand what you're saying. Be sure to use proper sentence structure when you write. Also, be sure you're adding in punctuation and spacing where appropriate. Statements end with periods. Questions end with question marks. There's a space in between sentences. You don't want to look like an idiot, and we don't want you to make us look like idiots for allowing you to post that way! Please also put a paragraph break between thoughts.

RULE # 2: NO NECRO-POSTING
If you see a thread has been inactive for a while (weeks, even months)... don't reply to it. What that does is knock it all the way back up to the top of the forum. This confuses us and other visitors because we've forgotten about the thread, by now, and so it seems like there's this new thread with TONS of posts we need to go through! This is especially hard on moderators because we end up re-reading threads that we've already gone through! If you feel it's really important, don't be afraid to just start a new thread (with its own new discussion). Chances are, if you respond to an old one, we won't know what the heck you're talking about!

RULE # 3: "ESSENTIAL" POSTING
You don't need to have a post in every thread. When you first sign up, you may be tempted to go through every single thread and add in something to get your two cents in. Before you post, ask yourself... are you offering anything new to the conversation that hasn't come before? Are you providing information others may not know? If the answer is "no" to either of these questions, re-evaluate whether or not you should reply. Saying nothing other than "I agree" or "Yes" isn't really helping anyone. A post that is only one line long is not a post. If you don't have more than that to say, you don't have ANYTHING to say. Furthermore, posting some kind of (non)"witty" image ("A Wizard Did It" or "Big Ban Attack", etc.) is also not a post. Having our moderators fish through a topic every time you update only to find a two word answer gets us very irritable.

RULE # 4: NO "OFF-TOPIC" CONVERSATIONS / "BACK-AND-FORTHS"
There's no need to have (completely unrelated) personal conversations in the middle of threads. PM one another if need be, but stay on-topic otherwise.

RULE # 5: ATTITUDE & EMPHASIS
The point of a message board is to interact with other members and share your thoughts and interests. In other words, it's supposed to be an enjoyable time. How often have you seen message boards that are nothing more than petty, hate-filled debates and egotistical one-upmanships backed by cliques? We don't want that here.

The best way to keep that time enjoyable is to treat your fellow members with courtesy and respect. No matter what your personal philosophy is, here it will be "Respect your fellow man." Any flaming, trolling, antagonism, or belligerence will be dealt with severely.

RULE # 6 FAMILY FRIENDLY

Anime and video games are located on varying levels of everyone's moral compass. However, this will be as relatively family friendly a forum as possible. Please mind your topics, expressions and so forth. Cursing, while not forbidden, should be kept to a minimum, mostly to emphasize one's point and keep the meaning of the word fresh. There will be absolutely NO PORN, HENTAI, YAOI, YURI, SHONEN-AI, SHOJO-AI, ETC.

Always keep in mind the varying ages, beliefs, and customs that can and probably will be involved in this board. Saying "They just need to suck it up" etc. is grossly selfish. While this board isn't necessarily PC (God forbid), it does bear in mind the golden rule "Treat others the way you wish to be treated".

RULE # 7: NO BOOTLEGGING
We do not condone bootlegging. We don't want to hear about your bootleg DVDs. We don't want to hear about how many episodes you've downloaded. We don't want to hear about how many 320 kbps MP3s you've collected. When it comes down to it, DBZ has had a very rough uprising in various countries, but we're finally at the point where we can legally purchase the things we want and support our fandom. None of us want to hear about anything that goes against this. If you're an actual fan of the property, you pay for things you want. That's the end of the story.

RULE # 8: PLUGGING / SPAMMING
There is a dedicated section for sharing your website with other members. Use it and it only, unless something related to sharing your site comes up in the course of normal topic discussion. Note that the site-sharing section it is only reserved for active members. Signing up and immediately plugging your site is a big no-no and will be deleted on sight. Besides, people will be more open to consider visiting your site if they're familiar with you than they would cold, mindless spamming. We delete spam here the same way we do in the junk folders for our email: with extreme prejudice.

RULE # 9: AVATARS / SIGNATURES
Needless to say, no porn in your avatars, please. Keep them tasteful. Also, they may not exceed 80x80 pixels. Please keep images out of your sigs. They cause unnecessary bandwidth and scrolling, which can he hard on users that still have slower internet connections. Any signature images seen will be removed immediately. Please keep signatures brief (4-5 lines of text max). It just makes scrolling through posts an obnoxious chore when signatures are three paragraphs of song lyrics and tripe.

RULE # 10: ACCOUNTS
You are to have but a single account on the forum. This keeps the database clean, and keeps everyone else free from confusion. If you have problems with your account (such as activation or password changes), please e-mail us and we will be happy to fix any problems. Multiple accounts will be immediately deleted.

RULE # 11: REMEMBER THE MODERATORS
Keep in mind that you are not a moderator. While a helpful and friendly reminders to some of our new members about certain posting habits is appreciated and welcomed, please do not go around continuously "enforcing" the rules on your own. Leave the moderation to the moderators, and the moderators alone.

RULE # 12: RULES SUBJECT TO CHANGE
These rules can be changed, added to, deleted, etc. at any time. The rules are not necessarily to be taken literally, and are always up to interpretation by the administrators and moderators, only. Arguing against this won't help your cause, trust me ^_~.

B. SPECIFIC AREA RULES

RULE # 13. CHRISTIAN CORNER ETHICS
The Christian Corner is supposed to be a special area set aside for discussion. It is not a place to have religious wars, attack or bash any particular group or doctrine, or "shoot your wounded". Biblical truth, morals and absolutes will be upheld. Laws of man (i.e. what your church/family does) are second, but will not be slandered.
Christians and non-christians alike may discuss and debate differences in doctrine, faiths, experiences and come to logical conclusions. Christ never slandered those who were genuinely seeking truth and had an incorrect or incomplete view. He only shot down the self-interested.

RULE # 14. NO ROLEPLAYING
While we allow discussion of original characters and stories, this is not a roleplaying forum. The Moderators have enough work filtering regular posts. It's much worse having to go through a two page typed novella where the characters may or may not "bump uglies" at the end (Remember, Family Friendly). There's plenty of other RP forums out there. We ask that you simply don't do it here.

By signing up and posting in this forum, you agree to these rules