GENERAL RULES,

[*neliel quincee patrick!]

GENERAL SITE RULES

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●● respect

One of the key aspects to any successful site is for everyone to follow a little something called respect. Respect, that is, for the forum itself as a whole, meaning; it’s rules, it’s staff, it’s foundations and the members. Failure to uphold a certain amount of respect for these things shall not be tolerated. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we’re asking you to shove a stick up your ass and act every bit the proper gentleman or lady, and neither are we asking you to completely hold back your opinions and slap a forced smile on your face. We’re simply asking you to follow the rules to a sensible degree; not to argue or go against the staff member; to not degrade the original storyline of the site, nor any of the information/history posts; and to treat fellow members as you would wish to be treated.

Falling into this category rule of respect is to not discriminate a person because of their gender, their race, their culture, their religion, their beliefs, their intelligence, their sexual orientation, and so forth. Of course, we all know as mature people that there are times when this behavior is used in a joking matter and the like; we understand that, we accept that, and it isn’t frowned upon so long as you don’t overstep the boundaries of this type of joking to an extent where you are going to offend people. Always be mindful of others around you, and don’t think that the world only revolves around you. Do not abuse this leniency. And if you feel that you have been disrespected and a staff member didn’t witness it, contact one about the problem.

●● mature forum

No, by “mature forum” we do not intend to mean that this is one of those cybering based sites, or a site full of middle aged members. Rather, we mean to say that this is a forum set at role players who have a good head on their shoulders with at least a moderate amount of intelligence. ATE is an intermediate to advanced role playing forum that isn’t against having violence, coarse language, alcohol abuse, a little nudity, maybe some minor smut (and you’re getting our drift now, right?) in it’s contents. So before you join, be sure that you’re going to be able to handle all of that and not be offended. ATE welcomes mature people, not whiny little brats who should probably just be playing Neopets or some sort of online game with cute little pictures.

Also, by mature people, we not only mean the people who can handle the above stated acts, but also people who aren’t… well; drama queens/kings, chronic liars, tasteless ego-maniacs who aren’t amusing in the good way, Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu role players, grammatically challenged newbs, the blind when it comes to obviousness, etcetera, etcetera. Why is that, you ask? Because those kinds of people who were listed and the many who were left out are, simply, annoying. And no one wants to have annoying members on a site because it’s going to lead to mockery which will lead to discrimination which will all, then, eventually just turn into a big bitch fest. And sure, those can be fun once in a while, but not for the site staff, or the site’s image itself. So please, if you’re not a mature person, don’t join this site.

●● theft

One of the most disheartening things for anyone – site creator, graphic designer, an everyday role player – is when someone steals your ideas, your images, your characters. This can be in any form; whether it’s taking suspiciously too much influence from what we’ve done and not giving credit or even asking us, or icons/avatars that you’ve ‘borrowed’, or an original character concept… it bites, it really does. Maybe it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to you when you’re taking down notes as you look at the site’s skin and see what you can take and subtly make your own version, or if you’re copying and pasting that relationship chart into a word document, or changing a few very minor things to the set of rules you just stole – but trust us, it’s a very big thing to the people you’re stealing/ripping/copying off of. And in most cases, it’s considered illegal.

We take thievery, however little or big it is, very seriously. So don’t bring your stolen material to this site. Don’t copy off of it’s ideas, the characters on it, the layout. Keep your grubby little hands off, find some originality and stick to your own style.

●● warnings & bans

When the time comes that someone has broken the rules or disobeyed a direct order/advisement of a staff member, or in cases where it is seen fit to, action will be taken. The severity of the action taken will be dependent on exactly what you have done. Warnings will typically be given to people who have been constantly abusing the rules that aren’t exactly dire. If the person continues to carry on with their act, they will receive more warnings; once they reach three, they shall be banned for an amount of time, depending on how bad the abusing of the rules were and the level of annoyingness that it was executed in.

Instant bans will be given to people to have seriously broken the rules, for however long or if it is permanent depends on the exact severity of the offense. Multiple offenders of this nature shall be permanently banned if they do it again. Do not argue with the admins decision to ban you, do not change your IP addresses because you’re, “so smart and awesome like that, I can do whatever I want, and I’m going to spam you now!” Because that will just amuse us, and we’ll have a big laugh before using our ultimate powers to delete, delete, delete.

●● joining & accounts

If you join ATE, join because you’re interested in the site, you like it’s storyline, and you’re going to actually be role playing on it. If you join just because the site looked pretty and really detailed, and then you end up not liking the plot or something of the sort, you’re going to leave, and that’s going to leave accounts that staff have to go and sweep up into the compost heap. And that just wastes everyone’s time, right? Right. So, read through the important information before joining the site and know what you’re getting yourself into. You wouldn’t walk down a dark alley way at night in a neighbourhood with a bad reputation for thugs and rapists, just because you saw something shiny glinting in the dark, would you? We would hope you don’t. So don’t do it with ATE.

Secondly, accounts! It is preferred that you only have one account with a maximum of four characters on it. However, it does make everything look a lot more tidier and organized if you make separate accounts for separate characters. But, if these second, third, fourth accounts aren’t logged into everyday, it’s going to make the site look more untidy and even a little inactive. So if you’re not going to be logging into these other accounts regularly, just stick to one account with, at the most, four characters.

●● activity/inactivity

On ATE, you’re going to find that things demand a certain level of order and organization. Inactive members, characters and the like aren’t really going to help organization all that much, are they? No, of course not. So what us staff members do when we have the time is moderate and check that members are still active, coming on at least every three or so days, and posting a couple of times a week – preferably in character, but these posts can be in the OOC boards, as well. If we see that accounts have been in active for two weeks, they shall be deleted, and the character(s) of the account shall be moved to a specific board for ‘safekeeping’, should the member whose account was deleted comes back.

We’re not going to be too demanding of members and say that they must be posting everyday and that they must be up to date with all the happenings, and be role-playing in three or so threads. All that we’re asking of you is to at least put a little effort into coming onto the site here and there, posting in character at the very least, once a week, and so on. If you’re unable to do this due to certain circumstances, then be sure to post a notice in the away board, as if you do disappear for a while, chances of your account still being here when you get because will be unlikely.

●● note

Please note that at anytime these rules can be subject to changes, additions, and removals. Should this happen you will all be notified by a mass PM and also in updates of the site. If you have a rather important problem with any of these rules, or you see something wrong about them and your reasoning behind that is not petty, then please do PM the head admin, Allie.