Celestial Lotus
Posts: 1713 Joined: 07 Mar 2011, 13:07 Location: London, UK Cash on hand: 6,832.50  Bank: 2,093.30
Title: Misunderstood
Gender: Female
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 Posted: 21 Jan 2012, 04:22
- Maturity Is Required
We all know how to let loose and have fun, but please know when you’re pushing it too far, and if that happens make sure you stop. This also means that you shouldn't start drama on the forum for ANY reason. People come here to relax and have fun, not deal with unwanted drama.
Basically, this rule is for those who don't want to act like adults. Even if you aren't yet an adult, you will be someday, and you'll need all the practice you can get. Please don't pick fights with other people, and understand that others are entitled to their own opinions, just as you are entitled to yours. If you cannot understand someone else's point of view on something, then politely bow out of the situation before an argument breaks out.
Things To Do:- Acknowlege that others have different opinions
- Be polite to everybody
- Be prepared to step out of a conversation if it becomes too intense/heated
Things To Avoid:- Name-calling
- Angry typing (such as all caps, bold lettering, etc.)
- Insulting others (this includes their beliefs, values, etc.)
- Respect Everyone
Not just the Administrators and Guardians, everyone. We expect people to act civil and respectful toward one another. Also, be open-minded when it comes to other people’s ideas and beliefs, as you would not like others to be closed off from you.
This goes hand-in-hand with the first rule. Even if you do not necessarily agree with someone (or like them), members of Midnight Lotus are required to respect others. A good thing to keep in mind is the old addage: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. If someone believes differently than you (regardless of whether it's politics or gaming), you must be able to accept that and move on; no arguing, name-calling, or slinging insults.
Things To Do:- Tell others that you may/may not agree, but be polite
- Back out of a conversation entirely if you need to
- Talk out your problems in a polite and peaceful manner
Things To Avoid:- Name-calling
- Insulting others
- Arguing
- Harassment
Harassment in any form be it in the forums or through PMs is not allowed. Please do not repeatedly hound a person for any reason, including constantly asking them to reply to a role-play (All role-players should keep their partners/groups in the loop should something come up). If you tell a person to stop harassing you and they do not quit, please bring it to the attention of an Administrator or Guardian.
This one is pretty straight-forward. If someone tells you to stop bothering them about something, to stop approaching a subject when you're talking to them, or to stop any other activity, you will respect them. If you don't, this is construed as harassment, and they have every right to report you, and you may get suspended and/or banned from Midnight Lotus.
Things To Do:- Listen to the other person(s)
- Cease an action if it's requested
- Apologize
Things To Avoid:- Start an argument on how it's not harassment
- Continue harassing the other person(s)
- Porn
We do not want to see any sort of porn, so keep it off the site. It’s not allowed in your profiles, avatars, or signatures, nor is it allowed in your posts or your threads. Artistic nudity is one thing (This must go into the Midnight Club section), but straight out porn is unacceptable. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
A good guideline to knowing whether or not something is porn: would you want your mother knowing that you were looking at it? Would you be comfortable if she was standing behind you, looking at it while you did? If you can't answer yes to both questions, then it is likely porn. This isn't a strict rule, though. If it's likely to make other people uncomfortable (and it shows excessive skin), then it's probably porn, and it shouldn't be on Midnight Lotus. When in doubt, the Admins and Mods are here to answer any questions about what is and is not considered to be porn.
Things To Do:- Censor questionable images
- Use the "spoiler" tag to hide any content that is above a PG-13 rating
- Message an Admin or Mod to find out if it is acceptable
- Provide some form of warning that it is explicit material
Things To Avoid:- Placing the material anywhere/everywhere (especially when it is not properly labeled with a rating)
- Trick other users into viewing the material
- Plagiarism
Don’t do it. We are all intelligent enough to come up with our own ideas. Plagiarism is a bannable offense and we have the right to ban you without warning if you are caught doing so. If there is a role-play that you would to revive, please ask the original creator and a Mod or Administrator before doing so.
Plagiarism is very black-and-white, in a matter of speaking. Did you write it, draw it, or create it? If you can answer yes, then you're safe. If the answer is no, then you need to obtain permission from the creator(s) before placing it anywhere else, AND you should give all credit to them for the creation of the material. If you took something from another person and edited it, then you must still give them credit for the original, but you may take credit for the changes, and only the changes.
Things To Do:- Get permission.
How to get permission: First contact the original creator. Forward the PM conversation to an Administrator or Moderator. If the original creator does not get in contact with you after you have PMed them, PM a Mod or Admin with the PM you have sent the creator and they will either approve or deny your recreation of the thread. - Create your own work
Things To Avoid:- Post work and claim it as your own
- Advertising
We are not an advertising forum, so please do not post your advertisement all over the Midnight Lotus forums. You may only post advertisements in the website section of your profile, and in your signature, if found anywhere else, you will be warned. There is absolutely no PM advertisement; this will earn you a ban. If someone comes to you with an advertisement, please forward the PMed message to an Admin or Global Mod. There is to be absolutely not advertising for porn sites, pay sites, sites that may have viruses on them, or sites with any sort of discriminatory content on it.
The only place that advertising is even remotely acceptable is under your profile, where you can enter your website. Other than that, you must use the "Affiliate With Us" link at the bottom of the forum to request permission to be advertised on Midnight Lotus.
Please note that a casual mention of a site once or twice is acceptable. For example, mentioning that you went to YouTube to find a video is fine, so long as you don't start adding YouTube to nearly everything that you write (or trying to interject it into conversations as often as possible).
Things To Do:- Request permission to advertise
- Stop yourself from mentioning other sites all the time
Things To Avoid:- Adding external links (this means that it navigates from Midnight Lotus) to everything you say
- Constantly tell others that they should go to ____ website
- Double Accounts
Do not create two accounts. There's no reason for it. If you have a sibling or someone else living in the same house who has also joined Midnight Lotus, please contact an Admin or Guardian to inform them so that the account isn't banned.
You will gain nothing by creating two accounts on Midnight Lotus. We have no rewards program (as of now) for referring users, and we would rather have one active member, than three barely-active members. Here at Midnight Lotus, we care more about having people come to our site and spending time here, and we care less about bolstering our numbers.
Things To Do:- Let an Admin or Mod know if another person in your household has joined Midnight Lotus
- Let an Admin or Mod know if you will be sharing an IP address/computer with another user on Midnight Lotus for any length of time exceeding three days
Things To Avoid:- Creating multiple accounts
- Pretending that multiple accounts are multiple people; give our intelligence some credit
- Text Talk
We expect you to use proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. We do not all speak in the form of text talk and we would like to know what you’re actually saying. Things such as “lol” are perfectly fine; however, we are a writing based community and we expect you to have a firm grasp on the English language.
Common acronyms (groups of letters that are short for something longer) are fine. You can use the spoiler to see a short list of acronyms that we'll accept. However, if your words have numbers in them, you've gone too far. If you type 'u' instead of 'you', then that's text talk. There is no limit on how long your posts can be on Midnight Lotus. We'd rather you type everything out (and spend the extra thirty seconds on it) and make it understandable. By shortening it, you make everyone else strain to understand the point you're trying to make, and then you'll have people stop responding to you so that they can avoid the headache of figuring out what you're trying to say.
Things To Do:- Approved acronyms: (remember, this is just a rough list; if you don't see it here, just be prepared to explain what it stands for each time you use it)
LOL, BRB, AFK, TTYL, BBS, ROFL, LMAO (and so on)
Things To Avoid:- T41kin9 1ik3 thi5 (no joke, this took me three minutes to type that)
- Using acronyms all the time (example: LOL BRB MIM / MIM (Mom is Mad) is not common and is just confusing)
- Dropping/adding letters to a word so that it is easier to type ('U' is not an acceptable way to write 'you')
- Saving Your Work
Midnight Lotus will not be held responsible for any lost work. We will try our best to make sure that everything is safe, but things do happen
Murphy's Law: What can go wrong, will go wrong. Please save your work on your own computer, print them out, write them out, chisel them into a rock, or however else you wish to keep them. You should not depend on the servers to keep your work for you; bad things can happen to good people. The odds are that you will never need to restore your information by using a back-up, but at Midnight Lotus, we'd rather you were over-prepared, instead of under-prepared. And, please note, if you lose your work, we are not to be blamed for it. We told you to save it outside of Midnight Lotus.
Things To Do:- Save your work (MS Word, Open Office, paper, heiroglyphics, however you wish)
Things To Avoid:- Depending on the grace of the almighty internet to keep your stuff safe
- Double Posting
The only sections of ML that allow double posting are the Writer' Cove, Artist' Peak, Hangout Hut, Reality Strikes, and The Plot Spot forums, but do NOT post just to “bump” a topic, there should be no posts with the word “bump” in it unless being used in a sentence. If you want to add more to what you have said in a post, simply edit it. Furthermore, double posting in a role-play is not permitted. If you have more than one character, simply wait until the next person posts.
Fairly simple. The only time you are allowed to double post is when you're talking to yourself (Writers' Cove, Artists' Peak), or when there has been an extended silence in an OOC (out of character / non-roleplay) thread that you wish to comment in. If you have any doubts about whether or not double posting is allowed, feel free to ask a Mod, and they will let you know if you can double post.
Things To Do:- Ask Mods to find out what is and is not okay
- Double post in: Writers' Cove, Artists' Peak, Hangout Hut, Reality Strikes, The Plot Spot
Things To Avoid:- Double post in: Any role-play forum or thread
- Spam
Please don’t post unwanted information around the boards. Depending on the offense, you may be banned without warning. Things such as sexual or disgusting photos will get your permanently banned without warning.
Can someone reply to it and keep the conversation alive? Is it annoying and likely to annoy other people? Consider the content of what you're posting before you actually post it. If you think that it is pointless information that does not further the topic of the conversation, then it is spam. If it is unrelated to the topic of conversation and/or the thread's purpose, it is spam. Most spam offenses will come with a warning, although severe cases of it will result in more severe action.
Things To Do:- Keep threads on-topic
- Limit how often you say the same thing (saying "go to YouTube" in every thread is spam)
Things To Avoid:- Annoying everybody
- Distracting people from the current conversation and/or the thread topic
- Swearing
Swearing must be censored in threads below the 'M' rating. All profanity must be marked out by at least two symbols that are not indicative of the letter they are replacing. In other words, using $ to replace an S or 4 to replace an A will not count as having marked out those characters. The recommended method is to use a pair of asterisks, such as: fu**, a**, etc.
While we are fairly forgiving on what is considered profanity, it is advised to use one's best judgment when deciding whether to mark out characters in a given term. For the purpose of this rule, "Hell" and "damn" are not considered profanity due to their use as biblical terms.
If it would make your childhood teacher grimace, then you shouldn't post the full word. When in doubt, you are more than welcome to "bleep" out a word. We'd rather you sensor a word that didn't need sensoring, than to have you leave a word uncensored (and thus offending those who don't want to read profanity).
Things To Do:- Use two or more consecutive asterisks (consecutive: next to each other; asterisks are the * symbol) on any letters (excluding the first one)
Things To Avoid:- Leave your profanity uncensored
- Signatures
Signatures are to be no bigger than 500 x 150 pixels, while avatars can be no bigger than 150 x 200 pixels. You have a five (5) pixel cushion, however. Members may also promote their blogs, Deviart, and websites in their signature as long as it is not another role-play site as stated previously.
If you don't know the dimensions of your current signature, try saving it. Does it cut off around the edges? Then it's too large, and you'll need to resize it. Photobucket, for example, allows you to resize images, and it will also tell you the dimensions of your images, in case you weren't sure how large they were.
Things To Do:- Resize large images
- See if your signature is obnoxious when you post in a thread (and fix it, if it is annoyingly large)
Things To Avoid:- Massive amounts of text
- Images that are larger than the aforementioned dimensions
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