The principle of the S2B forums is to weed out idiots while maximizing freedom of speech for the more intelligent members for serious and thoughtful discussions. Rules of Thumb 003) DON'T BE STUPID ZERO tolerence against stupidity, intentional or otherwise. NO exemption on "friendly" idiots. NO exemption on younger members. DON'T pretend to be stupid. DON'T talk like a turd. The staff will not waste time distinguishing between real and fake stupidity. This also applies to stupid topics - I.e, generic flash games and whatnot that you can find anywhere on the internet, or subjects that are generally pointless to discuss. This is a board for mature and interesting discussion, not a playground for people discovering the internet for the first time. 006) DON'T BE ANNOYING NO drama queening. NO attention whoring. NO fit-throwing. NO whining like a 10-year-old kiddo. The Rules 010) DON'T SPAM NO pointless, silly or stupid posts or polls. NO excessive amount of advertising. NO steering topics off-track with irrelevant drivel. NO getting in the way with useless junk within a serious discussion. This includes trolling, and making topics that exploit loopholes. 020) NO FAKE DISCOVERIES NO reporting "discoveries" that are already covered on S2B or other major sites (see links). NO stating the obvious. NO reporting hoaxes, hacks, or simply misinformation as real (it's YOUR responsibility to verify). Read the Summary for a quick list of common knowledge, for a start. Search the forums for the subject you are about to report on. When in doubt, stay away from the word "discovery" at all cost. 030) NO HOLLOW THEORIES/IDEAS NO one-liner "theories". NO theorizing on things that have been (dis)proven as facts. All theories and ideas must be supported by facts and elaborated with reasons. The burden of proof is on YOUR side to support the theory, not on ours to debunk it. Generally, opinionated theories are obsolete as they've been replaced by fact-oriented research. DO NOT start any theory unless you know what you're talking about. Nothing irks us more than seeing a newbie marching in and pulling far-fetched theories out of his ass! 040) NO BULLSHITTING Back up all your claims with evidence, especially when involving discoveries/experiences with other prototypes. DO NOT start a topic until evidence is ready to be shown to the public. 050) SWEARING IS ALLOWED Censorship sucks. Don't bitch about it. 060) FLAMING IS ALLOWED You're more than welcome to point it out when someone is acting like a dumbass. Sarcasm is allowed. However DON'T make your sole purpose here making the place unpleasant (I.e. NO trolling). Note: This rule does NOT allow you to "flame" in retarded ways: rules 003 and 006 still apply. In case of being flamed, you have the freedom of choice to rebut or ignore it. The staff will not intervene unless it starts to affect the general operation of the board (e.g. same kind of flaming spilling into multiple topics). If you're the topic starter and you see your topic being ruined by off-topic flames, feel free to ask a staffer to split away the irrelevant posts. AMENDMENT: Flaming is one thing, but topics constantly breaking out into arbitrary and pointless flamewars WILL be trashed, and the participants WILL be punished. NO EXCEPTIONS. So before you start thinking you can post however you want, think again - you can't. Flame smartly and happy 0wnage! 070) NO ADULT IMAGERY IN AVATAR OR SIG Adult imagery is allowed in topics when used along with the "18+" post icon. Do not convert a non-porn topic into porn. 080) NO DIGUSTING PICTURES DON'T post crap like deformed bodies, corpses and feces. If you must, give a clearly-labeled link instead. 090) DON'T MESS WITH THE SITE OR BOARD Hacking, DoS attacks, table stretching, overly huge avatar/sig, malicious scripts and HTML tags, and other acts that interfere with the normal operation of the site is obviously NOT tolerated. 100) MAXIMUM 2 ACCOUNTS PER IP Extra accounts may be deleted ALONG WITH the original ones without warning. NO exemption on "they are my brothers" etc. The clone account is still subjected to all rules, and is IP bannable. Trial Members or Pending Approvals CANNOT have any clone accounts under any circumstances. 110) NO CHATTING NO one liners. NO using the message board as a chat room. This is not IRC, AIM, MSN, or ICQ. If you don't know the difference between a "message board" and a "chat room", you do NOT belong here. 120) NO RELAYING NO relaying banned people's message onto the board (e.g. copy and paste). NO sharing accounts with banned people. NO facilitating banned people to dodge the ban. Helping unauthorized people to gain access to the board is considered as a security risk, and violators will be removed. This also applies to approved members relaying for trial members to avoid using posts, or those in pending approval. 130) BASIC INTERNET ETIQUETTE APPLIES Such as speaking proper English, posting in the correct forum, using edit instead of double posting, etc. 140) COMPLY WITH ADMIN'S INSTRUCTIONS Comply with any additional requests and instructions given by an admin. For example, if an admin tells you to remove certain element from your posts, remove it, period. Finally, relax, don't be too uptight, and have fun. Rules are to be followed The moment you break a rule is the moment you automatically forfeit the privilege of being here. You are not "entitled" a second chance, and you should not expect one to be given automatically. Failure to follow the rules, intentionally or otherwise, may result in a permanent ban. "Social status" such as postcount, usergroup, gender, popularity or seniority play NO role in the degree you may bend/break the rules over other members - although you're welcome to test at your expense. Any "test" or "experiment" on the boundary of the rules will be considered as a consented gambling on your membership - don't bitch at us if you lose, and don't bitch at us if someone else wins, either. Rules or guidelines? Following all the rules increases, but never guarantees, your chance of staying here. Breaking any of the rules reduces, but not necessarily immediately eliminates, your chance of staying here. Nothing is guaranteed. Rules or guidelines? Your call. Staff has the final say The staff determines whether a rule is broken, and the staff determines what reaction is needed. This is not a democracy. You don't have a right to be here; your access is a privilege. The staff can deny access to anyone at anytime. We decide, and can change, how this place is run as we see fit. Exceptions may be made solely at the our discretion. This is a dictatorship. Disagreement with staff's actions Any opinions on recent events should go into Forum Affairs. You have the freedom of speech to disagree, but you may not take actions to nullify or override the staff's administrative decisions (e.g. helping ban/PA dodge). Dead issue should stay dead. We don't pledge to re-consider every settled issue every time it is annoyingly raised again. You can suggest changes to the rules! Please post any opinions of the rules in Forum Affairs. Until/Unless the rules are revised, you are still expected to follow the current set of rules, even if you don't agree with them. Staff Recruiting Unless otherwise stated, we are not recruiting for staff at this moment. You'll be contacted if you're needed. Do not ask to be a staffer. If you ask, I'll assume you didn't even read this topic and thus are not suitable to be a staffer.
