Forum rules

[ninwa]

These rules apply to general behaviour on the forums. They are most definitely not set in stone, so please feel free to make suggestions and comments.

Zero Tolerance Policies

• ATAR Notes (AN) will always be a safe community environment for all denominations of society. This means no racism, homophobia, or discrimination of any kind. Any comments making mass generalisations on the basis of sex, race, religion, or sexual preference must be supported by citable empirical evidence.
• Everyone is entitled to privacy. If you reveal any identifying details about another member against their will, you will be instantly banned. That includes surnames, e-mails, phone numbers, addresses etc.
  Users must not post private correspondence (PMs, emails, etc.) or transcripts of private conversations unless all parties identified in the correspondence consent to the posting of the private correspondence.
• Do not attempt to impersonate other users, especially staff.
• Do not target and downvote the posts of a specific member without reason.

First offence: 3 day to one week ban depending on severity of offence.
Second offence: permanent ban.


Forum Signatures

Forum signatures must be of a reasonable length, be non-disruptive and abide by other rules stipulated in the CoC.
In determining a 'reasonable' signature length, the following limits apply:

• a limit of 2 static images OR 1 animated image;
• an image resolution of no more than 500 pixels wide and 150 pixels high; and
• a combined file size of 100 kilobytes (kB).

These limits do not apply for images generated by the LaTeX generator on this forum. However, excess use of this will be dealt with in the same way.
Excessive use of text, hyperlinks or other elements in signatures will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Violations of this rule may result in:

• a warning;
• immediate removal of the image;
• a forum ban of up to 2 weeks (generally only in the case of persistent abuse);
• permanent forum ban (generally only in the case of persistent and antagonistic abuse of this part of the code); or
• any combination of the above at moderator discretion.

Forum Avatars

Avatars must be appropriate for work (i.e. your boss wouldn't fire you if she/he found you looking at the picture). This means no pornographic images or those with prominent swearing, etc.

First offence: such avatars will be deleted and the user warned.
Second offence: warning ban of up to 1 week.
Third offence: permanent ban.


Account Usage

• If you provide the password to your account to someone else, you will be responsible for anything they do under your account.
  For example, if the person violates the Code of Conduct under your account and attracts a permanent ban, said ban will not be lifted just because you did not personally commit the violation.
• Do not make multiple accounts unless you have a valid reason for doing so. In that case, please PM a moderator or admin. If found, the second account will be deleted.
• Attempts to access another member's account without their permission will be met with a ban of at least 2 weeks.

Bans

• Ban evasion is not allowed.
  (a) Any attempts at evading a ban (e.g. creating a new account, using a proxy) will attract a longer ban of at least twice the length of the original ban.
  (b) A member who lends their account to assist a banned member to evade their ban will be placed under a ban of the same length as the banned member.
• The moderator or administrator responsible for handing out a ban will leave contact details in the ban message. You may dispute the ban if you feel it was unfairly given. Should the moderator/administrator still feel that the ban was warranted, this decision will be final.

Note: you will NEVER be banned purely for expressing an opinion that goes contrary to that of a moderator or an administrator.

See also: IMPORTANT: New policy regarding discussions of organisations

[b^3]

Looks good.

Excessive use of text, hyperlinks or other elements in signatures will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

What exactly do you mean by excessive use? i.e. my sig ok?

[ninwa]

It's been brought to my attention that recently there have been some downvote brigades going around - groups of members targeting certain people and downvoting all of their posts for no particular reason.

This is a reminder that this amounts to (a highly childish form of) bullying, and that we have a rule for this:

Zero Tolerance Policies

• Do not target and downvote the posts of a specific member without reason.

First offence: 3 day to one week ban depending on severity of offence.
Second offence: permanent ban.

Temporary bans have been issued to the most serious offenders, and if I see it happening again I won't hesitate to hand out permanent bans.