Policies & Guidelines for Posting on this Forum

Welcome to the Guild of Healers forum. Please take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the following rules and guidelines. They are posted to make everyone's stay here more enjoyable:

1. Forum Administrators and Moderators are here to assist the forum. Should a situation arise between individuals that cannot be resolved by private messaging or email, Moderators and Admins can be PM'd or emailed in an attempt to resolve the problem. Please refrain from settling scores publicly. Public postings of such issues will be removed from the forums.
Please use the report post function if you feel the forum rules aren’t followed, the Moderators want to be notified of your concerns.

In addition, in the event of a problem or a question arising concerning a moderation action, any and all inquiries must take place by PM or email. Posting of moderation disputes on the forum will be grounds for the Administrator to warn, suspend, and then permanently close an account. Reposting a deleted topic will be grounds for immediate and permanent banning.

2. Before opening a new thread, please check if a recent thread on the same topic already exists. Duplicate Topics will be merged, locked and/or deleted in an effort to relieve forum clutter.

3. This is a family friendly forum. Profanity is not allowed, neither is intentionally misspelling profane words, masking them in abbreviations, masking them with BBCode, or masking them with stars and other nonsense characters (i.e. $*&%@#!). This may be grounds for immediate and permanent banning.

4. Spam, which is defined as posts which do not fit the topic in question, excessive posting (posting multiple times in succession within the same topic), or cross posting (posting the same message in multiple topics), are not allowed on the GoH forums. Moderators and Administrators, at their sole discretion will warn, suspend, and then permanently close an account which continues to post 'spam' on the message forums. This extends to posts, signatures and accounts with the sole purpose to spam the forums via advertising.
Do not use the forum functions in a way that might overload the forum software, like excessive nesting or very wide images.

5. Trolling and flaming (including ‘yelling’), which we define as posts or threads which knowingly lead to overly strong negative and emotional responses are not allowed on the GOH forums. Moderators and Administrators, at their sole discretion will warn, suspend, and then permanently close an account which continues to 'troll' or ‘flame’ on the message forums. Because this forum, as a forum about healing, is meant to be a place for positive, helpful, and encouraging discussions, we have a lower acceptance threshold for any posts that suggest they are meant to instigate heated debate or conflict.

6. The Guild of Healers have a zero tolerance policy for harassment on the forums. You may not harass another forum user or users in any language. Making a threat against another user or users in the forums is also expressly prohibited. You may not use any sexually explicit, suggestive, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language. This includes, but is not limited to, any speech, actions or links dealing with cultural, political, or religious beliefs. This applies to any speech, actions or links dealing with sexual orientation, and applies to any language. Failure to abide by this rule is grounds for immediate and permanent account closure.
If you are being harassed on the forums, please PM an administrator and send them a screenshot of the private message you received.

7. Copyrights should be respected. Do not mention hacked or stolen software or discuss hacks or exploits on the boards.

8. Multiple accounts per users are allowed only for the purpose of character-based interaction and/or storytelling. Character accounts created for griefing, trolling, circumventing bans or any other malicious behavior will be immediately deactivated, and the character and account owner are subject to deletion and/or banning.

9. Signatures and avatars must adhere to the guidelines laid out by the administrators in this topic* (below). Failure to abide by these guidelines will result in your signature or avatar being removed, and you will be warned. Failure to comply with these guidelines a second time will result in a one-week suspension, with your avatar or signature removed. A third infraction will result in your account being banned.

*
• All other forum rules apply to signature, banner [and avatar] content.
• You are allowed one image in your signature which is not to exceed a width of 500 pixels and a height of 100 (500x100).
• 500x100 does not mean 500x115. The absolute outer max height is 100, and the absolute outer width is 500 (We check...).
• Signature images aren't regulated by the area of size they take up. Because your image is shorter in one direction doesn't mean you can "make up" for lost space in another direction.
• You are allowed one line of text at the regular size (this size) aside from an image within your signature. This does not mean another image.
• If you choose not to use an image, you may fill up the equivalent space with lines of text, however very large text is discouraged and you may be asked to change it.
• Code Tags should not be used in your signature area, as well as excessively flashing or moving images.