- GENERAL SITE RULES

[pudding !]

GENERAL RULES,

• 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, its staff, its foundations and the members. Failure to uphold a certain amount of respect for these things shall not be tolerated. 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.
• 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, and your characters. 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. 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. Repeat offenders of this nature shall be permanently banned if they do it again.
• 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. UD 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. Prelude welcomes mature people, not whiny little brats who should probably just be playing Neopets or some sort of online game with cute little pictures.
• ACCOUNTS – For the sake of organization, we ask that when you join, join with a name relevant to your character – either their last or first name, or the name you yourself go by online. When you’ve joined, change your name in your profile to that of your characters in cap locks, with their last name first and their given name last. Also, there’s only one character to each account, and a maximum of six accounts to one person.
• ACTIVITY – While we’re not going to ask you to be on every waking minute of the day, we do ask that you not join the forum and never do anything after that with the account. We don’t want that sort of clutter. After making an account, please do your best to get a character up and following that, contribute to the community.

GRAPHICS RULES,

• SIZE LIMITS – Please ensure any images you use on the site are no wider than 500 pixels. There is no limit on height for general use of graphics around the site, however don’t go overboard with it in your signatures.
• CONTENT – Don’t include excessively inappropriate imagery in any of the graphics you use on UD. We will accept that in some cases it is amusing and most people can appreciate it as a cheap laugh or two, but please keep mindful of others with the content.
• QUALITY – We don’t want UD looking like crap, to be kind of blunt. So don’t use bad quality graphics if you can help it. Be tasteful. A signature made from a noise ridden, horrible looking picture, with bright green text in a supposedly fancy font most often than not look absolutely horrible. Please, if you can’t obtain nice graphics, request it in the appropriate board on the site, and someone will whip a nice signature or post header up for you.
• FACECLAIM – Stick to the faceclaim you chose for your character (which was approved), and do not use another faceclaim for the images in your signature.

POSTING RULES,

• POST COUNT – We’re asking that you at least average three hundred words a post here on UD. Everyone has their days, sure, but it’s not hard to get up three hundred words even on the very horrid days.
• CODING & FORMATTING - Generally, these days, we’re all UBBC/coding for posts friendly, right? Right. Everyone’s using it. It makes our posts look pretty. And pretty posts are all the rage. However, sometimes people abuse the coding and formatting of their posts. And this is where we step in to tell you lot about what not to do when you’re copying and pasting, and clicking on the blockquote button. Firstly, never center align your whole post. Header concoctions and all are fine to be centered, hell; sometimes people might even center speech in the post. But aligning the whole post in the center? That goes in the ‘do not’ section. As for colorizing, it’s not recommended, but it’s moderately allowed. Just make sure that you don’t blend anything into the forum skin, or use colours that are going to blind people. Fluro limegreen is a sexy colour, sure, but it’d just be complete murder if you used it for the whole post. Bolding should just be used for speech in a post, or the header concoctions. Italicizing should be for dream sequences and thoughts.
• GSP – Grammar. Spelling. Punctuation. Love these words, know these words, eat these words. Keep them in mind constantly and do not stray far from them. We all make mistakes here and there, we know that. But don’t be making them constantly. Microsoft Word (or Open Office, google it) are your friends.
• MATURE CONTENT – We’re a mature site, we can handle a bit of the juicy stuff. However some of it doesn’t really comply with Proboards TOS, so don’t go overboard on it. Hardcore sex? Fade to black before that happens, and if you really want to continue it, do it over PMs. Otherwise, drugs, murder, swearing and everything is fine with us.