Alright, so I have seen a few boards like this, and it's prompted me to post and ask about my own rules. I have been told they are a little... Intense? Any opinions and suggestions are needed. I find it so hard to have rules that are user-friendly but say all I want to say... Maybe I'm just fussy....


My site is a PB site, ignore the icky coding...

Okay, first off your rules are very long. While there are plenty of people like you and me that will be good little role players and read through the entire thing, there are always those who won't. Trim it down and be concise - make it a simple list if you have to. (Don't worry, I was definitely guilty of this when I wrote my first set of rules!)

Please don't joke like this - I can just hear someone complaining when you wack'em with a warning, "but you said you weren't nazis!" Being a fun and friendly admin is definitely good, but the rules aren't the best place for joking. (I've been guilty here as well. :sweat: )

Now that's a little overboard. While images are nice and neat, some people will feel turned off of your board because it's mandatory, and there are also people who don't like to use character images for whatever reason. What I would really be worried about is the size of the images and what goes in them.

Nothing wrong here except some syntax I think - did you mean "on this site"?


Overall the rules are specific and clearly state what you expect of your members. The only real problem is that frequently you say in a lot of words what could be said in a few.

Oh, hahaha. Yeah.

I tend to speak a lot of junk to say very little. It's a fault of mine. eheheheh... I ramble a lot, which works for posts because you get a lot of character insites but not in rules hey?

As for the joking, yeah, I see what you mean. I suppose I tend to have an odd sense of humour that comes through at the worst times.

Anyway, thanks for you opinion (and the pick-up of my typo). I shall consider it when I re-wrire my rules.

Hehe, don't worry - I do the exact same thing some times. :sweat:

Yeah, I'm sorry, but I got into it, then I just kinda.. failed at reading the rules. They're way too long. I struggle to read rules a lot anyway, because I tend to just mind my own business anyway without any rule breaking, and I find them superfluous to my cause, BUT, others are just gonna go WHOA LOTSA EFFORT. and either not read after joining, or think there are too many rules and not join. Simple as that.

I stopped reading right here. Why? Because isn't "the most important rule" supposed to be something along the lines of have fun because this is a game rather than we will rip your lungs out if you don't post 17481578137812478 words? Or at least it should be something reasonable like don't spam our board with pr0n.

I really don't see how you can label your site literate. Particularly "literate to advanced." If you're really going to do the whole "I need to make my site advanced" thing, at least keep it as just plain "advanced" or change it to "intermediate to advanced." [/pet peeve]

There's no real order to those rules other than the headings. You seem to have written them as you thought up the ideas.

Also, you reiterated the "respect your fellow members" idea at least three times. Really, you just need to write that everyone on the site deserves respect.

Specific changes I'd think about:

It doesn't follow that the admins deserve anyone's respect just because they managed to make a roleplay board. They deserve respect when they're behaving responsibly and providing a fun environment for the members. Most of this paragraph sounds like a power trip in the making.

All you need is to say is that since the Admins will investigate both sides of any disagreements, their word is final and please not to argue with them once a decision has been made.

MA is an actual rating in Australia (& NZ?). We have G, PG, M, MA & R ratings. So if you mean R, you might want to change it to R since that's pretty universal.

If you're going to have rules about creativity, I really hope you have some documentation about how to write a creative post somewhere.

And you might want to put the registration details at the top, because if people get bored reading the rules (as I did), at least they'll have read that part.

That for me is enough to say screw a forum. Besides the imminent gender confusion amongst members, it tells folks like me that you all are RP Robots before people, which is a no-no. Besides, if a person cannot illustrate gender within RP (unless of course they're purposely playing one of those gender confused characters), then they fail.

Also, who're you to tell me what to do with my OOC information? If I wanna proclaim to the world that I'm a guy that plays female characters, I will do so.

@,@

Yada...?

"..some attempt to thinK..." If I was a jerk, I'd point out the irony. xP

Do you have some way of moderating how many posts a person makes IC? Let alone 100?

Depending on the level of mistake, the likelihood of someone not being rude after the almighty staff have made a mistake is unlikely. Don't get your hopes up.

RACISTS!

"...put a warning in the suBject..."

A lot of forums have this rule and I personally hate it. If you can only have 1 character per account it makes more sense, but even that is annoying.

"OMG, I didn't realize how long and strict they were until you mentioned it!"

Yeah, don't point out your Rule's weaknesses. A simple "Thanks for reading" at the bottom is all you need.


If you couldn't tell, I had fun with this. xD

ok i have to admit i saw the length and didn't even bother with the first word. rules should be short and simple and only addressing important things not rambling. although what greyscale said above caught my attention, the

is total bullcrap and should be flushed down the toilet. i totally agree with grey. i'm a girl and i NEVER play girls. it's no fair of you to decide that and it seems like godmodding or whatever before you even start to roleplay. even though your admin, you shouldn’t limit you members so much.

I'm Australian, hence using an Australian rating. Though you have a point about using a universal one... Except why must the AMERICAN rating be universal? Then that's a whole other debate about how americans are freaking oblivious to anything but themselves while still expecting others to know about there stuff.

I don't have a word limit....

Only IC boards are set to add to the post count on my forum, so yes there is a way to moniter it. This rule is so only completely active and commited members play a minor...

The word filter changed that. I used a word that is, in it's proper form is not offensive and a valid word. But has been turned into something dirty for slang.

First, if you'd like me to actually pay any attention to your opinion,i'd suggest not starting with something offensive. It's called flaming love...

In responce to the gender rule (and the character name as display name):
To me, the account is all IC. The display name, the gender (the age if I'm smart enough to put in the right birthday)

We have several boards on the site that allow you to be OOC and all that jazz, i'm not making anyone into rp roberts or any of the accusations. And it's not god-moding. How can it be? I'm not saying what gender you must play or that girls must play girls or guys must play guys.

I'm merely saying that you should treat your account info as IC info... Which most people have no issues with.

I agree with the others who said they were way too long. I stopped reading partway through. Before I stopped, though, I did catch a few things. Some of them have already been mentioned, so I'll do the ones that haven't.

Plurals. Possessives. Two different things.

won't. wont. Two different words.

too. to. Two different words.

your. you're. Two different words.

than. then. Two different words.

*facepalms*

Spellchecking. Proofreading. Two different things.

Ok. I can understand where you're coming from. To an extent.

MA is a rating on American TV that is the same as R. Along with your stipulation that "there are no limits" this makes me (and possibly other users) think that you mean it's an R rated site. MA has limitations, either explain them or change the rating.

Now, everyone giving feedback here is trying to help you as you have asked them to.

It looks bad if you ask for help and then make excuses when we give feedback. It just means next time you ask, we'll know not to answer.

Maybe that should be the rule, then?

That wasn't necessary.

Well, considering that is what you just said, it sure sounds like something that we should be saying to you right about now.

So, there you are.

i'm simply giving my opinion since you asked, whether you consider it offensive or not i'm still entitled to my opinion. if you actually pay attention to it or not is up to you, i don't care to much since it's your board, your members, and you asked. i'm sorry that you thought it was offensive.

I thought the rules were kinda short... and here is why :p
I write waaaaaaaaaaaay more then you do :p So I think your lacking some rules that I feel my boards need.

(each one is a new rteply. I think it makes it look like there are less rules when spaced out like that *shrugs* also good for referencing and stuff later on)

These are the rules for this site. Not much differant to most other sites. Please them and understand that they have been put into place for your safety and fun. I know they seem like alot, but I promise each one is important, and must be agreed to before you progress onwards.
* Out of Character
* Character Creation
* In Character
* Posting Rules
* Character Limitations

Out of Character Rules

* Banners are to be no larger than 550 x 150 pixels, avatars are to be no more than 150 x 150 pixels. This is to save space and load time and make sure the board displays correctly in all browsers. If your banner is too big, you will be contacted by an admin by PM and will have three days to correct it before it is deleted.

* We hold to a 'three strikes you're out' rule. If you receive three warnings from the admin staff your characters will be banned and not permitted to re-register. Warnings will be issued for abuse of any player OOCly or in RL, for abusing consent rules in RP, and for blatant assholishness. Warnings will be sent via PM by the admin staff.

* This game is not a democracy, it is a benevolent dictatorship. Admins have the final word on everything. The admin staff puts a lot of time and effort into maintaining the site and keeping a balance in roleplay and socialization. There may be situations where an admin's decision might seem to be unfair or playing favorites, only to turn out later that the decision served a greater plot or roleplay device. If you feel an admin or mod has abused their position or acted inappropriately, please contact the head admin via PM.

* Be polite. This is a good rule of thumb for all IC and OOC interactions on the board. Don't flame, don't troll, don't abuse other people's life decisions, respect the sexual orientation, race, gender and religion of all other players.

* New character applications must be submitted from the account for that character. In other words, don't get lazy and submit a character app for a new character while logged in as an existing character. This is for the benefit of the admin staff, who have enough to keep track of without being confused by trying to figure out whether your characters have Dissociative Identity Disorder.


Character Creation


* Once your profile has been approved, you will not be able to make changes to it. Please make sure everything your character is capable of is in there. You may think your character can speak fluent Korean and disassemble an M16 blindfolded in under 30 seconds, but if it's not in your character profile, you can't do it. If you would like to add to or change an already-approved profile, you must have admin permission first.

* All characters must be portrayed by a real person (a photograph, in other words). If you want to use a toon, anime image, or other created portrait you must receive permission from an admin or mod. Images must be of high quality.

* If you want to play more than one character in a single account (such as a pair of twins, etc.), you must first receive permission from an admin and then must fill out a complete character application for each member of the collective. If there are too many 'collective characters' already active, creation of further group characters may be banned.

* Original characters only. We know you love Elric of Melniboné. We love him too. But you can't play him here. If you take character inspiration from literature, that's great--many of us do. But leave Elric to Michael Moorcock. Copyright laws people, say it with me...

* The original characters rule extends to playing fictionalized versions of real people as well. If you really, really want to explore what would happen to a rock star or actress or other celebrity when caught in this plot, make one up. If you absolutely have your heart set on playing a real person, you can PM the head admin to ask for permission. They'll probably say no, but you can try.

* Think about names that represent your character and try to avoid using your protrayels name. Creativity is the key. Your character may be denied for this fact alone, so really thing about it before submitting a singer, named Beyonce with a Beyonce protrayel

In Character



* Explicit adult (sex) scenes are allowed on this board. However, all players involved must be consenting adults, here defined as age 16 or over. Extreme sex (fetish, rape, underage, etc.) must have a clear labeled warning at the beginning of the scene. And I mean big red bold letters at the begining of the scene

* Swearing, adult themes, and graphic violence are all permitted on this board, within reason. We must obey the ToS set by InvisionFree. Use common sense and if you believe a thread is graphic enough in any sense that it's likely to be offensive to others, place a warning label on the thread. This said, if you are making offencive threads time and time again wih no real character plot driving it, you will be banned from taking part in all graphic/sex on the site

* God Moding (also known as god-modding, twinking, munchkinism, etc.) is not allowed. God-moding is when one player writes for another player's character without permission. This can be making assumptions about their history, interaction or relationship with your character or can be forcing actions or reactions to your character's movements. Persistent god-modding is grounds for an admin warning.
Having said this, lets not go extream here people. Saying you walked past a character and said hi and shook their hand is allowed, but to say you picked them up and threw them into a wall isn't. Think about it and it will save dramas for everyone

* There are no all-powerful characters. No one is perfect, everyone slips up sometimes. No fighter, be they never so skilled/trained/badass can walk through every battle without getting a scratch. Everybody messes up occasionally. Any characters found to be impersonating demigods will be reprimanded and may earn an admin warning if it gets too out of hand. If an admin feels you are getting out of hand, they have the right to kill off the character with no warnings. By joining this site you are agreeing to this. It doesn't happen often, but it is a true warning

* No killing off other characters! It's just rude. If you want your character to die, please notify the admin so that the staff knows that no one is violating this rule. If you are playing a canon character or one that is needed for major plot purposes, the admin staff reserves the right to take over the character rather than allowing them to die, and may put the character back up for application. The original player will have no say in who gets control of the character.


Posting Rules



* When starting a new thread, title it as seems appropriate, then in the thread description post either:
Open - Meaning any character may post
The names of the characters involved
By Invitation - Meaning that only characters invited to the thread may post
Closed - Meaning that it's an exposition thread with no replies allowed
It's also helpful to add the time of day to either the title or the thread description, just to save from confusion

* If a thread doesn't say Open or you haven't been invited to join, don't post there. If you want to be invited, PM or contact the thread starter and wait for their reply back before you go posting in the thread

* Characters may be present in multiple threads but must be actively posting in each. It is the responsibility of the players to keep track of the timeline and make sure your character isn't in two places at once or foretelling the future or other such anomalies in the time/space continuum.
You don't need to be active in more then one thread, but it isn't banned either

* Posts need to be a minimum of one paragraph as a rule. A paragraph = four to five complete sentences. With the obvious caveat that occasionally the flow of events or conversation dictate short replies, most of the time posts should be at least one paragraph and two to four is preferable.

* When writing a post, take a moment before you hit Reply to read back over what you've written. Have you addressed everything you wanted to say or do? Have you progressed the plot or event or merely responded to what other people are doing? Passivity puts a strain on the other roleplayers, unless your character has a pretty good reason to be sitting like a bump on a log you should at least try to move the scene along with every post.

* If you have to edit a post, especially a post that others have already responded to, try to make the changes minimal. Going back and rewriting history because you realized too late that your character's acting like a phenomenal ass and is about to get a well-deserved beatdown is not good roleplay.
If you must edit, please pot a notice int he cbox warning your fellow players of your decision, and give them the all clear when the chnges have been made

* Remember to roleplay in character. Be true to the character, even if it might sometimes put them in a bad light or make them less than universally loved.

* You must post at least once per week per character. If you cannot do this, you will receive a warning. If it continues to be a problem, you may be forced to give up one or more characters. But be warned, most played will be posting atleast daily


Character Limitations



Newly Joined members will have the following privledges and restrictions:
* Can not apply for powerful players. Your characters will not have any special rank or extream power or anything of the like. This doesn't include making an elemental. All memebers are allowed to apply for a canon character
* May only have two characters max

Members (people who have been here at the site for over two months), will hav the following restrictions and privledges:
* Can apply for political second in command.
* may only have four characters max

Lifers ((people who have been here at the site for over six months), will have the following restrictions and privledges:
* Can apply for political leaders etc
* may only have seven characters

Admin (those select few who will be promoted to Admin status) will have the following restrictions and privledges
* Can ignore the roleplay sample of the application
* Can have unlimited numbers of characters

If you feel this is unfair you may pm the head admin Jenn and discuss exactly what you have a problem with.


Most of these cover pet peeves of mine that I just can't handle. *shrugs*
And then because this is set on Anita Blake, I have about 5 other threads with vital info for those who haven't read the books and stuff.

so yea still think you have alotta rules? lol
what ever keeps you happy and the site working is proper

Dear heavens, Sniks, don't be so uptight when receiving criticism. You asked for it, so don't be so defensive. You need to take everything with a grain of salt and I'm sure not everything everyone says will fit your board; however, please understand that your rules came out very blunt and, in a way, obnoxious, so I am in no way surprised that people reacted how they did. It's like you read something and then get a vibe off of it and pass it on to others.

*headesk* That wasn't the point! Read: Your most important rule is not the people should have fun or that people should respect others. Your most important rule is that people be stellar writers.

...

Which is a steaming pile of [censored for your feelings] when you consider that you've made so many typos it's horrendous. Please, do not be hypocritical.

How can you expect me to be a superb writer when you make so many simple errors? It's not fair for you to excuse yourself from the rules just because you are the administrator of the board. That in and of itself tells me that I would never, ever join your board because if there's something I cannot stand, it's stick-up-the-[another censor] administrators who throw rules around because they can.

Would you like me to continue on and give you feedback on the rest of the rules? Because that was just the first paragraph.

Your rules are insanely too long and are horribly pretentious. The fact that they're so long usually means that I am only going to skim them, or that I will be completely turned off to your site altogether.

Additionally, your site isn't advanced at all - and it proves my point when I say that a good amount of "advanced" RPs are nothing more than "Arrogantly Intermediate." I say this, because you have difficulty using words in the proper form. You make a lot of simple mistakes, where sites that actually are recognized as "advanced" by other RPers are sites that don't make such careless errors.

I'm also getting the idea that the site isn't very friendly for their players, when you post such things like, "Admins have the final say." Additionally, the "Your gender must be that of your character" WILL turn players off. If you haven't noticed, in the RP universe, the ratio of women to men is pretty epic. You have so many boards asking for people to play more males, and most of those people who play males are actually female.

I'm going to be straight with you. Your rules are going to kill your site. Trim down the length, and don't be so hard-line when it comes to things like this. I know that you have to assert some dominance as you are an admin, but don't be completely irrational about it.

Also, take some criticism, please. The fact that you're being so ridiculously juvenile when you're getting CC here is enough to make you and your site, look incredibly bad. As an admin, you are not impervious to any kind of criticism. And if it's anything that I hate, it's admins who basically trample all over their members and just can't get their own egos in check enough to make proper changes to their site. Sites with admins like that usually die within 3 months. You have your work cut out for you.

Desire - tl;dr.

-sigh-

A few things

one) I did take on the advice and shorten the rules so please don't think I didn't.

two) I was merely defending choices I made about my rules, which is well within my rights

three) It is hard not to be defensive when some people post their opinions in a harsh/rude way. I didn't come here to be flamed and riduculed.I came for some helpfull advice. I suppose when I posted here I didn't realise I was subjecting myself to such attacks.

four) I have taken on board what I liked and have editied the rules and therefor will probably not check this thread again

Oh, and a few of you seemed to have misread a rule. I'm by no means making my members play there own gender, if you read clearly you'd see that its the account gender I am refering to. As in, the account's gender should be that of the characters.

And Desire: Thankyou for not making me feel like I'm the only one who likes a lot of rules:)

I'm not bothered by your rules length. The first thing I read aren't the rules of a site, but the plots, so if I'm hooked, reading a long list of rules won't deter me. That said, your rules are phrased in a way that would deter me. Some of them are obnoxious and hypocritical, but, I won't get into that because others have already.

Also, about the gender rule, I think everyone here read that perfectly, that rule is confusing. You need to alter it. Especially here, where we don't know that a player's profile has a space for them to state their (or their char's) gender. That isn't on most sites, so it's normal that people minsinterpreted it.

I'm not going to get into the whole criticism dealy here, but, your America comment is not only obnoxious (like your rules, pattern?) but also hypocritical (yes, pattern). That sort of mindset is exactly what you're complaining about, so I'm speechless. I'm offended by that comment and I'm not even american.

But I dunn why I bothered with this post, since you won't be checking this thread again..