I'm reviewing my board at the moment, and rewriting what I've come to realise are a set of woefully vague rules. So, what rules would you be unable to live without?

The rule of "Respect everyone" and some rules about posting, and rules about Graphics.
Posting: it gives an idea to people how much you request. Even though your site don't have minimum post length, you need to tell them there's no minimum.
Graphics: so they wouldn't post siggy that stretched the board, or any offensive materials.
I think those rules are the most important.

1. Respect each other.

2. Have fun. (Hopefully this applies to every board, but you never know.)

3. Rating.

Umm hmm. That's all I can think of now. But it's a good start, methinks.

There are a few I consider absolutely essential. Given the actual size of my rule set... I like to make sure there are no loopholes.

-- Godmoding
-- General board (on, and off) conduct. This includes respect, board ratings, anti-spam and advertising.
-- Post requirements. Ours is simple, do your best.. give us something meaty to read, but I think it's important people know what you expect of them.
-- Name requirements. And I'm not talking 'register like this' but more of a warning if you tend to ask for name changes where other characters may have the same name.
-- Activity requirements. If you have them, they need to be stated.

Over the years I've played on a lot of boards and truth be told, the rules I now compile for my sites are made up from issues I've seen on various other boards... So forgive me if the list is a bit long or excessive.

--Get a lot of it out of the way *copy and pasts Mousie's post*

- Names - (an additional note) I have seen people (naive ones mind you) try to join an RP site with Leet, Numbers or symbols in their names. So I think it's important to specift what kind of naming your looking for when someone is joining. First and LAst, just first, if just nicknames are allowed. Etc.

- Graphics - I agree with Chic, enough said. :lol:

- DEATH limitations - Given the sites I work on it's not something every site may need but with any kind of conflict I find it necessary to let people know that killing off another character without permission from the CHARACTERS OWNER is not allowed. Its the one place I allow a player to override an admin. (I've had someone as one of my site officers if they could kill a character, they said "I don't care".... It got messy needless to say because of the choice of words. Or lack there of. The person took it as permission where the admin was more saying it wasn't their place to give permission.)

My rules list is very short, but I like to expound on many of them so they're often a few sentences long. I divided my rules into sections - one for the boards as a whole, and another for role playing. In the General one I covered all the basics - Respect, my policy on Content (swearing, etc.), and general etiquette.

Two huge pet peeves of mine are when people post OOC-only posts in the role plays, and when people post huge images that warp the board windows. I always include polite little snippets about these, asking them to please not do these things.

In the 'Role Play' rules, I start with godmoding and powergaming. One other thing that I absolutely always include is copyright violations - I've seen people take portions of chapters from books and post them in the role plays... biiiig no-no.

The rest of my rules are pretty specific to my board. I tried to keep some things very general to tell them not only what they cannot do, but to guide them through how the role plays on the board are supposed to function (it's a bit different everywhere, after all). Always write your rules in a positive manner as well - you don't want to scare people off by making them think they're sure to be warned or banned by hard-ass admins.

Good luck ^_^

Over the course of many boards I've been trying to pare down my rules to a set I can use on all the boards, and then, if needed, I put a blurb in the application section about how to post if needed for a particular board.

Thanks for that everyone. I think I've got a pretty comprehensive set of rules now.

Another that's nice to have is that the admin has the right to edit the rules at any time with or without notice. And that you have the right to ban anyone who jeopardizes the integrity of the board (which would include unnecessary drama queens/kings, people who start fights, or anyone who just create an uncomfortable environment on the board).