We recommend that you also include the date and time of the comment somewhere in your post. It doesn't have to be in the quotation itself, but it could be before or after it. You only need to fully quote/spoiler the text of the tweet. For images or videos, a short and concise summary of the image/video's contents is sufficient.
This includes comments sections, profile posts, and other stuff that is more or less 'twitter like' - meaning a setup that encourages brief comments - as opposed to a news article, a blog, or something similar. We realize there's a gray area, such as twitter threads that can stretch out across multiple tweets, and some other places where such 'posts' may not have as stringent character limits. But 'twitter like' sources fall under these rules. If you aren't sure which a source might fall under, ask a Staff member via Staff Communicaitons and we can clarify as well as make additional clarifications at need.
GR8C: Bad Faith Behavior
Engaging in good faith involves presenting facts and information while honestly engaging with those who may hold different opinions, and trying to arrive at the truth or an understanding of a topic.
Engaging in bad faith involves ignoring evidence, deliberating twisting around arguments, and trying to shout down someone rather than addressing their points. Basically doing whatever can be done to avoid admitting being wrong. This often ruins what might have been a productive and informative discussion of ideas and opinions. We can't read your mind so if your post is indistinguishable from arguing in bad faith, even if you didn't intend to, we are still going to infract you.
This is typically done in a variety of ways. Ways we commonly notice (but are not limited to) include:
Spoiler: Common Indicators of Bad faith
- Ad hominem attacks: Attacking the poster's reputation rather than the points they are making.
- Bothsame: "You say that X is doing Y action, but Z is doing Y action too, so therefore your argument is invalid!" This ignores the original point made in order to avoid proper argumentation.
- Dogpiling: This is where four or more people respond to a single person within a thread, which can cause said person to become overwhelmed to the point of being unable to effectively make their point. This is more likely to occur whenever someone is holding a controversial or minority opinion in a given thread. Before you post in such a thread, check if someone has already argued your position beforehand and that your post would contribute on its own merits. The counter point is that if you are willingly answering to more than three people, don't expect the staff to bail you out if you are overwhelmed.
Within the practice of dogpiling is a very specific practice of brigading. Brigading is the practice of coordinating a group of people to post in a specific thread in an effort to "win" the argument. This includes coordinating so as to attempt to disguise a dogpile by means like coordinated taking of turns, marking out specific members, and the like. Do not do this, play fair.
- Goalpost-shifting: When evidence provided in response to a claim is dismissed and greater evidence is then demanded for new claims, ignoring the original claim and evidence provided.
- Just My Opinion: If you post in a thread and you are stating your opinion, be up front with this and do not attempt to argue it as if it is fact.
- Misrepresenting Sources: Be sure your sources says what you claim. Don't claim a source backs you up when it doesn't.
- Refusing to Engage: If someone is asking to address a point they raised or are asking for a source and aren't dogpiling you, then you are expected to address them or bow out of the discussion. Likewise do not drive by posts by entering a thread to post a questionable claim or opinion and then disappear.
- Sealioning: Intrusive attempts at engaging an unwilling opponent by feigning civility and incessantly requesting evidence to back up their claims; it's basically harassment.
- Stealth Edits: Making edits hours after the fact that changes the argument, and then acting as though it'd been there the whole time or expecting your counterpart to go check it unprompted.
- Strawmanning: This is intentionally misrepresenting someone's argument, typically by exaggeration.
- Unwarranted Declaration of Bad Faith: Arguing in good faith is only possible when you grant your opponents the benefit of doubt and treat their points seriously. If you feel someone is arguing in bad faith, then you should be able give good reasons as to why. If matters threaten to disrupt a thread, than report the person with a clear explanation as to why you think they are arguing in bad faith.
General Rule 9: English Is The Official Language
English is the language this forum was built around, it is probably the only language we all have in common. This means public discussion on SB needs to be in English for sake of fairness and effective moderation. This does not absolutely forbid other languages, merely requiring that using them be kept minimal and translated so that everyone can be on the same page. If you are the one providing the non-English source, the onus is on you in order to provide an English translation or English version for everyone to be able to read.
General Rule 10: No Harassment or Doxxing
Do not harass other members, either through threads, PM, profile posts, tagging, or off the forums. If someone does not want your company or to engage with you, then respect their wishes and do not bother them. Members are under no obligation to respond to your messages. While initial contact might not fall under harassment, trying to continue a thread argument via PM with an unwilling person or continued contact against a user's wishes does. If you have a bad history with a person from another forum or real life, don't bring it here. Using mass tagging to drive thread activity after being told not to, or tagging members to draw them into discussions they have disengaged from or have no interest in, can be considered forms of harassment. If someone don't want to be part of a discussion, then respect that. Members found to be harassing another member will be dealt with harshly.
GR10A: Do not Attempt to Blackmail Other Members
We take an incredibly dim view of emotional blackmail, as well as convincing friends or other proxies to harass someone for you. Anyone found engaging in, for example, threats of suicide if a message is not responded to, will be permanently removed from the forum. Depending on the situation the staff may also contact local authorities to ensure the safety of all parties.
GR10B: Do not Attempt to Dox Other Members
We define doxxing as attempting to discover the real life identity of someone for any reason, as well as the broadcasting or dissemination of such information. This includes real life names, physical addresses, work place information, personal contact information, photos, and similar information that would be used to harass and/or be used for identity theft. We understand members sometimes develop personal relationships with each other, and urge you consider you own safety and that of SB's before you share any personal information with other members. Instances of doxxing will be regarded very severely.
General Rule 11: No Spoilers
Do not post spoilers of a fictional work in unwarranted places. A spoiler reveals major details of a fictional work that might not be known to others, where the enjoyment of a work is heavily affected. Judging what might be a spoiler and where they would be inappropriate is largely general common sense. Saying Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker would not be a spoiler but a key plot point from a recent movie not shown in preview media might be.
Outside of threads dedicated to a release, a good rule of thumb is that its a spoiler if its less than two months for movies/books and a day or two for weekly episodic shows. The more obscure the work, the more care should be taken, even if relatively old. When in doubt, use the spoiler features explained below or ask in Staff Communications.
Most sub-forums have SPOILER prefix, which can be used to note a thread where spoilers can be freely discussed. Outside of such threads, use one of three forum features: Putting it in an expandable spoiler box, covering up the text, or making the text transparent. The coding of these features can be found here.
Spoiler: How To Use Spoiler Tags, In Line Text Covers, and Transparent Color Tags
Code:
[spoiler]What you want to hide in the spoiler box.[/spoiler]
Code:
[spoiler=Give your spoiler a title.]What you want to hide in the spoiler box.[/spoiler]Click the box to reveal what's hidden.
Code:
[ispoiler]The text you want blocked out.[/ispoiler] Hover your pointer over the block to uncover the text.
Code:
[color=transparent]The text you want to be transparent.[/color] Highlight the full paragraph to reveal the text.
General Rule 12: No Trolling
Trolling is defined as making inflammatory or provocative posts for the purpose of stirring up trouble and getting a negative reaction, rather than merely sharing one's opinion or engaging in reasonable debate. This can include making obvious bad arguments, posting an unpopular opinion and then running from the thread, or trying using a post to draw people into a fight (known as flamebaiting).
Since the staff are not mind readers, if something appears to be trolling it will be treated as such. Be mindful of the tone of a post and ensure it reads the way you intend.
General Rule 13: Do Not Undermine the Security and Stability of the Forum
Don't attack the software of the board in any way. Don't engage in any behavior which could have legal repercussions for the forums, such as sharing content without the permission of the creator or bragging about breaking the law. Do not use classified or otherwise confidential sources or material illegal for the public to access.
GR13A: Sockpuppet Accounts
Don't create secondary accounts (known as a sockpuppet) for any reason, or share your account with other people. You are responsible for your account's security. If you have issues logging in to your original account, use the Contact Us button at the bottom of your screen; there is no reason to create a second account.
GR13B: Aiding in Ban Evasion
Do not collaborate with banned people to post content on their behalf. If someone is banned from a specific sub-forum, do not help them work around that ban; if someone is banned from a section of the forums, those topics are off limits.
GR13C: Bandwidth Usage
Do not make it harder for members to read the forums, who may be using different devices to access content. This means don't quote overly long chapters without trimming them, don't post too many large pictures without putting them in spoilers, don't use QR codes, don't run a script, etc.
General Rule 14: SB is not your Therapist/Lawyer/Doctor/Professional
SB is not a place to ask for medical, legal, financial, or other professional advice. Members should not provide such advice for you, even if they work in a related field. Do not ask for such advice from your fellow posters, as it is not a substitute for legitimate professional advice. For example, asking for people's experiences to help make a career choice is fine, but asking others to make career decisions for you is not. Asking for advice concerning illegal activities is also not acceptable.
Keep in mind that divulging personal information, whether public or private, about mental or physical health, legal or financial issues is extremely irresponsible and potentially harmful to you and others. Any violation of these rules will be dealt with severely.
General Rule 15: No Necromancy Or Bumping
Necromancy is defined as posting in a thread that has had no posts within 2 weeks. If you wish to post in such a thread then it will require a reasonably significant contribution to it, such as an update to a news story, commentary of a new episode of a media series, or a seriously, thoughtful response to an on-topic post in the thread. When in doubt, ask in Staff Communication and we will be happy to help you. Due to their unique nature, Image threads are exempt from the rule.
For Creative Writing and Quest threads, after 2 weeks of inactivity no posts other than updates from the author/GM are allowed. If you want to know when the next update is or have questions, it's best to politely contact the author/GM directly. For Roleplay threads, there is no restriction on this for players and GMs. This is because RPs can sometimes get delayed for months.
If you see a necro post, report it and move on. Complaining about a necro within the thread itself can lead to additional infractions and a thread lock.
GR15A: Do not Bump Threads
Bumping is any attempt to artificially push a thread so that it is most visible on the front page of a sub-forum. Any attempt to bump in an effort to gain more attention to a thread will result in the thread being locked and infractions given out. If there's interest, then people will post. If not, then that's just how things go.
General Rule 16: Disclosing Confidential Communications
There are sections of the forums that are private by default and are expected to be respected as such.
GR16A: Private Messages
With PM conversations on SB you may not disclose any contents of a given PM, through screenshot or copying and pasting, without the explicit consent of all parties involved in said PM. The only exception is if you need to report a PM to the Staff. This can be done for advocating hate or violence, harassment, threating SB security, brigading, any discussion of illegal activity, or if a user might be in danger or appears to be suicidal.
The Mods and SMods intentionally do not have the power to examine entire PM conversations, so you need to report each individual PM to the appropriate Staff members. Administrators do have the ability to examine entire conversations, but this is avoided unless absolutely necessary, because your privacy is of utmost importance. If PMs do need to be investigated, the Staff are obligated to keep any content strictly Staff-internal.
Any PMs sent to Staff regarding forum business will be transferred into a Staff Communications thread, for record keeping purposes and to ensure any decisions are official noted.
GR16B: Staff Communications and Appeals
Do not disclose the contents of any reports, Staff Communication thread, or Appeals thread on or off the forums. This goes for Staff as well as for members, if not more so. Staff violating this by failing to keep such interactions Staff-internal is a very grave violation, and grounds for serious censuring. Members being able to trust Staff is very important to us and it is important that we handle their concerns carefully.
General Rule 17: Personal Fields (Signature, Avatar, Profile, Pronoun) Rules
Your signature should not be longer than five lines of normal text at 1366x768 resolution. It should not have images, embedded videos, or be overly garish or interfere with site elements. All other forum rules that apply to posts also apply to signatures. You may use spoiler tags to reduce the length of the signature (spoiler tags count as 1 line), within reason (<10 lines per spoiler box), but you may not use them to disguise parts of your signature that would not be acceptable on the general forums.
Regarding personal fields such as avatars, user names, user titles, and profiles; they must follow all standard rules of the forums, especially those such as hate speech, sniping at other people, etc. Your avatar, user name, and user title must follow our rules regarding NSFW content. Do not use a QR code as your avatar. While user profiles are for more personal matters, they are not to be used to post flamebait, spam, or NSFW content.
The pronoun field exists to help users feel more welcome and to avoid misunderstandings. It is not required, but if it is used it is expected that users will only put actual pronouns in this field. The pronoun field is not to be used as another user title, for roleplaying, jokes, or trolling.
General Rule 18: Rules Are Not A Weapon
Don't nitpick the rules to find a loophole to exploit in order to justify why a particular type of posting should not be considered rules breaking(ie. "Rules lawyering"). Follow not only the letter of the rule but the spirit of the rule as well. The same principle applies if the Staff direct you to do something (such as change an avatar or signature).
GR18A: SB is not a "Hugbox"
Users are expected to be able to handle criticism and opinions other than their own. Don't abuse the rules as a weapon to silence others or force them to agree with you.
GR18B: Don't Backseat Mod
Don't order people to follow the rules or otherwise face punishment, despite not being a staff member oneself (aka "backseat moderating"); a general "Hey, we should probably stop doing what we're doing so the thread doesn't get locked" or "Just a fyi, that is against the rules" is fine.
GR18C: Report Abuse
Don't threaten to report others. Either report or don't report, do not make a show of using the feature. Only use the report function in good faith. Do not make reports in an effort to attack users, harass Staff or to complain about Staff executing their duties. If you wish to submit a complaint about Staff misconduct while acting as Staff, do so in Staff Communications. If you wish to contest an infraction you've received, do so in Appeals.
GR18D: Abuse of the Ignore Function
If you have someone on ignore, then don't advertise it. Unless it is absolutely necessary, we do not encourage the use of the ignore feature.
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