Tragedy of the Commons and You
Please treat this forum with the same respect you would treat your local arcade, a museum full of skulls, or your favorite dive bar. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation and shitposting.
Most of these are not hard and fast rules, more like…the lines on the road that indicate lanes. Generally speaking, it’s best to stay in your lane and not crash into oncoming traffic, but once in a while there are exceptions.
Make it Better
Lurking will get you nowhere. If you want a discussion and it’s not happening, you gotta make it! This community is small and fostering weirdo game opinions is important to all of us so please, make that thread about how Pikmin 2 betrayed the underlying leftist themes of the first game! Chances are there will be someone here who knows what you’re talking about. That’s the magic of posting.
PLEASE CITE SOURCES OF ALL CONTENT THAT IS NOT YOURS. If you don’t know where it came from, that’s okay, credit where you can. If we notice a pattern of people stealing art for attention we will take action.
FIGHT HARD BUT FIGHT FAIR
You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. No one agrees on anything about videogames. That’s fine. We love strong opinions. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:
- Name-calling.
- Ad hominem attacks.
- Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
- Knee-jerk contradiction.
Also, remember that this is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions (except the Axe). Keep the language, links, and images safe for people who might be looking for you (except in the Axe).
Other things that should not have to be stated, but will be for completeness’ sake:
- Don’t be a turd. Being a turd is defined as doing any of the following:
- Using racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist, homophobic, or other gnarly language. (Cursing is fine, just make sure it’s not any of the above)
- Harassing people, i.e. bothering them repeatedly, @-ing them when they ask you to stop, verbally attacking them, etc. Look up harassment, then don’t do those things.
- Posting images or links to things that are NSFW. Basically, don’t post pornography please.
- Don’t spam the forums with lots of new posts or threads all at once. There are already controls in place to stop this, but like…don’t try and get around them
- Finally, here’s a list of things that I assume are even more obvious than the above but should be noted as things not to do:
- Impersonating anyone, especially a Mod
- Dodging bans, i.e. rejoining with a new account
- NSFW or illegal avatars
- Posting anything deeply illegal. I’m talking about child porn, plans for murdering someone, etc.
Golden Rules for The (Golden) Axe
The forum axe is our livejournal. Threads in the axe are de-indexed from internet searches, cannot be viewed without a selectbutton account, and are deleted after one (1) week of inactivity. OVERSHARE AT YOUR OWN RISK. The axe is a private forum, sharing posts outside the axe will result in an immediate ban.
Threads and posts CAN be restored by mods even after being deleted for inactivity. Nothing dies forever.
Customize your Desert Island Experience
The culture and discussion of the site is fueled by you, the posters. Don’t see the discussion you want? Make it! Impressed by another user’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Fairchild Channel F? Send a message and let them know! A community must be built together.
POLICE MODS WILL NEVER ALWAYS HELP YOU
You don’t have to like everyone, but you do have to get along. We’re a small community, so when people don’t get along, it can cause problems for all of us. You don’t have to love everybody, but understand how your actions impact them. If someone asks you to stop doing something, do your best to stop. If someone offends you, but it doesn’t have a lasting impact on you, try to brush it off.
If all else fails, talk to a mod. Specifically, flag the post or send a PM to the “moderators” group. If you’d prefer to speak with a specific mod one-on-one, you can find a list of the current moderators here. Sometimes conflicts need a third party. We can resolve things peacefully and like adults.
There are exceptions to the “talk it out” idea! If another user is making you feel unsafe for ANY REASON, contact a member of the moderation team and we will take action. We do not tolerate harassment of any kind and keeping things safe and fun are OUR SUPER HIGHEST PRIORITIES.
YOU WOULDN’T DOWNLOAD A CAR
You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.
You own and retain the rights to your posts and all of their content, intellectual property, whatever. But the admins and moderators reserve the right to archive, fuck with and/or delete them as they appear on this (or future iterations of this) website.
And if you really wouldn’t download a car if you had the option, then I’m not sure we can be friends.
Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves in this Web 3.0 era against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.