What leads to warnings, suspensions, bans
- Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. This applies to ALL users, regardless of post count, forum rank or perceived status at RealGM. Flaming, trolling or abusing users with offensive, racist, vuglar language amongst other things will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning, suspension or ban.
- Members who disrupt the normal flow of dialogue or otherwise act in a manner that negatively affects other users’ ability to engage in real-time exchanges on threads may be warned, suspended, banned. (Also known as thread hijacking) In general, stay on the topic of the thread.
We understand that at times there will be good basketball related tangents within a thread. In general, these will be allowed to continue. BUT, if the thread is about some breaking topic or something where posters are providing updates not necessarily available to the public, then the mods are perfectly entitled to split off the worthy tangent topic into a new thread. Don't be surprised if this happens.
On the other hand, if the post tangent is disruptive, useless clutter, and getting in the way of continuing the discussion in the thread, then don't be surprised if you get a warning in your private box, with the possibility of further action if this is repetitive behaviour. - Members who participate in discussions should attempt to make a meaningful contribution. Users who spam or post with the sole intention of increasing their post count and ranking may be warned, suspended, banned. Posts are to be made in the relevant forum and in the relevant thread. So posting of "IBTL", "a/s/l" or anything along these lines will result in warnings, suspension, or being banned. (More below)
- If your thread has been locked or removed please do not start up another thread asking for an explanation. If you have a question about the status of a thread please contact the moderator of the forum by private message.
- Members should remember this forum is aimed at a general audience. Posting pornographic or generally offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning, suspension and/or banning. Members who repeatedly evade the language censor to post offensive language will also be warned, suspended and/or banned.
- Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. Users posting spam will be banned and their post removed
- The administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to Moderators and not users.
The above forum rules where applicable also apply to private messaging. Abuse of the private messaging system may lead to warnings (as above)
Avatar/Signature Violations
Signatures
Signatures may contain up to five lines of text (of small or normal size) or one image, valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 90px high, 400px wide and 50KB in size. Signatures containing an image this large may also include one line of small size text. Signatures containing an image of 60px high may include up to three lines of small size text or two lines of normal size text. Images of 15px height or less may allow up to four lines of normal size text or four lines of small size text.
- Text sizes should be between 9 and 12 (small and normal).
- Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons, and so forth.
- Links in signatures are permitted. Linked sites may be commercial in nature. You may not link to warez, porn or political, racist or other similar hate sites. Links are included in signature size limits.
- Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their signature privileges. If you exceed the size limit your signature will be removed and you will be sent a warning and possible further action.
Avatars
Users are permitted to link to a picture for use as an avatar. User defined avatars are to be no larger than 80 pixels square, contain no image which attempts to portray the user as having an official status here (e.g. mimicking ranks or copying avatars of Moderators), may not exceed 35KB in file size and have a consistently high availability (i.e. links to images on slow servers or those prone to failure may be removed).
- Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect to decency, and so forth.
- Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges. If you exceed the size limit, your avatar will be removed and you will be sent a warning and possible further action.
On Starting New Threads
- Check to make sure the topic (or a closely related one), is not on the first page or two of the board
- If the link is more than a day old, assume its already been posted - or bring it up in some other related thread rather than making a new thread
- Spellcheck your title, twice.
- Make sure its not about something illegal
- If its your trade idea, post it on the trade board, not here - unless its based on some recent speculation in the media - that's what it is for.
- If its a player comparison, post it on the player comparison board - that's what it is for.
- Make sure it meets the other Terms of Service of this website.
- Make sure the thread has an appropriate title. The title should give a good idea of what the thread is going to be about, and be some new topic of discussion. If you have multiple central themes, then you should either split the thread into several, or choose one and have the rest be aside comments. The moderators reserve the right to rename badly titled threads, or to merge redundant topics, or split a topic with multiple themes into several topics.
Some bad thread title examples:
The generic player/coach/GM name thread
ex: - "Perry"
What about Perry? You see improvement? You think he is regressing? He was a waste of a pick? What is it? There can been millions of Perry threads, why not dig an old one up instead of making your own generic Perry thread
The Stupid Hook
ex: "What do you think about..."
Tell me what you're talking about in the title! That's what titles are for. Change the title to include the actual topic.
<myname>'s Random Thoughts
Sure, you might have great thoughts, lots of posters here do. Create different discussion topics for these different great thoughts - or start your own blog elsewhere. Or choose one major theme and start the thread, and throw in your aside comments as well. Some people like to read these, but by and large the posting public would FAR rather see the actual topic for discussion and decide whether to read it or not. In fact, its probably better if you leave out your name from the title in all cases. We can see that you're the author. If you choose not to follow this rule, don't be surprised to see your Random Thoughts thread get stuck in the Official Collected Musings Thread.
NOTE: This is NOT to say that we won't allow some regular threads by posters on a specific regular topic (without them needing to put their name on it), at our discretion. But to prevent the board from being inundated with this sort of thread, most of them will be either renamed or merged into the Collected Musings Thread.
Complaining in a Thread a.k.a. "Armchair Moderating"
Guess what, its at the mods discretion what happens in these tangents. But it can be pretty irritating for a related tangent to develop complaining about people's posts, or about how a thread should be moderated.
So if you see something that you think is a problem from either of the other sections on this page (Bad Starts or Bad Turns), there are ways you can very productively help. You should:
- Click the report button on the offending post(s).
- Copy the link location of the thread in question.
- Report the post using the report button (!), PM one of the mods who is around with the link, and the issue you have with the post. And we'll try our best to deal with it as soon as possible.
- POSTING IBTL or ANY VARIATION of IBTL in any thread will result in a warning from mod, with possible suspension, ban, depending on the history of poster. We as mods know what's lock worthy, and what's not. We don't need 5 posters, posting padding stating "IBTL" thread, do so, and you'll be hearing from a mod via private messaging. If you think a thread is lock worthy, do steps 1, 2, 3, report the post, pm a mod, with the link, and we'll handle it.
- IF a valid topic has been created, but there is another thread made earlier which is being discussed (Duplicate thread), just point the member to the original thread, with the link, and leave it at that, we'll handle locking, merging the thread, again, no posting of IBTL, or variations of this.
Game Threads
- In cases where we won the previous game, the next game thread should be started by the same poster. If they don't start it within a reasonable time, a proxy thread can be started, at the mods discretion.
- If we lost the previous game, the thread can be started by any OTHER poster, but they need to put some effort into it. They can however put up a placeholder thread with some effort, then improve it through editing soon afterward (ie, put up the placeholder and then work on the thread immediately, not the next day).
- The game thread should at a minimum include the date, time, teams involved, estimated starters and injuries, and TV and radio coverage.
- The game thread is used for pregame discussion, and discussion during the game for those who can't access the chat. For everyone else, use the chat so that the game thread doesn't become unnecessarily large.
- At the conclusion of the game, one of the moderators will lock the game thread and a post-game discussion thread can be started. This is where we break down what happened and have a discussion about it.
- For games with no regular TV coverage, we encourage posters to produce eye-witness accounts. These can be in their own thread so that other posters can read them on page 1 and then ask their questions of the people who attended the games. If you want to post yours in someone else's thread to carry on from them, go ahead. If you'd like your thoughts added to page 1 of a thread, PM a mod and they'll see what they can do to splice them. Doing this is separate threads ensures that the eye-witness comments don't get buried in a huge post-game thread that is mainly people speculating based on stats and a few highlights.
We'll review this policy from time to time but it seems to be popular so far.
Blogs
Its great that some of our posters here are taking the time and effort to start their own blogs. Feel free to put the link to your blog in your signature, with the latest update topic, like Hank has done.
But don't start a thread to get people to come to read your blog. That's against the Terms of Service of the site, as spam.
Misc
- Arguing with moderators after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning and or possible suspension/banned.
- Any attempt to circumvent a temporary suspension will lead to that ban being made permanent and the loss of multiple accounts. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account to evade an email ban. Circumvention also includes posting as an anonymous user.
- If you were previously banned, and is founded, you will be re-banned under the new username. While RealGM may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence.
Cheers,
Your friendly RealGM mods
