Vampire: Elder Kindred Network Official Forum Rules
Welcome to Vampire: Elder Kindred Network (V:EKN), a community-based Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (V:TES) site that is your #1 source for V:TES-related news and information on the web! Before you start posting here, please take some time to acquaint yourself with our Forum Rules and Guidelines as listed below.
When posting on V:EKN, it's important to always be polite and use common sense. Respect others as you would in real life. If you're doing something that wouldn't be acceptable if the person you're talking to were sitting at a table with you, chances are it also isn't accepted on V:EKN.
In addition to these forum-wide rules, each subforum may have its own rules posted at the top of that forum. Each subforum may also have specific exceptions to the general forum rules. Please read those rules before posting in a subforum.
Infractions and Warnings
V:EKN has a number of rules that when broken will result in you receiving an Infraction or a Warning from one of the V:EKN moderators and your post being deleted or edited. Depending on the severity of the offense, you may receive a Warning instead of an Infraction. Warnings are meant to help you desist from your current undesirable course of action and don’t count towards more serious punishments like suspensions and bannings. If a moderator gives you a Warning, you will receive a private message giving you the heads up about the Warned post and why you should stop posting like that.
If your post broke the Forum Rules severely enough, you might receive an Infraction. These Infractions are serious penalties that stack up and may lead to you getting suspended or banned. If one of your posts is deemed problematic and you get an Infraction for it, you will receive a private message letting you know about the reason behind the Infraction and why you need to avoid making such posts.
Spam
A spam post is any post that contributes little or no content to a thread. Spam displays one or more of the following characteristics:
1) Burdens the thread of conversation.
2) Is not clearly relevant to the current topic.
3) Represents a willful attempt to act as a general nuisance to the community as a whole.
Flaming
"Flaming" is a broad category consisting of various forms of malicious attacks directed at another person. Flaming can consist of, but isn’t limited to, racism, sexism, trolling (attempting to get another user to flame you), derogatory statements, inappropriate language, or other forms of communication that lack the manners and decency needed when posting on this forum. Flaming is not allowed in posts, signatures, avatars, locations, custom titles, etc.
Signatures and Avatars Offenses
Signatures may include only one non-animated 600x100 or 450x150 block of image, not including smilies. Any secondary banners, even if they are in spoiler tags, will be removed. Signature text should be kept to a reasonable length. Excessive amounts of text, links, quotes, empty space, etc., should either be put inside spoiler tags or moved to an extended signature thread (Max Length: 400 characters/ Max Lines: 4). Avatars cannot be larger than 100x100 pixels and if animated must not be excessively fast or flashing.
Double Posting, Bumping and Necroing
Please do not post two times in a row on the same topic. Instead, edit the post using the button to add to the first post or the button to respond to several posts at once. Bumping a thread without adding content is not allowed. Also do not post on old and inactive threads which have effectively died and have dropped to the bottom of the forum page or beyond. ("necroing").
Evading the Censor
Certain words will be turned into asterisks (*) by the forum software. Do not attempt to get around this by altering the word slightly or inserting an asterisk of your own. If "gris" were a banned word, "gr*s," "gr1s," and "grris" would all be examples of censor evading.
Backseat Modding
If you see a post or thread that breaks the rules, contact the forum moderator. Don't lecture the person about their broken rule, don't say "This thread should be moved to ____," just report the post and be done with it.
Repeated Bad Spelling and/or Grammar
Continuous bad grammar, "text speak" or bad spelling in posts will not be tolerated. If English is not your first language and you use some words or grammar out of place, or you occasionally make mistakes don't worry. Only members who consistently make no effort to communicate clearly will get an Infraction.
Invisitext
All posts must be made using fonts and colors that are easily readable on all available forum skins. Posts containing hard to read or invisible font will be edited to be more readable and the poster can be infracted. On the same note, any content violating the forum rules in invisitext is treated the same as a violation not in invisitext.
Note that certain text colors show up differently on the various "skin" options the site has. Please try and ensure that they're visible in all the variations.