The Rules

[Brackentail]

These are the site's main rules and rules for the role-playing. Please read them carefully, and don't pass something that doesn't make 100% sense to you. If you have problems of any kind while reading the rules[not understanding, having a hard time focusing on reading them, etc], please contact me first and finish reading them after I'm able to talk to you and explain it better. This will help me know who's following what the site has set up for them, and it will help prevent having multiple confusions on how things work here.

So without further ado, here are our golden rules.

Behavior:

1) Do not begin flamewars. Flamewars are fights sparking between members that creates a mass argument. These don't give the site a good look to guests, and it makes the members not want to work with one another as much because really, a person isn't likely to agree with someone on anything if all they do is argue. So let's keep our reputation up and at least try to get along, yeah? We are a team keeping this site active, after all.

2) Spamming is prohibited. GOA will not allow one-worded posts, or anything of the like. GOA will especially not accept posts from bots, or advertisers who post on the wrong board, or posts meant to bring down the site's reputation, or anything else you could think of. I'm pretty sure most of you understand how to recognize spam, so just make sure you do what feels right. Report any sighted spam and don't post something that feels like it might be spam. If you are posting something that feels like it might be spam, ask first! I won't bite your head off for not knowing something. tl;dr: no spamming.

3) Don't PM members just to ask them to join a site. These PM's have a tendancy of being very annoying, and PM's are not advertising boards! This also falls under the spam category. Please keep advertising to the advertising board and leave the members alone from these things.

4) Show respect. You all know that people have worked to make this site specifically so you could have fun with others sharing your fandom. So return a favor and show your respect for that. Don't be rude and talk back to us. Examples of talk-back behavior---
Person A: "Have there been any reports recently?"
Person B: "There's been nothing to report!"
Person A wonders if B understood A's question. They go "okay, but have there BEEN any reports recently?" with a more confused and possibly annoyed tone to their voice. I'm sure some of you have had something like that before and I'm sure it wasn't amazing-feeling, so let's prevent that, yeah?
Another example---
Person A: "Did you reply to the RP yet?"
Person B: "I've been too busy."
Person A winds up thinking "...sure you have other things to do but that doesn't answer my question."
Example three---
Person A: "I'm giving you a warning for breaking that rule."
Person B: "How did that break a rule?! I don't want a warning :C"
Person B then created an uneasy feeling between theirself and Person A, and then Person A feels bad for following their own set of rules to warn them, and doesn't want to warn the person anymore but does so anyway because it's the rule and it needs to be done. If you broke something and the staff says you need a warning for it, don't be proud about it. It's okay if you do something wrong so long as you handle whatever it was that was wrong and be sure you don't let it happen again. GOA just wants to make sure you learn to respect your authority and your fellow members and that you work together, instead of turn against each other due to a misunderstanding on what you all think of each other or whatever. So this is a don't-talk-back/respect rule, and this is a big one I want to make sure is enforced.

5) Don't impersonate people. Impersonating somebody is acting as though you're them by means of stealing their name and posting as them. This sort of act is against the law and you WILL be reported to this staff and ProBoards staff. ProBoards staff has tracked down impersonaters and handled them with jail reasonings before because it is against the law to steal identities, and I don't want that happening here. You guys surely know better, and impersonation calls for an instant-ban.

6) Don't discuss touchy subjects. If you want to talk about things like religion, sexuality, suicide, or whatever else that could hurt feelings of another member, you can take it to a PM or somewhere else, but it does not belong in any boards we have here. If you're caught discussing these topics on the boards, you will be reported and warned.

7) Swearing is okay on this site. Just don't let it go overboard. Slipping out "hell" or "damn" every now and then is fine. Just not every other sentence or whatever. Got it? Good.

Main Site:

1) No double-posting. This looks spammy. Not to mention, there's a neat little edit button on your posts that you can use if you forgot to say something. However, this rule does not apply in posting Fan-Fictions in the Artistic Paws board.

2) No page-stretching. In other words, keep your pictures and signatures to 650ish pixels wide and don't let them stretch too high. The bigger the picture, the longer it takes to load and we don't want to slow anyone's computer down, right? We all know how frustrating that can be. Stretched boards and threads don't look too great, anyway.

3) Please keep your posts literate. Don't just say something like "I don't know." in a post or a simple "Yeah." Contribue to the thread you're participating in! Get creative, don't just sit there and go "Oh they already said everything there is to say," that isn't what roleplaying or literacy is about. I expect at least four words in every post, even outside RPing.

Role-Playing

1) No Power-play. When you Power-play, you take control of things that aren't yours to control. For example, killing somebody's character in a role-play post when you didn't plan it out with the other RPer and just wanted to make your own character look cool. Here's an example of a Power-play post:

Brackentail dodged his opponent's swipe, narrowly avoiding a nasty scratch. When Brackentail got back up, he slashed at his enemy, leaving a large cut in his fur. Blood spilled from his enemy, and Brackentail smirked at his successful hit.

See how it talks about what the enemy is doing at the same time as it controls Brackentail's moves, too? This is what is not allowed. A more proper version of that post would be something more like:

Brackentail quickly rolled out of the way of another attack. He got back up and swung his claws at the opponent, aiming at the ribs.

Of course, posts won't be that short, but that would be the better way to show what he's doing while keeping the scenario going. In the second example, it doesn't control the second character; it just describes what happened in the other character's post to add on to what Brackentail is doing in response to it. Keep this in mind as you role-play.

2) Do not God-Mod. God-Modding is the action of making your character all-powerful. This involves giving your cat special abilities, making it dodge every single move that's ever thrown at it, etc. Here's an example of one of the most obvious God-Modding posts you could make:

Brackentail's eyes widened at the cat leaping toward him, caught by surprise. He dodge-rolled out of its way to avoid being pounced on, spread out his wings, and flew away from the danger. He found his way back to camp, where he could finally relax.

Those are just simply prohibited beyond any cost. Almost no one likes a Mary-Sue, so don't make your cat one. Got it? Good.

3) Keep your character in one thread at a time. In roleplaying, you create stories as you go. So if you have one character in one story, and then it winds up in a second story, what happens when those two stories take place at the same setting at some point? It'd get confusing, right? Let's keep the confusion out and make sure our settings make sense when we roleplay.

4) You may have as many characters as you'd like. The key is to keep track and control them. In other words, if you can handle 32948230 cats and know where they all are and don't feel overwhelmed by them, go ahead and make as many as you please.

5) You can have two High Rank cats. However, they cannot be of the same Rank. For example, you may have one Leader and one Medicine Cat, but not two Leaders or two Medicine Cats. Gotta give everyone a chance, right?

6) Your IC(In Character) posts must be at least 200 words in length. This is a semi-literate and above RP site. I don't want to see anything below 200 words. There's a word-count in your quick reply for you to keep track.

So, please be sure to follow these rules. If you have any problems with them, please take that up with me.

This is our banning system:

Receive a report for something regarding rules on the reports board: 5% warning

Break one rule: 10% warning
Break the same rule again: 15% warning, and so on.
Break the RP rules: 15% warning
Break the same RP rule again: 20% warning
Ignore warnings received from staff: 30% warning
Break a rule more than five times: 50% warning + temporary ban depending on how many warnings this one has received and on which rules were broken, etc.
Constant talk-back to members, causing violation of rule number 4: 65% warning + possible temporary ban depending on how bad it is.
Trolling the forum/spamming us all the time: 75% warning + temporary ban depending on level of rule-violation.
Violating all the rules: 85% warning + temporary ban depending on how bad it is.
Constantly reported for rule-breaking and found violating numerous rules: 95% warning + possible ban depending on the "crime."
Caught impersonating anybody: Instant 100% warning + a ban, permanent depending on how bad the case was.
If you are given warnings, the staff will discuss what to do with you and you will be informed of what we decide for you.

I encourage you all to report any violations of these rules in the Reports board so we can help each other keep this place free of broken rules and troublemakers.

Thank you all for taking the time to read the rules! C: