EvaGeeks Forum Rules and Guidelines

Here you will find a rundown of the rules and regulations of the EvaGeeks Forum. Know them, and know them well. Observation of the classic work Posting and You is also considered a prerequisite to posting.

Purpose

The purpose of the EvaGeeks Forum is to provide Evangelion fans with a pleasant, mature, and productive atmosphere for the discussion of the show and related topics. The forum also serves as an extension of the EvaGeek site's content and services.

Members

All members should be fully acquainted with and adhere to the rules and guidelines set by the board staff. Failure to comply will result in warnings; failure to heed warnings will result in a temporary or permanent banning depending on the severity of the offense(s).

Courtesy towards other members and the staff is expected. If you have an issue with another forum member, do not send them snide or abusive PMs; a mod or admin should be consulted in the event that things cannot be resolved calmly.

"Sassing" the staff is not permitted under any circumstances. (This does not, however, preclude the possibility of joking around. See Flaming under Posting.)

New members should not "introduce" themselves in their first posts. Please use the Welcome Thread for this purpose.

Members should have only one account. This is common sense, as having multiple accounts is like having multiple "disguises". Extra accounts will be deleted, and said members are likely to face a warning or a ban. Banned members attempting to subvert their bans by creating multiple accounts will be permanently banned from the forums.

Staff

The board staff are in charge of the forum's upkeep, establishing the rules and regulations, and making other administrative decisions. Administrators and moderators maintain order in the forum and ensure that the members observe the rules of conduct. If you are not an admin or mod, do not pretend to be one.

A list of the current staff may be found at Memberlists.

Posting

A. Language:

Posts shall be composed in English.

• Slang, abbreviations, acronyms, 1337, AIMspeak, chanspeak/“talking in memes”, etc., may not be habitual style. Occasional uses — e.g., for humorous effect in the proper context — are fine.
• There will be limited tolerance for “Bad English”. Users are expected to employ proper grammar: sentences, paragraphs, punctuation, capitalization, and so forth.

• The use of spell-checking is thoroughly encouraged. (This function is automatically furnished by the Firefox browser.)

• Make sure that your posts are coherent and understandable. Others should not be required to perform “translation” when reading.
• Posts should be as concise as possible. In the majority of cases, “less is more”.

• As an extension of this, make an attempt not to post prolonged “rants” that require considerable sifting to find the actual point, if there is any.

• This is an English language forum, so the use of other language should be kept to a minimum. Do not start having conversations with other users in Spanish, German, Russian, Esperanto, etc.

• A special exception is made for Japanese, due to Evangelion’s status as a Japanese work. Many users have at least some degree of familiarity with the language, and some are in the process of actively learning it, so 日本語 (“Japanese”) does get batted around here and there. This is fine, although it should not be done to excess, and it is considered a general courtesy to provide a translation of what you are saying. All-out conversations in Japanese are to be restricted to relevant threads in the Off-Topic subforum.

B. Formatting:

• Avoid using altered font (color, style, size) unless it serves a purpose. Purely functional formatting includes italic, bold, and underline; larger text for headings; smaller text for “footnotes”, “postscripts”, or “asides”; coloring text that needs to stand out; and so forth. It is also permissible to occasionally format font for mere “effect”, e.g., using teeny-weeny font to emulate “whispering”. However, the gratuitous use of enormous text or making text colored for no discernible reason, among other things, is inappropriate.
• Formatted text shall not be permitted to serve as one’s “default” (e.g., making the text of every post blue).
• Bold red text may only be used by the moderation staff. (See also the related policy under Signatures.)
• Broken bbcode tags are an eyesore. Make sure you employ them properly. Preview your posts before hitting Submit!

C. Quoting:

• DO NOT QUOTE ENTIRE POSTS. Edit them down to the part(s) you are actually replying to.
• Nested quotes (quotes within quotes within...) are only to be used if required to provide context for a reply.
• Embedded image(s) from the original post(s) must be edited out or modified to text links (i.e., with [url] tags or by simply removing the [img] tags) — or even to a simple description of the image — unless there is a concrete reason to re-embed the image(s). (For example, if the image was posted on a previous page of the thread.)
• Use the quote tags properly. Broken [quote] tags get ugly even faster than broken formatting tags. Again, use the Preview function to ensure that everything looks as it should!
• Make sure quotes are ascribed to the right person(s).

If you are unfamiliar with the ways of bbcode, please take the take to learn it: A Simple Run-Down

D. Double-Posting:

DON'T. The Edit button is your friend. Create a new post to bump the thread if you must, but then copy the text of the previous post into the new one, and use the little X button to delete the old one.

Double-posts are, however, okay if you're bumping a thread after a sizable time gap and you just so happened to be the last person to post in it.

E1. Off-Topic Posts:

While some amount of off-topic posting is expected, it should be kept to the bare minimum. The staff should not have to constantly remind members to “Stay on topic, bitches.” In cases where members are not simply engaging in spam (see below), they should redirect communications to more appropriate venues: See Tangents in the Threads section.

E2. Spam:

A post that doesn’t advance the topic of discussion or contribute in some way is spam. That is to say, junk. Noise. Pointless filler. This should also be avoided as much as possible, and will result in warnings in extreme cases.

Corollary 1. The forum is not a chat room.

Corollary 2. The forum is not 4chan.

E2b. Over-Posting:

This behavior involves the hyperactive posting of trivial replies -- a form of spam -- to threads (e.g., "yeah, that's what I think, too". Newcomers susceptible to this usually engage in prolific thread necromancy, as well, which is not appropriate (for permissible forms, see Threads). Over-posting generates far more noise than signal. Short-term, it is an annoyance in bad form; as a chronic habit, it works to the detriment of the forum as a whole.

Off-topic posts and spam are not necessarily the same thing, although there is a large area of overlap.

F. Swearing:

”We're all grown-ups here”, so casual cursing is allowed. However, be sensible about it. If, for example, you “drop the F-bomb” on other members (“fuck you”, “fuck off”) or use it pervasively (always put the word “fucking” in front of an adjective), that is not sensible use.

G. Flaming:

Flaming should not be done gratuitously. You are permitted to poke fun at someone provided that it is made obvious that the comment is in good fun. Participation in a flame thread/war will not be tolerated and will result in consequences, regardless of who started it.

While the occasional kneejerk reaction is expected, unnecessary flaming can usually be avoided by heeding the adage, “Stick to the points, not the people.” That is to say, in “heated debates” or elsewhere, the ideas presented by someone are to be addressed, as opposed to, e.g., the person’s reasons or motivations for having or advocating such ideas in the first place. (“You’re only saying that because...”)

Those in possession of a chronic bad attitude and the inability to distinguish adversarial behavior from proper conduct will be dealt with as needed.

H. Trolling:

As defined for online discussion environments, trolling is regarded as the intentional attempt to provoke a (usually emotional) response from any other user. (One example would be joining a Jewish forum and making posts exalting Naziism and the Holocaust, although the art can be far more subtle.) Since the staff only have users’ posts to go by, anything that reads as trolling will be considered trolling, regardless of intention. Users should take the necessary precautions. Those who engage in the behavior will be handled on a case by case basis.

This does not, of course, preclude limited doses of “light-hearted idiocy” and “irony”. Forum veterans tend to be in a better position to engage in this than newbies, since the staff and other established members have usually reached the point of being able to gauge their intentions. As an extension of this, newbies still finding their place in the community should try not to overreact to established members’ “accepted behaviorisms”. (“Oh, don’t mind him. He’s the Official Forum Asshole.”) However, since sarcasm tends not to translate well over the Internet, everyone is encouraged not to be outright careless. (Context, for example, is always a plus.)

I. Spoilers:

The website treats the original anime as the “default” and assumes that all visitors have viewed it in its entirety. Anyone who has not is considered at “open risk” of having the whole show ruined for them. Spoilers for other versions of Evangelion (the manga, Rebuild, etc.) must be confined to the various dedicated subfora. Given Rebuild’s status as a current and “hot” development, “spoilers” is extended beyond critical plot points to the gratuitous mention of any details someone may want to reserve for their initial viewing (e.g., on the various design overhauls or the new character / Evas).

There is no official spoilers policy for the discussion of non-Eva media. Members are encouraged to make sensible judgments and take things on a case-by-case basis. For example, spoilers would be expected in a thread discussing impressions of a specific movie, but not in one devoted to recommending anime series.

Threads

A. Considerations:

Before creating a new thread, there are some considerations that should be made.

• It is always better to post in a preexisting thread than to create a new one. Always check to see if a thread satisfying your specifications has already been made. This means familiarizing yourself with the Search tool. (Or even just glancing at the first one or two pages of threads in the relevant subforum!) In most cases, the creation of “redundant threads” can be easily avoided, due to the fact that most species of thread are characterized by predictable key words.

If, for example, you intend to create a thread asking people about their favorite character(s), more than likely the key words "favorite characters" will produce the preexisting thread. Sometimes, when it's not as straightforward, you have to think a little harder and attempt to "predict" the key words that would turn up in topic titles or posts on a particular subject. This is part of database search technique; learning the various tricks of the trade is thoroughly recommended to anyone with access to a (usually) computer and an Internet connection.

• If you have a general question, you should, beyond simply checking if one or more relevant threads already exist, see if your question is actually answered anywhere. While bumping an older thread is, as per above, considered preferable to creating a new one, why bump it at all to post a question that it could well fully address and answer (possibly within the first couple of pages)?

B. Location:

Threads should be created in the proper subfora; please read the descriptions and make sure you are in the right one. Moderators will move misplaced threads, but it's better not to generate the extra hassle at all.

C. Naming:

Please be sure to title threads appropriately. Titles should be descriptive and succinctly convey the topic of the thread as often as possible.

D. Necromancy:

Bumping threads as described in A. is fine. However, gratuitous necromancy — bumping old threads for no constructive reason — is inappropriate.

E. Tangents:

"Strings" of off-topic posts that break off from the original conversation should be avoided as much as possible. Instigating or contributing to the derailment of a thread is to be minimized. Members are encouraged to take initiative and divert off-topic conversation into a preexisting thread of the appropriate topic, a new thread, or, when appropriate, PMs or off-forum communication (for example, if they want to "talk to each other" instead of discuss the topic). This keeps the forum environment more organized and creates less work for the staff.

Tangents are dealt with variously, as the staff sees fit. They may be split off into new threads, pruned into the graveyard, deleted outright (namely in instances of spam), or result in the thread getting locked.

F. Locks:

A thread may be locked if the staff deems it to be inappropriate for whatever reason. Those that have gone irretrievably off-topic, gotten hopelessly out of hand, or lost all sense of purpose are also at risk. Warnings may or may not be issued in advance; users are adviced to heed "Back on topic, bitches" (or some variation thereof) whenever it appears.

Thread locks are, for all intents and purposes, irreversible. If a thread is locked, do not create a new thread attempting to "reprise" it. Please do not attempt to "appeal" to the staff unless you have an exceptional or heavily persuasive reason for doing so.

In instances where an initially valid topic was closed for "losing its way", a new thread may be created after an adequate "cool down" period. Use common sense when attempting to resurrect discussions that have "suffered the mods’ wrath".

F. Polls:

They have been disabled on this forum. Do not request them.

Signatures

These are intended to be a compact and concise way of relating information about yourself and adding a "personal touch" to your forum presence.

A. Images are not permitted in signatures.

B. They should be as small as possible and never exceed 104 pixels in height (the equivalent of six lines of default-size text). Excessively large text (beginning at twice the default size) is not permitted.

C. Unnecessary empty

    lines should be avoided.

D. Quote tags and Code tags may not be used.

E. Colored text is permitted. Please try to avoid giving the other members optical fatigue, though.

F. Signatures may be modified without warning for failing to comply with the guidelines.

Images

A. Images may be posted when relevant to a thread.

B. Posting replies in the form of an image (e.g., image macros) is discouraged, and may constitute a warning. Silly images may be posted "for their own sake" in this thread.

C. Large images (whether in size or dimensions) should be text linked rather than posted with the [img] tag (i.e., embedded).

D. Do not post direct links (using either the [img] tag or text links) to images hosted on other websites. This is called "hotlinking" and is, as a general rule, frowned upon. Upload images to your own webspace or to a free image-hosting service such as ImageShack or Photobucket before posting them. Hotlinking to images hosted on evageeks.org and evacommentary.org is, however, permitted on the forum.

Avatars

These shall be no larger than 125x125 pixels and 30kb. Use common sense when selecting your avatar, e.g., no graphic imagery of any kind or obnoxious animations. Avoid using an avatar employed by another member if possible.

Other

A. Copywrited Media

Do not ask for, or provide links to, sites illegally hosting copyrighted media. If you want to download the entire show, its soundtracks, and scans of the entire manga, fine -- but do it without involving the forum.

Exceptions are made for the sharing of "fair use" content such as (most) images, articles, translations, etc. Administrators also reserve the right to permit links to other copyrighted materials (such as media unavailable domestically) on a case-by-case basis.

As a corollary of this policy, do not link to sites that sell bootlegs or that plagiarize materials from other sites.

B. Illicit Material

This is obviously not an appropriate venue for, e.g., exchanging pornography or recommending good places to find it. However, since this is an open Evangelion forum, "illicit" material -- namely involving nudity, sex, and excessive violence -- does not fall into "forbidden" territory. The matter should be approached with common sense and maturity (if not the occasional good humor). Ask a staff member before posting something if you're unsure as to its status. As a general rule, any officially sanctioned Evangelion material does not require approval (although you probably don't want to post images from, say, Stripping Instrumentality Project unless there's a concrete reason for doing so...).