Reminder To All Members

Recently, we're noticed an increase in the number of minimal (or one-line) posts, large quotes, pasted material from other sources, and inappropriate avatars and sigs.

Our community standards are not arbitrary, but put in place for good reasons that have developed over the seven years of our existence. Many of these standards are in-place to make ATS a better community, and not simply a means for mods to target users (as some have suggested).

As a reminder to posters and to help out the moderators (especially us new people) I thought it would be a good idea to remind the community of the following guidelines:

Please review the Avatar and Signature Guidelines if you are considering your first avatar or a new avatar. Erotic, Suggestive, Violent or Illegal Content is strictly forbidden.

Also remember that unless you have been a member for at least 60 days and received permission from an Administrator (i.e. Simon Gray) you are not allowed to link to personal or other websites in your signature.

Do not copy and paste entire articles from other websites even if you provide a link. In most cases this will be a violation of another site’s copyright and could land ATS in trouble.

Please do not write your entire post as one paragraph. Break things up into separate thoughts. It makes reading and understanding much easier on the reader.

Do not use ALL CAPS in posts and thread titles. This is equivalent to yelling to the online community.

When responding to posts using the QUOTE button, please edit the quoted portion to the minimum amount needed to reference the point you are responding to. Please refrain from answering within the quote as this make your entire post appear as a quoted statement. In addition, “compound quoting” (quotes within quotes) will usually receive an excessive quote warning.

Do not circumvent the automated censors by using misspelled or simulations of a curse. We know you are clever, no need to prove it. In fact if you feel you must swear to make a point, spell it out. The ATS sensors will filter it for those who have not purchased the “disable censors” feature in the ATS store. HOWEVER, this feature is not a license to swear and repeated use of vulgarity will likely result in a warning.

One Line or short Responses or "me too" atta-boy comments contribute nothing to the discussion. These include rows of smilies, "you're wrong", “they got what they deserved” or other similar short responses. Please help us maintain the best discussion board possible by considering your responses in both content and length.

Those of you who have fallen into this habit, may get a few warnings in your U2U in-box. These warnings are not full Staff Warnings, but carry a point penalty and provide you with a link to your one-line post.

If you engage in abusive behavior, or otherwise engage in activity that conflicts with our Terms and Conditions, you will receive a warning from forum staff. Warnings last 72 hours and come with a point penalty (250). If you accumulate 5 active warnings, you will automatically receive a temporary posting ban.

Be aware that depending on the severity of your actions, you may be warned more than once for the same offense. We maintain a log of all warnings applied to members for our staff to review, and there have been occasions where a severe offense has received more than one warning from more than one staff member.

More information on all of these matters can be found in Zedd’s ATS Handbook.

Complaints?

If you have any complaints or suggestions please use the “suggestion” tab at the top of every page. This will create a post in the moderator forum accessible to ALL moderators for review. It will also avoid unnecessary board drama.

Please help make ATS a welcoming community for all ages and points of view by following these guidelines. Also, please remember that moderators are volunteers with real lives who are just doing their best to make this a better community.


[edit on 4/15/2005 by Gools]

[edit on 15-4-2005 by Gazrok]