Code of Conduct & Terms of Use
In order to use this forum, you must agree to the following:
I. Implications of posting.
Anything
you do give must be considered as becoming public information. You
remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you
agree to indemnify and hold harmless this forum and their agents with
respect to any claim based upon any post you may make. We also reserve
the right to reveal whatever information we know about you in the event
of a complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by
yourself. By posting, you are also aware of the FCC's Online Privacy
Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) which requires that Web Sites obtain
parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal
information from children under 13. Since we do not seek parental
consent, you can NOT use this forum if you are below the age of 13.
II. Roles and powers of the staff
The
forum administrators and the moderating staff reserve full rights to
whatever is necessary to regulate forum topics and members. This
includes: The right to terminate any membership and the right to delete
threads or specific comments for any reason or no reason without
warning. In practice, the staff will take such actions when there is a
violation of rules, defined below, exhibited by members. WH members are
obliged to follow any instructions or decisions by WH staff with
immediate effect. This includes suggestions by private message, in
which, noncompliance may result in a warning.
III. Procedures of the staff regarding bans and warnings
In
the event of a violation, the administration will determine privately
the severity of the case and act accordingly. Severe violation can
result in an immediate ban, which may be permanent or temporary. Lesser
violations will be given warnings, or bans from specific forum
sections. Minor violations may result in simple deletion of comments.
The decision of the staff, with regards to warnings and bans, will
become effective immediately, as soon as it is posted in the "Edicts"
forum and will also be communicated via Private Messaging (PM)to the
member.
IV. Complaints against specific forum members
Reports
of misconduct must be directed to a forum Administrator, Council member or a moderator
active in the forum section of the alleged misconduct in Private
Messaging(PM). Please provide specific information, links, and/or
quotations to ensure a fast response. The staff will respond, after
determining the extent of the misconduct. The staff is not obligated to
take any action against a forum user purely for the sake of personal
preference by another.
V. Complaints about staff actions
We
no longer directly seek to elicit public opinion on matters regarding
violations, as only moderators may post in the "edicts" forum. An
appeal to staff actions must be made to a forum Administrators or Council through
Private Messaging. All appeals are considered, but we are not obligated
to make any changes to the actions, nor partake in prolong debate. In
the case of reporting misconducts of a staff member, they must be
addressed to an administrator (preferably) or another moderator.
VI. The Administration
The
official forum administration consists of Forum Administrators, Council and
members of the "Moderator Group." By guideline, the entire
administration acts coherent in policy. Forum moderators are free to
exercise their allowed permission and in most cases can act as the
voice of the administration when contacting members. The hosting fees as well as domain fees are paid
for by the Administration - funded through the ads on the forum. Currently we own and promote the domain http://" rel="nofollow - www.worldhistoria.com . We also still maintain our old domains http://www.allempires.net" rel="nofollow - www.allempires.net , http://www.allempires.info" rel="nofollow - www.allempires.info and http://www.allempires.org" rel="nofollow - www.allempires.org for redirectional purposes.
A. The Council
The Council is the executive governing body of worldhistoria.com. The
council members are elected from among the moderators, with all
administrators and moderators being eligible to vote. At the beginning
of the election process, nominations shall be offered for one week.
After the nominees are posted, there will be a period of one week during
which votes may be cast. The term of office
is three months, and council members may serve for two consecutive
terms. Any moderator may stand for election provided he/she has not
served for two consecutive terms immediately prior to his/her
candidacy. The three candidates
who receive the most votes in the election become members, with the
candidate who receives the most votes being appointed as the Chairman
(in the event of a tie, the member with the most posts in the two
months prior to the end of the voting process shall prevail). The
position of Chairman is administrative; all three
council members are equals. The Council is not intended to replace the
moderating community as a whole. Moderators shall still carry
out their normal roles and maintain all powers, and the Council shall
consult with the rest of the moderating community as much as
possible. However, the Moderating Council shall have the final say if
and
when necessary. Decisive, is the operative word. In addition to this,
the following list enumerates the powers reserved solely to the Council.
December, 2010 Amendment
Council elections starting from this CoC amendment (unless changed, or amended by
a future council) will cancel the current two consecutive term limit on
moderators running for a seat in the Council. If a council member(s)
has already served two full, consecutive terms, he will from this point
be eligible to run for as many consecutive terms as they wish, and be
elected to as many as well. However, if we
have more than 5 moderators running in a Council Election, and either
of the moderators has already served 2 consecutive terms then the old
rule applies, and that moderator will be automatically knocked off the
ticket. If more than one former Council member is running, and there are less than 4 new candidates, then the new rule still applies.
1. Staff Affairs: The Council may, at any time, appoint
new moderators. Once the Council decides on a list of nominated
candidates, the moderating community as a whole shall be consulted. The
Council shall then appoint however many moderators it wishes from the
list of nominees, through a process of consensus culminating in a majority
vote. The Council may recommend the dismissal of moderators, for
inactivity or conduct unbecoming of a staff member, to the
Administrators. In both of these cases, the decisions of the Council
require confirmation by the Administrators.
2. Disciplinary Sanctions: The Council has
decisive power over sanctions and bans, up to and including the ability
to confirm and veto bans issued by the rest of the staff. The Council
may also expunge official warnings and revoke bans by a unanimous vote.
3. Legislative Function: Any Council member may
propose a change in forum policy or revision to the Code of Conduct.
After internal review, the Council shall put the issue to the
moderating community as a whole for a week of discussion. The matter
shall then be formally drawn up by the Council, and the resultant
legislation put to a vote before the entire moderating community for a
period of one week, with a 2/3
majority of those voting required for passage.
4. Emergency Provision: The processes outlined
above are normative, not absolute. In the event of an emergency, the
Council may disregard them in the interest of preserving the safety and
security of the World Historia community.
VII. Violations
The
following are the acts that are considered violations to the code of
conduct. For many cases the administration will determine the severity.
Violations include but are not limited to the following:
A .Legal Violations
Any
violations to criminal laws will be prosecuted to the fullest extent if
necessary. This includes: Posting or advocating warez, sabotaging or
hacking the server and its related components, attacking a user in a
way that is considered criminal, and violating international copyright
laws. Any use of the forum that violates the privacy of other users is
strictly forbidden.
B. Inappropriate posting
1. Multiple
User-Names: All WH members will have only one user-name unless a
change is specifically requested by the member and approved of by the
staff. Multiple user-names are not allowed. Permanent bans will be
given and are pronounced against specific persons and
accompanying user-names. Any attempt by a member to log in under a
different user-name will result in the immediate deletion of both
the current and new accounts. Thus, the member who has more than one
account will be banned from the forum. Previously banned members may
not create new accounts, otherwise those will be banned as well.
2.
Spam: Spam is defined as irrelevant, wrongly placed, or redundant
messages posted for attention in the Forum or sent via PM as
unsolicited mail. Spam will be deleted from the forum, and constitutes
a violation of use. Posting under multiple user-names by an individual
member is also considered as spamming.
3. Trolling;
Trolling is the act of posting witty, response-provoking comments that
appear relevant in order to disrupt the discussion, annoy or create
attention. Trolling can also be considered as Spam, inflammatory
remarks, or annoyance.
4. Obscene material, excessively graphic pictures, and pornography of any type.
5.
Rude insults, defamatory remarks, offensive images, cursing, profanity
intended as an insult towards another member, personal attacks, words
of hate. Any remarks that stirs up anger. In dealing with flame wars,
comments that started the flame war will have more weight in terms of
violation.
6. Nationalism and the
belittlement of religious groups; derogatory remarks to religious,
national or ethnic groups and members, jingoism, bigotry, racism,
political propaganda. (see appendix below)
7. Derogatory remarks to individual members or social groups on grounds of their age, gender, or sexual orientation.
8. Negative attitude; tone of confrontation, annoyance, or contempt; disrespectful toward other members.
9. Excessive posting in other languages. English is the official language in all the forum
sections.
10. Religious preaching.
11.
Plagiarism, the posting of texts found elsewhere without naming either
author or source. Posting your own personal commentary is encouraged
when copy/pasting from another source. When pasting attempt to place
the content in quotes, highlight or underline for presentation
purposes. Provide a correct URL link. When referencing from books or
periodicals provide the title of the reference, the author and
publication date. Posts where the paste is the arguement itself, while
not adhering to these requirements, will be deleted.
12. Some Controversial topics have their own Forum, The Minefield. These topics are not to be debated elsewhere on World Historia http://www.allempires.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=23505&PN=1" rel="nofollow - (See the list of topics)
13. Posting Private Messages (PM) on the forum without consent from the original author of the message being displayed.
14. Commercial promotion: In addition, the
sections for history may not be used for promotion of commercial
products or services unless highly relevant to the topic and considered
appropriate by the administration.
VIII. A ban will be given to any current and future member of this forum who, after joining here,
become moderators or administrators at allempires.com. Anyone who has joined the staff at allempires.com after October 1 2009
can become members here if they relinquish their position at allempires.com
or if they joined us after already becoming part of the .com staff
first.
IX. These
forum rules do not and are not intended to cover everything. Moderators
and ultimately Administrators reserve the right to act accordingly to
keep the peace and order of this History Community.
Appendix
Definition of unacceptable nationalistic remarks:
This
category of violations has been perhaps the most troublesome to deal
with. The definition is that remarks are unacceptable if they have the
intention of disparaging, belittling, or insulting another religious,
ethnic or national group. Unacceptable remarks can take the form of
direct messages disparaging a religious or national group, indirect
messages overly promoting one's religious affinity or national group,
and/or a more implicit attack, written against a particular political,
cultural, or historical aspect of that religious or national group. An
acceptable remark is one that is objective and presents facts without a
certain element of tone in the message. A criticism merely points out a
problem, whereas an insult implies inherent inferiority. In order to
make the forum less susceptible to these problems, topics regarding
modern politics can only be posted in the "Intellectual discussions"
section. Topics regarding religion should be posted in the "Philosophy
and Theology" section where the discussion of religious history,
policies and figures are allowed for debate. Moderators and
Administrators reserve the right to delete threads or comments that are
controversial.
The restrictions below are temporarily lifted until January 1'st 1013, and will be totally abandoned at that time if we haven't experienced any major trouble until then.
We have posting restrictions in place for the Minefield and Current Affairs area. Members will need to have 50 posts in their name before they can post in these sub forums. The necessary minimum ranking is as a Knight.
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