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.

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.

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.    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.


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.