These rules are disclosed to clarify the various responsibilities of all community members here on GOTH.NET. They shall be adhered to by everyone to ensure that our board runs smoothly and provides a fun and productive experience for all of our community members and visitors.
Each section has a description alerting you to what does and does not belong there. While Administrators and Moderators do have the ability to move topics between the sections, habitual posting in the wrong sections by any member will result in warnings being given. If you’re really not sure, the safest bet is to put it in general discussion or ask a staff member. #
In other words, don’t hijack the thread to spam about your band, don’t start using the thread as a personal chat room with someone you fancy (see #3), don’t start going on for several subsequent posts about Kate Bush in a thread that started its life as a discussion of the finer points of Nitzer Ebb. If the side topic seems worthwhile, the thread can be split (Just notify a staff member to take care of it) or start a new topic in the appropriate forum. #
This is not LiveJournal. If you consistently take threads off-topic to talk about yourself, or are turning threads into a personal chat room with someone you fancy, you’re attention whoring (in addition to thread-hijacking – see #2). If you're whining about how mean your parents, kids in your school, or members of your community are, if you're whining about how you're the only Goth in your town or have no scene in your community, if you're whining that people treat you differently when you dress as shockingly as possible, or if you're playing the "depressed and Gother-than-thou" card, you're attention whoring. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is entire community devoted to being involved in the Gothic subculture. We’ve all been there, done that, and got over it. #
This rule should be self-evident, but for the pendantic people out there, yes, of course the occasional “lol” is going to happen. We aren't English and Grammar teachers, and we understand that some people aren't native speakers of English while others simply aren't good at punctuation. We don't expect perfection, but we do expect an honest effort. If you are not a good speller, type your posts into a word-processing program and spell-check them before posting them. In addition, no netspeak or leetspeak will be tolerated, nor will various "cute" styles of posting such as aLtErNaTiNg CaPs, bolding or italicizing entire posts, or never-ending strings of emoticons. Posting entirely in italics, bold font or obnoxious blinky fonts is just plain irritating and is not permitted. Posting in colours is deliberately disabled on these forums.
NOTE: If your native language is not English, you will probably find a thread or two to chat in down in the Regional forums where the “English only” rule does not apply. However, the moratorium on Netspeak, “leet”, textspeak, etc is still in effect in these forums. #
Idiocy and stupidity are frowned upon here. If you show us that you have more than a solitary brain cell dying of isolation, we'll probably like you. If you act like a brain dead moron, we won't. #
Blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, or religious intolerance is the fastest way to get banned from the forum. No exceptions.
Now and then, someone will come to this board ands stir up shit by being a bigot. If you fall into this category, we reserve the right to boot you right back out. GOTH.NET is a community. If you’re here to be a bigoted prat, you’re clearly not interested in being part of this community and we will promptly take care of that discrepancy for you. #
Learn to use the Search function of this board. It’s not difficult and will minimize duplicate and “dead horse” topics.
Some topics just have a way of rearing their ugly heads over and over. Please learn to use the Search function, found at the top of the page, right under the GOTH.NET logo. Each forum and thread have a search bar right at the top of the forum/thread as well, so you can quickly find what you are looking for that way too, if you know generally where it is supposed to be. This will enable us to prevent having multiple threads on one topic, thus helping the board run more smoothly. Continual obvious failure to use the Search feature by any member will result in warnings from staff. #
Check the dates of older threads before replying. While we're always happy to see that people go back and read older topics, if a topic hasn't been posted to in a month or more, chances are the discussion has run its course. So, if you're considering posting to one of these topics, make very, very sure that you are adding something new and significant to the thread. The exceptions to the "one month" rule of thumb are few. We do have a few threads that run slowly but have been open for ages. Most notably, these are going to be threads in our Regional sections regarding specific geographic areas and threads in other sections regarding what books our members are reading, work they've submitted for critique, etc. The only way to tell the difference between one of these threads (which are sometimes pinned) and an old topic to be avoided is to familiarize yourself with the way we do things around here, and even long-running threads are not exempt from the "new & significant" requirement for your posts. #
No backseat moderating. Leave the work to the staff. Make use of the “Report” button if you feel something needs immediate attention.
Backseat moderating is any action by a member that serves only to point out another members failure to follow TheRules™. This means the general populace of GOTH.NET should not be seen telling other members not to use netspeak, telling them to get back on topic, telling them they resurrected an old topic, etc. We most definitely do not want to see strings of posts from older members telling newer members to go read TheRules™ by way of welcoming them to the board. This is neither welcoming nor necessary. #
While the staff may sometimes get a little rough when dealing with troublemakers and trolls, flaming is not tolerated among the members of GOTH.NET. Keep a level head, and help us avoid a brawl reminiscent of grade-school playground fight. #
From time to time, we have people who come here and instantly begin complaining that we insist on enforcing the rules. We also often hear members try to evade the rules by claiming a problem with authority, a right to free speech, etc. In an ideal world, a site like GOTH.NET wouldn't attract people who really just want to make trouble. In an ideal world, every new member would read TheRules™; and follow them without our staff members having to remind them. This isn't an ideal world. This board is hosted on a privately owned domain. This means the owner, PreZ, and the people they have entrusted with it, the other Administrators and Moderators, have every right to set rules and prevent you from participating here if we see fit. You do not have the right to spread hate, you do not have the right to bring private matters onto the board, you do not have the right to insult the staff or other members, and you do not have the right to throw hissy-fits and backtalk the staff if they reprimand you. These behaviors won't impress us and, in most cases, will do nothing but earn you an instant warning. If you don't like these conditions, the solution is simple: direct your browser elsewhere. #
Images: images are blocked in signatures. You should also refrain from putting them into your posts.
This shouldn’t need much explanation. There are some occasions where images within posts is all right, but this is usually a special exception that has been previously cleared with the staff. The forums will also automatically disallow you from posting images that are either more than 640px wide or 800px long. #
This rule should also be self-explanatory. We have people of all ages and walks of life on this forum. Just because you can be subversive and shocking doesn’t mean you have to be everywhere you go. #
Just a simple preface of “Not Safe For Work” in your post text should do the trick when it comes to these things. #
Avatars: Pornographic and/or offensive avatars are not permitted, don’t steal other people’s bandwidth, and make your image 100x100 pixels.
If your avatar is determined to be pornographic and/or offensive, the staff will remove it for you and send you a warning privately. If you opt not to use one of the board’s default avatars, please host the image on your own site (or Photobucket or Flickr) rather than hotlinking to someone else’s site, thus stealing their bandwidth. Also, the default avatar size is 100 x 100 pixels. If your image is bigger than that, use a graphics program to shrink it down to size rather than making the board software squash it for you. It will still take a long time to load and this is inconsiderate to the users on slower connections. If you have no graphics programs, either pick a board avatar, or ask someone to make a smaller version for you. #
New Members & Posting: You cannot start your own threads unless you have a post count of 10 or higher.
Sometimes, new users figure this out and start serial posting nonsense until they reach 10 posts, just so they can start their own thread. Usually said thread is either spam or some pathetic whining about school/parents/etc that really wasn’t that urgent and instantly falls under #3, Attention Whoring. When we see you jockeying for post count, we will smack you down with warnings until you can’t post any more. When we see you spamming, we’ll probably delete your spam, and will just put you automatically into post moderation (ie. where all your posts require approval by a moderator before being visible), which just negates all your hard work anyway. Additionally, the first three posts of ALL new users must be approved by the moderators to ensure both that they are not spammers and have understood the rules in force on the forums. #
Posting articles/copyrighted text: Refrain from plagiarizing. If the staff determines your post to be plagiarized, it will be removed. Provide links to any quoted material, and keep quotes to a minimum
People seem to forget that copy/pasting an entire article into the forum really does fall under "copyright infringement." While we don't believe the feds will come and shut the site down for it, we prefer you just post a link to it, with perhaps an interesting "teaser" bit quoted, if you can. Not to mention, most articles are way too long for a reasonably digestible post. #
Just what it says. We’re a community, not a place to pick up Hawt Gawth Grrrls (or whatever you fancy). #