General Forum Rules

[Pyriel]

Welcome to the CodeMasters-Project Forums

Thank you for participating in the CMP Forums. However, as with all social circles, there are a few rules you must abide by in order to maintain your active membership within these message boards. We are trying to provide the highest quality Community experience for all of our members and following these guidelines is the best way to maintain a quality environment for all age groups. These rules are very basic and we hope that you read them fully. Often a particular forum will have a thread marked as "Forum Rules" any additional rules will be listed there; you will be expected to abide by those as well. Also note that we explain any warnings and additional rules you might receive. Thank you for helping us build a great online community.

1. No pornographic material. Any sexually oriented imagery or links to such content will not be tolerated. Offending posts will be deleted, and your account will likely be banned or otherwise sanctioned.
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2. Avoid discussion of warez, illegal software, and illegal activity in general. We can be somewhat lax on backup topics for console software, but as a general rule we don't want discussions of pirating or cracking Windows, Photoshop, etc. Acceptable discussions would include PS2's HD Loader, game backups, modified cheat devices, trainers, Pandora, and virtually any console exploit you can think of.
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3. Avoid excessive profanity and racial slurs. We will generally tolerate bad language in small doses. But peppering your posts with swears every other word, and generally fuming like a 70s-era Fred Phelps will be frowned upon. If you plan to use a racial slur, it had better be funny, or in some sort of academic context where it's appropriate.
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4. Avoid personal attacks. In "The Paper Bag", flaming and insults are part and parcel, as long as they don't go too far. Outside the Bag, this sort of behavior is generally unacceptable. It is up to the moderators and administrators to decide when an argument has crossed the line.
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5. No trolling. Trolling is any series of posts from a user who is set on causing conflict or provoking other users. Again this is monitored on a case by case basis. Within the Bag sub-forum, this sort of behavior will be given more rein before it becomes a problem.
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6. Restrain yourself to the topic of each forum. Most of our forums encompass a fairly narrow set of subject matters. You should post your threads in the appropriate forum, and avoid discussing matters that are off the topic of the forum you're posting in. We have set aside general discussion areas where random topics can be discussed.
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7. No avatar, signature, or custom title abuse. These are a luxury and abuse will result in your losing the privilege of having them, and, in extreme cases, other discipline. You must follow the other forum rules when creating these. We will not allow links to pornography in your signature, and your avatar cannot be a picture of exposed naughty bits. The text of your signature should not be more than five lines. Avatar images can be a maximum of 100 pixels wide by 150 high. Images in signatures are limited to 500 pixels wide by 175 high.
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8. No spamming. Spamming is characterized by the initiation of threads or posts that contribute nothing to a forum, be it off topic or on topic. Examples include: empty bodies, bodies with few words that have no relation to the current thread or discussion and those posts that state they are spam, either to annoy or increase a member's post count. This determination will be made by the forum moderators or administrators.
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9. Avoid bumping topics. In general, we do not appreciate no-content posts whose sole purpose is to push a thread to the top of the list. There are occasional exceptions, but if your reason for doing this is something along the lines of, "damn, I really want these codes", you should probably not bump. If you delete a previous post so you can cut and paste it into a new one for the purposes of bumping, we will take away your {Delete Own Posts} privileges.
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10. Avoid multi-posting. This is essentially replying to yourself. If you need to add something to your previous post, use the edit feature and place it there. Exceptions will be made when a long interval has elapsed between posts, or when valuable information is being added that merits "bumping" the topic.
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11. Avoid quoting images. You should typically not quote images. Please edit the [img] tag so only a link will appear instead of the image in the quoted text (smilies exempt). Sometimes quoting images is unavoidable and/or necessary, but usually it just clutters the thread.
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12. No private messaging abuse. Do not use private messages to threaten other members, spam them, or otherwise misuse the service. This forum is not for advertising in any form, including through private messages. If we determine that you have abused the feature, your rights to it will be revoked at a minimum, but it is more likely you will be banned.
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13. Insubordination and special cases: Please note that the above rules cannot cover every topic that might present itself. If a forum official informs you to stop doing something we ask that you comply. This also covers ignoring additional rules outlined in an "attention" thread stuck to the top of the forum or in the announcements.
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14. Long-time members guideline: If you are a long-standing member, act like one. Lead by example and assist other newer members rather then attacking them. We look upon our veteran members to use this opportunity to teach the newer members the appropriate message board usage.

Enjoy yourself. The board is intended to talk about games and game-hacking. Community Lounge was created to talk about pretty much anything. Have a great time posting, and we look forward to your feedback.

The staff reserves the right to change or alter these rules at any time without any notification. Please note that an administrator’s word is final.

2009-06-11: Moving these to a new thread. For the most part, I've just removed rules that don't apply any more, removed redundant items, clarified a few things, and did some general editing. I did also add a couple of new rules.

[Pyriel]

Additional Information On Signature, Avatar, And Image Rules

1. Below is a template image which shows the maximum allowed size of a signature image. You are expected to abide by this limit.
   
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2. Use sense regarding the on-disc size of your images. As a general guideline no single image should be larger than about 250KB, and the combined total size of your signature should not be more than about 500KB. Most of us are on broadband any more, so this isn't as important as it once was. Still, don't go nuts and make your signature a 30MB animated .gif of an episode of Naruto, or something stupid like that.
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3. The overall space taken up by all the images in your signature should not exceed this size. There is some leeway involved in this, but you should generally try to keep your signature unobtrusive. As an example of leeway, Amy's signature takes up a good deal of space, despite the images being relatively small. Nevertheless, it's been like that for years. We just never really took notice of it because her posts typically take up three to five times more space than her signature, even if she's just saying, "no". Most of you will not achieve that, and will not be allowed a signature that's longer than every post you'll ever make combined.
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4. If your signature is too big--any single image or overall, or it's just plain too much of an eye-sore to be left in place--it will be replaced with the template image until you fix it.
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5. Avatars are limited to 150x100 pixels. They may be animated but may not exceed 150kb in file size. For those of you who don’t understand this, see below:
   
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6. As with signatures, if your avatar violates the size restrictions, it will be replaced with the template.
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7. If an image you intend to place in a post is larger than 800x600 pixels, do NOT post it as an image. Provide a link to the image instead.

[Pyriel]

Presently, everyone who joins this forum goes into an approval queue. This is to keep out certain undesirable elements who make life difficult for the forum staff whenever their obsessions kick in, and the forum has open registration set. It may take a few minutes to a few hours for your membership to be approved. During this time frame, you will also have to verify your e-mail address in order for your account to function.

Once you have been approved, you become a Registered User of the forum. For the moment, this means you cannot start any threads. You can post, but your posts will also go into a moderation queue. We did this originally to cut down on bot spam, but we haven't had any trouble with that in some time, so this may change soon. After you have made one post, you are promoted to the Active Users group at :25 past the hour. At that point, you are free to start threads and post as much as you like without worrying about post moderation.

There are some other User Groups you should be aware of:

• Banned Users - The basic group for troublemakers. You can be assigned to this temporarily or permanently (as with all ban groups). If you're not in it permanently, you will automatically fall out of it based on a time limit set by the banning moderator. You will wind up here, if you violate too many forum rules, or manage to violate them in a particularly egregious way. Your user title will be, "Banned - Yep Banned for Some Reason", and the forum will be inaccessible to you. You still have access to some forum features, such as private messages in this group.
• Super Banned Users - Same as the Banned Users group, except all privileges are removed. User title set to, "Superbanned - this guy is a real pain".
• Illiterate Users - This began as an effort to cut down on the rampant creation of duplicate threads in the request/hacking forums, but has become a catch-all for people who violate minor rules often, or who generally fail to read the rules and abide by the common rules of etiquette. It is a ban user group, and you will typically be placed in it for a week or two, though the actual amount of time is up to the moderator. While you are in this user group, your title will be, "Hurr! I'm too special to use the search feature!", in large read letters, and you will not be able to create threads.
• Selfish Assholes - This is reserved for habitual violators who haven't quite earned a permanent ban. Typically, you will have to be warned and temporarily banned several times before you wind up here. When you are banned into this group, your title becomes, "I cry like a little girl for codes", in large red letters; your user name will be prefixed with, "Introducing an extraordinary pussy named:"; and all posting privileges (thread creation, reply, edit, etc.) are removed, as are most other forum privileges. The board is essentially read-only to people who earn their way into this group. Again, this is a ban group, so you will automatically be let out of it in time.
• V.I.P. - These folks get some extra privileges like deleting their own threads, and extra space for private messages. This was reserved for important members of the hacking scene, but has fallen into disuse.
• Extremely Active Users - You are promoted to this group automatically after making more than 2,500 posts. This group has all the same abilities as the Active Users group, but you can set your own custom title in your User Control Panel.
• Beta Testers - If you seem technically minded enough, and we trust you, this group will give you access to the Beta Testing forum. This forum is for discussing and testing software work-in-progress.

User Titles
If you have not been placed in a special User Group that changes your title, and you do not have a custom title, your title will be one of the following according to your post count:

Title				Posts
Neophyte			0
Initiate			30
Member				100
Senior Member			200
Devotee				400
Apostle				1000
Venerated Scholar		2000
More Posts Than God		4000
Too Lazy to Set a Custom Title	5000