Code of Conduct
- Advertising: No advertising is allowed on the forum, whether for profit or not for profit. This includes advertising for other internet forums.
- Name Changes: Name changes will only be considered for extenuating circumstances (for example, you used your real name in your forum login name, misspelled something, or made a typo). Choose carefully.
- Duplicate accounts: If a member with no previous offenses is discovered to have multiple accounts, he or she will be asked to choose one and the others will be merged into the main account. Members with previous offenses (including previous duplicate accounts) who create duplicate accounts will be subject to a ban, the length of which will be decided on a case-by-case basis.
- Flaming: Flaming and personal attacks are not allowed, including in reputation comments, visitor messages or social groups. This includes non-jocular attack-threads as distinct from flame-wars in The Graveyard. A Personal Insult, or Flame, is:
- A post with the sole apparent intent to enrage another user of the forum.
- A personal attack or name-calling based upon lies and/or subjective statements.
- Exception: There is leeway for obvious jokes (where the other poster clearly acknowledges this).
- Trolls: No Trolling. Trolling is considered a post that is one of the following:
- An attempt to bait a user into an off topic debate within a thread based upon a personal insult or "flame."
- An attempt to make a user "go off" on the other through use of personal insult or allusion to personal insult.
- Unrest: No Causing a "State of Unrest." A State of Unrest is considered:
- A thread made with the intent of causing disorder and unrest throughout the forum. Orderly discussion of "forum politics" is fine.
- A thread or post containing insulting and/or aggressive attacks on specific groups.
- A post made to a thread of another topic about forum politics meant to cause digression into forum politics is also classified as trolling. If the post contains personal attacks on forum administrators and/or users, it is a flame.
- Multiple threads on the same problem at a time. A single thread called "Mods SuX0r5" with the issue of the day in the Feedback sub-forum is fine; a second thread is not. These unnecessary threads will be closed.
- Fluff: Lesser annoyances, such as repeated and/or sole posting of "fluff" posts, may cause a member to be restricted to posting in The Graveyard, at discretion. Additionally, the creation of a duplicate account for the purpose of circumventing The Graveyard will result in a banning of the quarantined member. Threads are moved at the mod's discretion; any such action will be clearly indicated at the time by the mod concerned, as are all moderating actions. For the purpose of posting at Typology Central, fluff is defined as:
- Consecutive posts topically unrelated to the original post (OP)
- Consecutive posts that lack the seriousness deemed necessary for the topic at hand
- Threads that single out members as their topic, i.e. birthday threads, baby announcements, etc.
- Threads created for the sole purpose of frivolous socializing
- Censorship: There is no censorship of ideas, no matter how distasteful, apart from the obvious. This includes but not limited to:
- Porn
- Links to porn (this includes inserting an image or video that originates from a pornographic site)
- Offensive, violent, or gory images
- Spamming/trolling
- Illegal software links
- Advertising
- Links that don't follow the conversation at hand
- Continual gratuitous vulgarity in posts
- Hard obscenities in custom user titles or in signatures
Posts like these may be edited or deleted by a mod; in all cases, the mod will mark this in the post or thread itself and sign off. Members with offensive custom user titles or signatures may be given a warning.
- Common Sense: There are no particularly strict rules. Members should just stick to the same rules of social intercourse as in a social setting. Screaming or starting fights will not be allowed. The mods and admins will use their best judgment to enforce the rules on a case by case basis.
Policies
- PMs, IMs, and Privacy: Private communications (including but not limited to Private Messages) are not to be posted on the open forum without the permission of the sender; this includes PMs from mods and admins. Posting private communication will result in at least a warning. Mods can not read your PMs. Reputation comments and logs from IM or chat sessions should not be posted without the permission of all participants.
- Edit/Deletes: Mass editing/deleting of posts is not allowed. If you choose to leave the forum your posts will stay behind. Exceptions can be made for personal blog threads.
- Pornography Policy: This forum caters to all sexes and ages. In order to preserve the integrity of forum content, we do not allow the posting of pornographic material anywhere in this forum. This includes reputation comments, social groups, visitor messages, and forum threads (including those in the Graveyard or Sexuality & Mature Topics). Pornographic material will be removed by moderators and administrators as soon as it comes to our attention. �Pornographic material� includes pictures, links, or urls of genitalia, exposed female nipples, penetration, and animated characters engaged in sexual acts. Posting pornography results in an automatic infraction.
- Sexual Harassment Policy: There is zero tolerance for sexual harassment on the public forum, social groups, private messages, reputation comments, and visitor messages regardless of sex and/or gender of the harasser. This is a difficult issue to navigate because it's hard enough to distinguish wanted and unwanted advances in real life, let online through internet communication. Please report if communication between you and another member is veering in this direction. We can't do anything about what we don't know about.
- Politics and Religion Policy: We encourage civil discourse and debate when discussing heated issues, particularly in the fields of politics and religion. Occasionally, discourse becomes increasingly heated and volatile, especially when dealing with hot button topics. Members are expected to maintain respect for other posters or voluntarily withdraw until they cool down. If a member becomes too raucous or disrespectful (as determined by madmins) he/she may be temporarily or permanently banned from participation in that particular thread. An infraction or warning may issue depending on the gravity of the offense.
- The NF, NT, SP, and SJ Private Forums: These forums are to be used for members of each temperament searching for conversation and discussion with other members of their temperament. These forums are private forums in that they for members of each temperament only; however, each private forum is viewable by all types. Anyone who decides to change their type, whether temporarily or permanently, for the sole purpose of posting in a private forum despite being of a different type will receive an infraction for doing so. Obviously, simply discovering that you actually are another type, and then changing your type accordingly, is part of the MBTI learning process. Quite simply, we have made access broad and openly available. Taking advantage of such will be met quickly and strictly.
- Content and Organization: These are a high priority on this forum. Members should not start multiple threads on the same topic in order to drum up discussion. Members who intentionally spawn multiple threads covering the same topic will receive a warning. If they continue, an infraction will ensue.
- Warnings and Infractions: Using the Report Post function (anyone can report a post) will bring a questionable post to madmin attention, preserving the original post. The madmin team will discuss whether or not the reported post requires any action.
A warning is used when a member is close to breaking a rule, or has innocently broken a technical rule, e.g., posting links to personal business websites in one�s signature. If a member continues to break the rule an infraction will ensue.
When issuing warnings and infractions a madmin will try to open a rapport with the member. During this rapport, the madmin will communicate to the offending poster which guideline/policy they violated. The contacting moderator or administrator will stress a review of this FAQ and hopefully, all will be well.
If a member continues breaking the rules, particularly if it's the same problem repeatedly occurring, then we will issue the infraction. Depending on the severity of the offense, warnings do not have to be administered before infractions, and infraction points do not expire.
If a madmin is in error, warnings/infractions can and will be reversed. Begrudgingly.
- Confinement and Banning: Banning is established as a last resort in the event that voluntary, corrective measures are ineffective. It is the solution to an unending pattern of disruptive behavior.
Alternatives to bans include confinement in The Graveyard for a specified amount of time or having posting ability suspended for a specified amount of time. If these alternatives result in no consistent change in forum behavior the next step will be a ban.
Typology Central has two types of bans: tempbans and permabans.
Tempbans are short term, the length of which is determined by the offense. Factors such as number of warnings, infractions, and/or magnitude of the general forum disturbance are taken into consideration. Temp bans are given if there is a belief via madmin consensus the member will reform their behavior if given extensive time away from the forum.
Permabans take all of the above factors into consideration minus the belief that rehabilitation is possible. Permabans are of course permanent so gather email addresses and teary goodbyes before your number is up.
Madmins discuss the forum member within the modbox to see if a ban is necessary. Bans factor in the complete spectrum of a user's behavior on the forum including but not limited to their general "tone" on the forum (abrasive, hostile, incendiary), number of reported posts, warnings and infractions, non-fluff contributions (see the definition of fluff), posting history, prior bans, and possibility of rehabilitation. As a general guideline, three infractions will result in a ban.
Banned and confined members are listed in the Banned and the Damned Thread in the Policy and Announcements subforum.
Notes
- Problems and Complaints
- If you have a problem with the forum software or options, please start a thread in the Feedback sub-forum.
- If you have a problem with a mod or admin, please contact an admin via private message.
- Help
- Please view this video to help you decide where and how to post threads.
- Other
- After reaching 500 posts, members have their own user-title and
can change it at will. Do not use obscenities in custom user titles.
- Posts made in The Graveyard do not count towards an individual's post-count.
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