Forum/Chat Rules and Guidelines (as of July 2017)

Subtitle: How to have a respectful conversation! With humans! (it's usually INFERNAL DIFFICULTY!)

Now that we have established the explicit guidelines for warning STRIKES and BANS, please read HERE!

The Following Rules and Guidelines are being provided and updated by the entire staff to help all members enjoy the forum in a less combative manner. While not all members will need to be reminded about decorum a full acknowledgement in the change of policies, needs to be made.

Forum Rules & Guidelines

General

• There is always a place and time for a joke but don't go beyond the line and become a troll.
• Pornography, Warez or any other tooling that interferes with the game's code and/or settings are strictly prohibited.
• When linking to legal software make sure to declare the author and source of it.
• Advertisements or promotions of other products and services are not allowed.

Account Tampering

• Public discussion of any techniques that might put other people's accounts into jeopardy, such that at some point in future Nintendo/Intelligent Systems might ban these accounts, is strictly forbidden and will be punished with immediate ban. If you have doubts, clear the idea with a Staff member first. Some example (but not complete list) of such actions:
  • Source code modification
  • Client emulation
  • Network package tampering/simulation
• Public discussion of any bugs or exploits that benefit only part of the player base (e.g., players who have rooted or jailbroken devices) is forbidden and will be subject to punishment, including ban.
• Any request for account tampering, including the actions listed about, will also considered as doing the action itself and will be subject to punishment. E.g., don't request someone to hack your game!

Trades

• It is not allowed to sell your account or anything associated to an account within this community. Threads discussing this will be removed and further actions might be taken depending on the Staff's decisions.
• If Staff has substantial belief or proof that a monetary transaction has taken place during an account trade, the punishment is immediate ban. This rule applies even if the exchange has been completed outside the forum such as instant messages, e-mails, etc. or via private messaging inside the forum. Monetary exchange includes but not limited to cash, online credits such as PayPal, bitcoin, etc., gift cards such as iTunes, GooglePlay, etc. When in doubt, clear a potential transaction/trade with a staff member first.

Behavior

• There will be no use of profanity or derogatory statements
• There will be no racial, ethnic, gender based insults or any other personal discrimination.
• There will be no posts meant to offend or hurt any other member, in a manner which is offensive or inflammatory. All members will be treated with respect.
• Members are asked not to act as back seat moderators. If members notice an issue which contradicts any of the rules they are expected to use the report button and give a propper description of the situation at hand. Don't be afraid to use this function. We will read and handle every report.

Posts

• Before creating a new thread or posting read the (stickied) threads and use the search functionality to search for the desired topics/posts. Duplicate topics will be closed. Furthermore there will be referenced to the original topic and the duplicate will eventually be removed.
• Title your thread correctly. Use descriptive texts when creating a topic. Poorly titled threads will be moderated.
• When adding a new reply to a topic try and contribute to the conversation instead of going off-topic.
• If this will not be the case a post can be marked as spam and be removed indefinitely by the Staff.
• Try posting complete sentences when replying to topics to contribute to a discussion as much as possible.
• When creating new threads make sure to post them in the correct section on the forums. When this won't be the case the Staff is allowed to move them without any notice.
• Bumping old threads without related or new content is considered spam. You can bump your own thread after 24h of the previous bump. If bumped multiple times without any reaction from other members Staff might close the thread due to irrelivance.
• It's not allowed to share any copyrighted material.
• Members are expected to post in a way that is consistent with "normal writing". Don't make excessive use of emoticons, large (coloured) texts and punctuations.

User Content

• Signatures and avatars must not show anything that could be considered sexual in any shape or form.
• The maximum allowable height of a signature is set at 250px.
• When posting images we prefer you use an image host like imgur or use the build-in upload button.
• All posts must be posted in the language of the sections the threads are in. Staff are excluded from this rule and are allowed to post in any language they deem fitting.

Decisions

• Sometimes, for various reasons, it is not possible to immediately understand whether there is a misconduct or not. In this case, the Staff might start an investigation. During the investigation, the staff might ask questions and request the involved users to explain their behavior to help them reach to a better final decision. Cooperation to these investigations are highly encourages since the Staff will assume the worst case scenario if the involved user does not cooperate.
• The FireEmblemHeroesForum staff will always be the ones to decide what's right in arguments/disputes that get out of hand. Staff decisions are final.
• Public discussions of Staff decisions are not allowed. If you disagree with any measures taken feel free to send a private message to the Staff member at hand.

Private messages

• All the above rules also apply for private messaging.
• Any violations that are done through private messages or back channels such as e-mails, instant messages, etc. will be considered a more severe violation and punished accordingly.

Closing Rules

• In every case the rules might be referenced to to clear up any uncertainties.
• Staff is allowed to allowed to edit, add or remove any rule at any point in time without any notice.
• When any of the above rules or guidelines are broken the FireEmblemHeroesForum Staff has the complete authority to edit, add or remove any content they deem fitting.
• If you spoiler anything that hasn't been aired yet, this goes for any series, you will be banned.

From the Staff
1: There will not be public shaming of any members by the Mod staff. We are implementing a better defined warning system for members who are routinely reported.

2: If a member has suggestions for improvements to the site, please either PM the Mod team (the more the better) or create a new forum post outlining the suggestion. I believe a lot of hostility could have been avoided if simply these members voiced their concerns through proper channels.

3: If there is a problem with a PARTICULAR Mod. Please bring this to the attention of another of the Moderation staff. Do not go to Neochi, that's our job!

4. The creator of our site is NeoChi. I am not linking him here on purpose. He runs many forums, and has selected (with the assistance of recommendations) us mods to handle the running of the site. He WILL NOT respond to any squabbles members may have. He is only responsible for big picture and site-wide changes.

Again. I really do encourage anyone to bring ideas forward. And PM the staff with any concerns. We will do our best to address all of the community defined challenges we have been having recently.