General Overview
These are the TIAO community rules. If you don't agree with them you can leave this site or refuse to register an account. Upon breaking a rule you might receive a warning, but this is not mandatory. You can be banned for your first offense of breaking these rules.
Why are there rules?
We work tirelessly to make this community the best site it can possibly be, only to occasionally have the mood brought down by users with bad attitudes. These rules are here to maintain order and keep users civil, so that when people visit this community they don't remember it as a rotting cesspool full of morons.
The "BIG ONES"
If you break these rules, you'll earn an instant ban regardless of which moderator sees the post(s).
* Using racist, sexist, homophobic or hateful language.
* Posting pornographic (including cartoon porn) or NSFW (Not Safe For Work) material. No Exceptions!
* Linking to pornographic.
* Linking to viruses, referral sites, or maliciously coded websites either in your signature or in your post.
* Linking to EBAY.
* Discussing illegal activities – including, but not limited to: ROMs, cracks, warez and hacking.
* Instigating or discussing malicious attacks on other websites.
* Posting with an alternate account whilst banned or your main account while an alt is banned. Both accounts may be deleted.
* Posting any member's real life information without permission.
* Impersonating Administrators, Moderators, or community members.
* Bumping any old topic without a good reason and new information.
* Making multiple short posts (five words or less) over a short time period.
* Attempting to smartass your way around these rules.
The OTHER RULES
If you break these rules, you're definitely risking being banned. Think twice before you post.
* Remaking or complaining about a locked or deleted thread by creating a new thread.
* Complaining or boasting about any ban, including comments in signature text.
* Posting flashing or strobing images, or picture spamming: repeatedly posting the same picture or posting irrelevant / overused images.
* ALL CAPS posting.
* Chasing / harassing / flaming other users, regardless of who instigated it.
* Harassing other users by having a continuous negative or bitter attitude towards them.
* Insulting or harassing the moderators or administrators.
* Trolling: cruising the boards looking for a fight.
* Advertising your website.
* Recreating a thread that has been created recently. Use the search bar before hitting "New Topic".
* Posting excessively in a language other than English for the sole purpose of excluding the majority of the users.
* Making "Hi, I'm new", "I'm back", or "I'm leaving" threads without significant content pertinent to your situation.
* Making stats threads.
* Attempting to smartass your way around these rules.
Forum-Specific Rules
These rules are open to interpretation by individual moderators.
<TBD>
Signatures Rules:
* Must be setup in your Profile (user Control Panel) , and not manually added to your messages.
* May NOT contain any images.
* May not contain any pricing, sales, product etc. details.
* May contain a maximum of two smilies. Or one animated smiley.
* May include two clickable links. URL's or mailto: - No duplicate links
* Only exact URLs allowed - No tinyurls, affiliate links etc either, only exact, literal URLs
* No links to EBay.
* May include two colors. Hyperlink color is set by the forum and is not counted as a color.
* Maximum font size cannot be larger than normal.
* Must be kept to a maximum of four lines (at 1024 resolution).
* Your signature is your signature. It is not for sale or rent.
* Any signature or avatar that is offensive or insulting to either us, our members, or our staff, are prohibited.
* We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your signature or avatar at any time, for any reason.
General Conduct
Before making a topic make sure you are posting in the correct forum. It should be pretty clear where to post since each forum has a description. We have a off topic forum, so if you don't know which forum is suitable for your topic, you can post it there.
Give your topic a good title! This is often overlooked, and "WTF?" gives no clue as to what your topic will be about.
Some simple guidelines:
* Use proper punctuation and grammar.
* Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse not to follow them.
* Lurk first, post second. Read the entirety of every thread you post in before you post.
* If you're about to make a post that you're not sure is OK, whether covered by the rules or not, don't.
* If you can't make a positive contribution to a topic, don't post.
* If you're not here to have fun, go elsewhere.
* Read, re-read, and respect these rules.
Final Thoughts
We want to keep this Forum clean, and we want to see people engage in intelligent conversation. Use common sense: if you don't have something interesting to discuss, don't post a topic! Remember, these are private forums.
Also, we're not perfect. Contact us if you have a question or general comment. We'll do our best to get back to you, but please be patient!