Forum Guidelines

Posting in the forum is a privilege, not a right. If you want to continue to keep this privilege, play by the rules.

The following list is a set of guidelines to avoid being annoying. It is not 100% comprehensive, but please read this carefully to ensure you don't accidentally breach the guidelines:

### Trolling

Trolling is the intentional attempt to cause chaos.

* Posting controversial or irrelevant messages or topics with the intent to provoke someone else into a contest of over-manly confrontation, emotional response, flame fest or to generally disrupt the discussion, community or user is not cool. Prompting or provoking others (Baiting) to do that is just as bad.
* Don't Bait or provoke others. Just because you didn't directly attack another user does not make your post a meaningful contribution. If your post's intent was to provoke another user into an emotional response, to get under their skin or to otherwise piss them off, you're baiting them. Hopefully the user doesn't take the bait, but you'll probably receive a disciplinary action from a mod.
* Don't ever post personal information of other users. Anywhere. Ever. Even if they already posted it somewhere else. This includes posting personal information about a CC user on another site, you will be held accountable here.
* Don't de-rail topics, don't spam them, don't flame them, don't bait them, don't drive a topic into a negative spiral.
* Don't flog a dead horse. If a discussion is over, it's over. Screaming louder, more or in a different place is not going to change the answer already given. If you think the answer was wrong, PM an Admin. If you think the admin is wrong, then this probably isn't the right community for you.
* If someone is trolling or baiting, don't fall for it. The best way to irritate trolls and ultimately drive them away is to ignore them. These people crave attention in any form, be it praise or condemnation, and will stay in an argument for the thrill of the battle. Ignore them and it will hurt more than any "zing" or insult you might come back with.

There is little that is more annoying than a troll. This will get you removed from the CC community quicker than almost anything else.

### Flaming

Flames are posts or parts of posts which, directly or indirectly, insult, belittle, bully, name-call, or otherwise attack another user, and are not allowed.

* It doesn't matter if another user rubs you the wrong way, that's not an excuse to flame or personally attack them.
* Attacking a person instead of the user is NOT ok - it's all fun and games until it becomes personal.
	+ Using a person's real information, picture, address, blog or anything else "personal" is NOT ok, and is Personal Information Abuse.
* Yes, we are liberal on coarse language, but this does not mean cyber-bullying or abusive bigotry is acceptable anywhere. You will be removed from the community for cyber-bullying or abusive bigotry.

Flaming will get your post edited/deleted and you will receive a disciplinary action from a mod. Cyber-bullying or harassment will similarly result in a disciplinary action, and a ton of bricks.

### Bigotry

Bigoted comments will not be tolerated---lets all tolerate and live peacefully with one another.

* Bigotry includes racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia/sexual orientation bashing, religion bashing, lack of religion bashing, or wishing violence on any group of people, etc.
* Bigotry takes into account historic events, emotional baggage and generally accepted associations with a term, phrase or intent - posting "White Power" in a topic has a history and is bigoted, posting "Green Power" makes you an environmentalist.

Bigotry will get your post edited/deleted and you will receive a disciplinary action from a mod. Bigotry, just avoid it. Just do it.

### Spam

Spam is posting for the sole intention of being annoying.
There are a million ways you shouldn't be annoying, but ones worth mentioning:

* Double/triple/multiple posting.
* Quoting just for the sake of quoting.
	+ "QFE", "QFT" etc. do not qualify as "a meaningful post", add why you agree with the quote.
* Posting only, or lots of, smilies.
* Posting about yourself in a forum topic that is not specifically about you.
* Posts that add nothing to the current topic.
* Posting rapidly in a short time.
* Posting the same thing over and over in the same or other forum topics.
* Posting "parody" forum topics that aren't meant for an actual discussion.
* Necrobumping (bringing dead forum topics back to life) if no new meaningful content is being added.

### Off-topic

Off topic posts are posts which de-rail a topic either directly or indirectly, at any point.

* If the post is not about you, don't try to make it about you.
* If the main point of your post is about something other than what the OP intended, it's not on topic, even if you did post about how you agree with the OP.
* Yes, you can joke around in a forum topic, but keep it on the topic originally intended by the OP
* Whether or not your post is the first to take a forum topic off topic is irrelevant: Off topic is off topic.
* Just because everyone in the forum topic doesn't mind it going off topic does not mean that it's okey doky.

### Nudity and Pornography

Nudity and Pornography are not allowed.

* Any images of pornographic activity or nudity - nipples, areola, genitals, anuses etc - whether intended as artistic, erotic, pornographic or otherwise are not allowed.
* This includes content posted here and links to other sites. Posting NSFW - "Not Suitable For Work" - does not make it ok for posting.
* If it is ambiguous, we'll ask you to remove it anyway, so "It's a guy's nipple" isn't going to fly. You're just trying to be annoying at that point.
* Posting a painting from the 13th century with exposed nipples to claim that we're evil dictators when we ask you to remove it is also just being annoying, and you're probably just being a troll at that point.

### Gambling

Gambling on or through this site is not allowed.

* This is a casual gaming site, not a serious one. If you want to bet money or "real-world items", then you'll have to find another site.
* Wagering CC points is also not allowed.
* The Conquer Cup is of course not considered gambling just because there is an entry fee associated with participation!

## Posting Etiquette

To avoid annoying the rest of the community, follow these 3 basic steps:

* 1. Ask yourself if your post is actually contributing to the topic, or is it off topic or just plain spam? If it's not contributing, find somewhere else to post.
	2. Ask yourself if you are flaming, baiting, feeding a troll or taking the bait. If you are, then don't.
	3. Re-ask the above two questions

===There are also some CC specific issues that you need to keep in mind for proper posting.

Un-noted Automatic Join Game Links===

* If you post an Automatic Join Game Link, you must note that it is so to warn other users who may click on the link before the game is filled.

### Foreign Language Forums are for language groups to discuss CC in their native language.

* Language forums are not places to practice your skills with Google translate nor are they for national groups, they are for language groups. If you have problems in them, PM a Community Mod.

### Posts that nobody can read are annoying.

* Signature images larger than 150 pixels high by 600 pixels wide just scream “I am compensating for something” and should be reduced in size. Note the dimensions size restriction is only in reference to the image. You may also have 2 additional levels of text / spoilers. In the spoiler below are some examples of acceptable signature configurations

Acceptable Signature Configurations

* 600px wide and 150px high
Translation: Leet-speak just sucks, and we all know it, and you don't want to suck too, now do you?
* TYPING IN ALL CAPS IS JUST OBNOXIOUS AND DOES NOT MAKE YOU LOOK COOLER OR SMARTER AND PEOPLE WON'T READ YOUR POST MORE BECAUSE IT'S IN CAPS. PLEASE USE CAPS ONLY AT THE BEGINNING OF SENTENCES AND FOR SINGLE WORD EMPHASIS WHEN REALLY NEEDED.
* The only thing more stupid than TYPING IN ALL CAPS is

TYPING IN ALL CAPS IN A LARGER FONT AND ANNOYING COLOUR

### Rules, precedents and customs from other communities don't apply.

* Neither do the By-Laws from the Podunk 3rd district. Believe it or not, Conquer Club is a private business. Just because something works one way in another community does not mean that is how it will work here. We're usually less strict and you can get away with a lot, but that doesn't mean that you can pull the "This is how it works everywhere else" card and expect to get away with it. Really. This is not "everywhere else."
* In the same vein, just because you are here, does not mean you MUST be here. This is a business and CC does reserve the right to promote or discourage any kind of behavior it sees fit. Claiming your first amendment right to free speech to post about the colour of your poop last night will not fly. If a mod or admin specifically say you shouldn't be doing something, regardless of if it's specifically spelled out in the rules, or if you think that they are stupid, it still means don't do it. If you don't like the rules here, google.com will help you find somewhere more appropriate.

### Be nice or leave

It's fine if you don't like this site or the way it is run...find another one with better rules, start another one and make your own rules, abuse another one and try to get them to change their rules, but don't complain about the rules here.