Welcome to The Escapist forums!

(The Internet's version of the Lighthouse of Alexandria)

• Starting a thread: Posting is an art; be proud of your work. A good thread will generate discussion. Will it bring something new to the table and will you want to participate in the discussion it creates? We don't expect every thread to be incredibly deep and thought provoking, but every thread should engage the community in a positive way.
• Replying to a topic: Your responses should be relevant to the topic at hand or address a particular post. We like spirited responses on our forums, but they should be informed and polite responses. The great thing about a forum is that it allows you to take a minute to collect your thoughts before crafting a reply. One sentence non sequiturs are not good replies.
• Quoting: Quoting is helpful. It allows people to know which post you're responding to when there are many strands of conversation going on at once. Breaking up posts when responding to them, however, can make everything harder to read. Consider whether you need to quote someone before hitting the "post" button.

• If you see something in violation of our community standards, report it with our thanks! You can report a bad post by pressing the Report button at the bottom of their post. You will not be punished for accidentally reporting posts. Please, if you aren't sure if it's a good post, please Report it as the moderators can tell.
• When you reply to a bad thread/post, you validate its existence. A lot of moderator intervention can be avoided if a bad post is just left alone. Please don't reply with your opinion on how bad a thread is, or with your speculation on how quickly it will be locked. Remember, if you break the rules in a bad thread, you also can be suspended!
• Our goal is for you to simply enjoy the site. Allow us to handle the moderation issues.

• Things that incite our wrath:
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  • Flaming and trolling: Flaming is hostile and insulting interactions between forum posters. Trolling is posting controversial or inflammatory content or off-topic messages with the intent of provoking flaming or to disrupt normal discussion. Neither is tolerated.
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  • Advertising: Our forums aren't the right outlet. Contact advertising@escapistmag.com if you would like to inquire about purchasing ad space. If you want to link to your blog, MySpace page or YouTube account, please do so in your profile, not in your posts.
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  • Offensive, malicious or illegal content: Pornographic images, violent videos, sensitive information about other forumgoers (names/addresses/phone numbers), links to pirated software ... you get the idea. If you had any doubts about posting it, we'll probably remove it (along with your posting privileges).
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  • Mod sass: Don't do it. If you feel one of us has dealt with something poorly, send a mod a private message and we will politely respond with our rationale. If you need to contact someone about a problem with a moderator, please Private Message Kuliani.
• Types of wrath:
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  • Probation: This is just a warning with no substantive changes to your posting abilities. You will most likely get a Private Message from the moderator that put you on Probation detailing why (so that you know what not to do next time)
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  • Suspension: These place temporary limitations on a forum member's posting abilities and last anywhere from 3 days to a month in length.
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  • Ban: We reserve this for spammers, people who repeatedly and flagrantly ignore the standards established here, and ban jumpers. A ban is permanent.

• Spelling and grammar: Check your spelling. Grammar in this case is less about your ability to use the semicolon and more about being able to write a sentence coherent enough for people to understand. We are not the grammar and spelling secret police, and neither are you. We are, however, on the watch for the chronically and obviously incapable.
• Polls: The same criteria that apply to starting a thread apply to starting a poll. This means that you may have to also explain the different choices in the voting poll and that the post itself should include your own opinion.
• Spoilers: Nobody likes a spoiler. Either talk around them or learn how to hide them here.

Getting to Know Your Moderators

Currently, we employ a staff of Escapist editors, programmers and volunteers to communicate with our readers, uphold the forums, keep everything organized and swing the Banhammer in times of need. They are:

• Matt Kuliani, our Community Manager
• Susan Arendt, our Senior Editor.
• Jordan Deam, our Weekly Section Editor.
• Russ Pitts, our Editor-in-Chief.
• Jason "Virgil" Smith, our IT Director.
• Jeff "Spinwhiz" Palumbo, our Brand Manager.
• John "CantFaketheFunk" Funk, Associate Editor
• wilsonscrazybed, a member of the Red Guard, a community-based Neighborhood Watch.
• nilcypher, another proud member of the Red Guard.
• Alex_P, another proud member of the Red Guard.
• Labyrinth, the female member of the Red Guard.
• Ultrajoe, a previously banned user rehabilitated to the extent of becoming a member of the Red Guard.
• Baby Tea, the Red Guard with the radio voice.

Other Fun Stuff

• Lord Krunk's Guide to the Forums: The Banhammer and You: A User's Guide to the Forums
• Moderation questions. Private Message Kuliani.
• Profiles. You can edit yours here. We obviously encourage this, but mainly because our Community section of the site uses the information contained in the profiles to help you connect with others that agree and play with you.
• Titles. They're based on your post count, unless you are staff, contributors, or other odd people.
• Badges. Relax, you'll get some. Keep a lookout for contests, events, and other fun things that we put together all the time, and you'll have plenty of chances for some of the more rare badges! For a user-generated list of badges found, please check here.
• Forum markup. You can find documentation on the tags our forums support here. This is how you make your posts look more professional and/or entertaining!
• User Groups. Small and large groups of users that share common interests hang out here. They have unique features not found in the forums, especially for forum games and roleplaying. There are official ones (Inside The Escapist), ones for fans (Zero Punctuation Fans), and user-created ones (The Escapist Team Fortress 2 Group - PC).

Amendment 1.

• Rotten Apples: Be aware that if you consistently make the forums a less pleasant place to be, whether through discriminatory comments, flames, trolling or simply a bad attitude, you will be permanently banned.
• Short/Low Content Posts: We're all about the discussion here on the Escapist, which is why single word posts and other low content nonsense do not help. If you agree with someone's point of view, tell us why. Short posts that aren't exceptionally clever or do not add any content to the discussion will earn a warning. Repeated offenses will earn probations. Example of what NOT to do:
  
  • Don't just quote them and put 'this' as your only contribution.
  • Similarly, if you disagree with someone, take the time to explain why, don't just put 'lol wut?' and leave it at that.
• FIRST!: Don't put 'first!!!' (or similar) on the video comment threads. It's a grotesquely obnoxious practice and will get you suspended or banned.
• Thread Necroing and Thread Duping: We know that our forums have a very high volume of traffic and sometimes you will end up wanting to talk about subjects that are being discussed elsewhere on the forums. To keep thread spam to a minimum, we ask that you try not to start threads in the same board on exactly the same topic as another thread that's already active that day. We reserve the right to combine, merge, or delete redundant threads where we see this happen. We will ban for thread spamming in a persistent, abusive, or exploitative manner.

  If you want to have a discussion on a topic that's been the subject of a past thread, you should generally join in that thread if it's a live discussion. If that thread has been inactive for a month or more, its good etiquette to start a new thread and link to the old thread if you want to provide it as background information, and we discourage arbitrary bumping. We will ban for thread bumping if and when it is conducted in a persistent, abusive, or exploitative manner.

• PM Spam: If you receive a Personal Message (PM) from someone that is spamming you, either another user or some low-paid spam-marketer, please either report the user that sent your the PM (from their Profile page), or forward the PM directly on to a Moderator.
• Celebratory Posts: If you feel that the community would like to hear of your triumph over a real life obstacle or achievement, go right ahead. Please describe it so that people that you don't know will also feel good for you too!

  Note for those responding to a celebratory post: you can give your congratulations, but you still need to add some content to the post in order to dodge the banhammer. As an example, you may post your "grats", but you also have to include a "review" of the person signifying their importance. Kinda like in an award show when after the show people ask random celebs what they thought about JoeBobby Smith winning the award, and they give a response like, "Well, I respect his acting and I love the roll that he played in Debbie Does Dallas. I really like his hair. I wonder if he has a dog."