Forum Rules and Guidelines | Rules | Forums

Forum Guidelines:

This section is meant to introduce you to the atmosphere of the forum, and the way it operates. It is not a list of rules, as such, but it is recommended reading for all members of this forum and anyone planning to join.

First Post: To help weed out spammers and trolls, all posts by new members of this forum must be approved by a moderator.  After that you will be free to post normally.

Debate Guideline: The Dreamhart.org forums are focused more on open debate and discussion of ideas than many Otherkin forums. As such, disagreement is expected to occur quite regularly, and those who are not comfortable with having their beliefs challenged in any way will likely not be as comfortable on this forum as they might be elsewhere. Likewise, those who are not willing to offer support for odd-sounding things they claim to be fact may also not be comfortable here. While this forum supports the right of others to hold the beliefs and opinions of their choice, this does not mean that anyone else must automatically agree them. It is not intolerant to argue that factual beliefs are incorrect, or ask someone for the sources of their information, or even to state that you believe they are wrong (and reasons why). It is intolerant, however, to try to force them to change their opinions by repeatedly badgering them about those opinions, or to bash them for having the beliefs rather than simply challenging the logic of the beliefs themselves. This applies even to less popular belief systems such as Christianity: please challenge the logic of the beliefs, don’t bash those who hold them simply for holding them, and don’t bash entire groups for the actions of some individuals.

Personal Information Guideline: Please do not give out private (offline) contact information for yourself through this forum. If you want another member to have that information about you, it is best to send it to that specific person through private email or PM. Posting it to the forum would make it publicly available for anyone to read. For obvious reasons, this is a safety issue.

Roleplaying: This is not a forum meant for roleplaying.  Yes, our beliefs may seem unusual but we are quite serious.  Please do not join this forum looking for a game, or to act out a story or thought experiment.  

Forum Rules:

Members may be either placed on moderated status or banned for disregarding these rules, the exact penalty to be determined by the moderator based on which rule is broken, the severity of it, and the circumstances in which it was broken.

1. Personal attacks will not be tolerated on this forum. The Dreamhart.org forums are a place for discussion and debate. Personal issues being aired publicly on this forum would be disruptive, and for that reason should be taken elsewhere.
2. Posts should keep their content reasonably relevant to the forum subjects. Since there are a vast range of topics related to these subjects, this should not be very hard to do. Exceptions may be made if a conversation leads off on a tangent that the membership of the forum is interested in exploring, as long as it does not disrupt or detract from more on-topic conversations.
3. If, for any reason, you wish to bring a discussion from another forum to this one, please contact me privately first to discuss it.  This does not apply to event announcements.
4. Do not post or attach copyrighted material, including text copied from web sites, without including a copy of the specific and express permission granted by the copyright holder to post the material publicly, *OR* a valid reason why your posting of the material constitutes “fair use”. This does not apply to linking to the material without posting it directly, nor to material in the public domain.
5. Do not behave in a manner which the moderator or other reasonable members of this forum will consider disruptive, offensive, or threatening. (A non-exhaustive list of behaviors that would be covered by this rule can be found here)
6. Moderating should be left to the moderator, who will personally issue formal warnings when necessary. Please feel free, however, to contact me and bring any violations of the rules to my attention if you think it may not have been noticed.
7. On rules issues on this forum, the decisions of the moderator are final.

Unacceptable Behaviors:

This is a non-exhaustive list of disruptive, offensive, or threatening behaviors mentioned in rule #5.

1. Spamming the forum, the moderator, or other members of this forum.
2. Using a morph account and/or proxy to access this forum for the purpose of avoiding moderation.
3. Threatening the forum, its members, or the moderation.
4. Uninvited lectures on off-topic subjects.
5. Messages in all capital letters, in “hacker language” (see google’s translation options if you don’t know what I mean), or making excessive use of “cute” or otherwise nonstandard grammar and spelling such as “Whatt kind ov kin r u?”
6. Using gratuitous offensive language, especially blanket slurs against other groups.
7. Posts including fighting words (otherwise known as flamebait). This includes, but is not limited to, boasting about how you can kick the ass of other members of the forum either astrally or physically.
8. Making frequent posts in which the previous message is quoted in it’s entirety needlessly, thus wasting the bandwidth of other members (some of whom pay by the minute for their internet connection.)
9. Posting ads to other sites using the contact information of other members on this forum or the moderator.