Cemetech Rules

Definitions

  • We, us, and our refers to Cemetech, the site administrators and other appointed users such as moderators.
  • The Site refers to the Cemetech web site and other resources operated by or on behalf of Cemetech, including but not limited to linked chat services such as Discord or IRC and game servers.
  • You refers to an individual person, a user of the Cemetech Site.

Contact

We can be contacted privately via email to cemetech-staff@googlegroups.com. Prefer to use email to contact us for any rules-related inquiries over any other method.

Conduct

We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.

  • Avoid being mean or rude to other users. While we recognize that differences of opinion may occur and feelings in these situations may become heated, you should always endeavor to interact with other users in a polite fashion.
  • We will exclude you from interaction with other users (via any means we see fit) if you insult, demean or harass anyone. That is not welcome behavior. We interpret the term “harassment” as including the definition in the Citizen Code of Conduct; if you have any lack of clarity about what might be included in that concept, please read their definition. In particular, we don’t tolerate behavior that excludes people in socially marginalized groups.
  • Private harassment is also unacceptable. No matter who you are, if you feel you have been or are being harassed or made uncomfortable by a community member, please contact site staff.
  • Likewise any spamming, trolling, flaming, baiting, or other attention-stealing behavior is not welcome.
  • You may not impersonate other users, such as by using a chat nickname designed to resemble the usual alias used by another user that may reasonably cause confusion. It should be possible for other users to tell who you are with relative ease.
  • You may not hold multiple separate site accounts without prior approval. Doing so is often associated with evasion of bans and other behavior that is forbidden by the conduct policy.

Moderation

  • Behavior that violates the site standards of conduct, including hateful, hurtful, oppressive, or exclusionary remarks, is not allowed.
  • Behavior that we find inappropriate, whether listed in the code of conduct or not, is also not allowed.
  • Moderators may respond to inappropriate behavior by giving warnings, kicking you temporarily (a suggestion to cool off), or banning you from any site resources for any amount of time.
  • If a moderator takes some action and you think it was unjustified, please take it up with that moderator, or with a different moderator, in private. Complaints about bans in-channel are not allowed.

If someone takes issue with something you said or did, resist the urge to be defensive. Just stop doing what it was they complained about and apologize. Even if you feel you were misinterpreted or unfairly accused, chances are good there was something you could have communicated better. You will find that people will be eager to assume good intent and forgive as long as you earn their trust.

Other norms

While not as strictly enforced as the conduct policy, the items in this section are aspects of etiquette that tend to be non-obvious to new users, especially those who are not familiar with traditional message boards. If you fail to observe them you may be corrected by other users or site staff, who might be annoyed by your behavior.

Asking questions

Prefer to ask questions that have some complexity on the forum rather than in other chats. It’s easier for other users to collect context and offer their input if you can take some time to organize your thoughts, and forum posts are much more discoverable in the future: somebody else might have the same question later (you can find forum threads on Google but not chat history)!

  • “Don’t ask to ask, just ask.” If you’re tempted to ask if somebody who knows something is around at any given time: don’t. Simply ask your question, and somebody who knows about the thing should respond if possible. Using the forum for these cases is particularly valuable since responding is not time-sensitive and you probably don’t know everybody who might know about your topic.
  • When you ask a question, please provide any context needed. This may include answers you have already explored and discarded (e.g., solutions to a technical problem), resources you have consulted, or extra information readers will need to know to understand your question.
  • If you find the answer to your own question, please post the answer in your thread for others who have the same question later. “Never mind, I figured it out” is a supremely frustrating answer to find to a question when searching online.

Posting

Avoid “double-posting” on the forum: making multiple posts in one thread in a short time without anybody else replying. It’s likely nobody has seen your first post yet, so editing your original post instead of making a small change by adding another post will make things easier to read for everybody. If it’s been a while (a typical guideline being around a day) since you last posted, creating a new post rather than editing is usually acceptable.

Consider whether you’re adding new information, and how much: if the answer to those is “no” or “only a little”, it’s usually best to avoid creating a new post.

 

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