Rules and Regulations [UPDATED: 2014-09-15]

[Eos]

I. Introduction
Welcome to Southperry.net, the leading source in Maplestory news and information!

By registering for an account, you have agreed to follow these rules and regulations. These regulations will help to keep Southperry a friendly environment where all may post and enjoy the community and what it has to offer.

It is generally understood these rules apply to the entire site - meaning any URL which falls in the domain of "Southperry.net" - unless otherwise specified in the rules listed below. These rules do not apply to the IRC.

II. Administration Policy
All administrators must follow the moderation policy below. Any infraction of the below policies will result in the same consequences as those moderators would receive.

--> A. Site Administrator - Position currently held by Eosian
The purpose of the Administrator is to moderate all other administrative staff and moderators, ensure the site continues to run, collect donations, and pay for the server. The Admin is also responsible for making sitewide administration policies (such as these rules here) and moderation policies.

III. Moderation Policy
--> A. Power
All moderators and administrators of this forum have the power to:

- Keep the peace within these forums
- Distribute infractions to those who break these rules and regulations
- Move, close, or edit threads upon infraction with these rules.

--> B. Moderator's Discretion
All moderators will have the power of Moderator’s Discretion in which he or she may elect to use any of his powers placed in him as moderator for the sole purpose of making the forums a better place. An improper use of Moderator’s Discretion will cause the moderator to be removed from his status as determined by the administrators of this website.

--> C. Compensation
All moderators will receive the thanks of Ultra Donor status for electing to help with the forum. Failure to follow this Moderation Policy below will be cause for removal of his status and, depending on the cause of removal, may have his account banned from the forums.

--> D. Misuse of Power
A moderator finding favorites within this community who receive special privileges or benefits such as improper removal of infraction points, taking advantage of the donor privileges and not doing his job that he was hired to do, etc. shall be subsequently removed from his position without restitution. This misuse of power shall be determined by the administrators of this website.

--> E. Relinquish Power
Each moderator may decide at any time to step down from his position with or without warning to the other moderators. If the moderator steps down and remains in full compliance with these rules and regulations, he shall retain his Ultra Donor privileges at an administrator's discretion. If a moderator relinquishes power and is not in compliance, he shall be subject to the consequences laid out in this document as well as be at the whims of the administrators concerning his fate.

VI. Method of Moderation
--> A. Rules
Failure to follow any of these rules will result in the number of infraction points added to your own point total as deemed by the type of infraction listed in the Rules below. Infraction points expire after 75 days. Users can be removed from posting in any board for any reason as determined by administration.

Applies: Everywhere
Definition: "Any post which generally crosses the line and the moderator uses his discretion to mark it."
Additional Comment: Moderator's Discretion - See section III

Point Value: 1 point
Definition: "Posting a claim that someone is a hacker, troll, or mult. Or claiming that someone has been reported."
Additional Comment: The following examples are exceptions to this rule: 1. This rule does not apply to moderators or administrators, 2. Reporting someone for trolling does not invoke this rule. The following examples do count: Saying something to the effect of "Reported for trolling", or saying someone lives under bridges or acts in the general manner of mythical trolls. This also includes comments similar to "Reported for X, enjoy your Y".

Point Value: 8 points (Temporary Ban) & thread/post deletion
Definition: "The act of posting another website in order to bring more users to that website without any gain of Southperry.net." This includes but is not limited to referral links in any context. A referral link is defined as any link for which you obtain some benefit for people clicking, signing up at or similar.

Additional Comment: See here for a clear definition of what an advertisement is.

Point Value: 16 points (Permanent Ban) & thread/post deletion
Definition: "Posting an advertisement within an account's first ten posts."
Additional Comment: See here for a clear definition of what an advertisement is.

Point Value: 1 point & thread deletion
Definition: "Attempting to start any auctions."
Additional Comment: Due to the ease of creating an account, it could lead to shill bidding which throws off the ability to have a fair auction. Also, there is currently no way to enforce the exchange of items after an auction is done.

Point Value: 2 points
Definition: "The appearance of attempting to antagonize (including condescension) or incite a specific person or group of persons, or pushing the limits of the rules."

Point Value: 2 points
Definition: "A post that appears intended to attract drama or attention and nothing more. Includes He said she said scenarios and public disclosure of private conversations to attract attention."

Point Value: 2 points
Definition: “A post with no purpose but to insult or causes a hostile action to another user or group of users, whether implied or direct.”

Point Value: 1 point
Definition: "The act of posting the same thing over and over and over again consecutively, or any other unreasonably large volume of content with little to no actual value. This includes both text and images. Images of excessive size (more than 1mb cumulatively in a single post) also count as a 'large volume'."

Point Value: 1 point
Definition: "Insulting any forum needlessly or without justification."
Additional Comment: "Sleepywood is stupid" is forum bashing. "Sleepywood is stupid because it has harsh moderation policies" is not forum bashing (justified). "Sleepywood is stupid because its users are stupid" is forum bashing (not justified).

Point Value: 16 points (Permanent Ban)
Definition: "Posting that you are or you have hacked any online game."
Additional comment: Known hackers from other forums are not banned on sight here. We, as admins and mods, cannot police every person that enters the site based on their behavior across the entire internet. We deal with what happens here, and that doesn't include extensive background checks on registering and lifelong monitoring thereafter. If a person is stupid enough to say, "I am a hacker", then he deserves a banning. This also includes people who post pictures where it's readily obvious the user hacked the game. Use of the Robin Hood Defense (hacking for the public good) will be determined by moderators.

Point Value: 16 points (Permanent Ban)
Definition: "The act of attempting to convey someone else's identity regardless of the possible humor involved by creating similar identities to that person or by giving others false presence of who you are."

Inappropriate behavior is an extension of the moderator's discretion rule. Any behavior deemed inappropriate may be warned or infracted under this category.

There are simply too many ways to misbehave to document and the vast majority of them are common sense not to do. These include basic internet etiquette, abuse of features, stalking other users and pretty much anything else that we thought we didn't have to tell you was wrong but you decided to do anyway because 'it wasnt listed'. Not having an explicit rules against it does not mean it's acceptable.

2014-09-15

Obscenity: Graphic/Suggestive Conversation
Definition: Discussing any form of genitalia, sexual act (including masturbation and foreplay) or the mechanics of sex, whether real or imaginary, implied or explicit.
Elaboration: This includes linking to pornography, pornography search results, escort services, erotic stories, "dating" websites, sexual advice or anything else a moderator deems obscene.
Point Value: 2

Obscenity: Graphic/Suggestive Imagery
Definition: Displaying any human or anthropomorphic representation, real or imaginary, in a manner that sexualizes or eroticizes them.
Elaboration: A suggestive image is one that includes but is not limited to nudity (display of genitals, female breasts, or buttocks), pornography, sexual toys, see-through clothing, "bubble pornography", sexual medication, strategically covered up nudity, "pushed up" breasts, undressing/posing in a seductive manner, close-ups of genitals/breasts/buttocks whether male or female.

Note: People quoting posts that violate this rule, thereby spreading the damage, are subject to deletion as well regardless of what else they include in the post, as well as 1/2 of the infraction points, rounded up.
Response: Post Deletion + Point Scale Below
Point Value: Sexy; Warning. Penetration/Genital/Bodily Fluid, 8 points, in between, 2-4 points at moderator discretion of severity.

***Non-Sexual material may also be deemed obscene if it's of a grossly inappropriate subject matter including portrayals of graphic or extreme violence, bodily functions or other unsuitable material at the discretion of the administration.

Point Value: 0 points
Definition: Profanity in general is not a crime. Bypassing the censored words is not a crime. Using profanity in a way that violates another rule, such as to flame someone, bait, troll or forum bash, is, and will be punished under the actually broken rule. The censors exist to reduce casual profanity in an amusing way, not prevent it completely. Every censored profanity has a corresponding nonsense word that censors into the real profanity so that if someone truly wanted to swear, they could do so with a little effort. Excessive profanity just for the sake of being profane will be dealt with as needed, and most likely considered a class of spam.

Point Value: Post deletion
We do not support or condone the usage of proxies to bypass Nexon's game level IP filtering. Topics created asking for ways to achieve this will be closed and/or removed.

Admission to using such means itself is not a crime, but explaining how, or asking how, are both illegal topics and should be avoided.

*Note by extention this rule also covers asking for things like a KSSN or other bypasses to play a locale you are explicitly forbidden from playing.

Point Value: Thread deletion
Applies: Everywhere except blogs and visitor messages. Only new and coming back threads are allowed in Amherst.
Definition: "A thread made to announce that one is quitting or coming back to MapleStory or the forums."
Additional Comment: We have thousands of members. While each and every member is important, we don't care who is or is not quitting. As a subset of these we also do not allow "I've just come back tell me everything that happened while I was away." You need to read the updates yourself to catch up.

Point Value: 2 points
Definition: "The posting of false or misleading information in order to make someone view an fad video, picture, or other."

Point Value: 1 point
Definition: "A post containing no value, including off-topic posts or posts which derail threads."
With the advent of the "+1" system a "me too"/"i agree" post with no purpose or further elaboration of it's own in a discussion thread would also be considered spam as would "reaction" images.

Additional Comment: The word "derailing" here implies a train wreck sort of situation, not necessarily that the topic of the thread changed. Minor side tangents are not a violation of this rule unless the whole thread is impacted, or a request to return to the primary topic has been made and ignored.

Point Value: 2 points
Definition: "The posting of information regarding how-to's on private servers or hacking."
Additional comment: You can discuss the effects of private servers or hacks on the community. You can also discuss the basic premise of how and why the hack works. You cannot discuss how to perform hacks or link to places where hacks can be found. You cannot discuss how to set up a private server.

Point Value: 16 points (Permanent Ban)
Definition: "The attempt to do or solict any of the following: (1) Transferring characters or accounts, (2) Buying/selling hacks or access to hacks, (3) Interserver meso trading, (4) NX and/or real currency transactions (5) Meso Selling (6) Linking or advertising any site or service that violates any of these"

Point Value: 2 points
Definition: "Making any inflammatory or antagonistic post."
Additional Comment: Whether a post is actually inflammatory or antagonistic is up to the moderators determination of general public response, it doesn't particularly matter if you didn't consider it such.

Point Value: 2 points
Definition: "Posting, sharing, requesting links, or helping others find illegal content online. 'Illegal content' is defined as cracked programs/games/software and digital media (including, but not limited to TV Shows, movies, MP3s or any other digital format). This infraction also applies to those that link to places where a user could learn how to obtain warez."

--> B. Ban Policy
Those that accumulate 8 or more infraction points will be tempbanned for 10 days. This ban applies to the person, not the account. The user may not create a new account and return right after being tempbanned. A user found signing onto a different account while an account of his is currently tempbanned will have that account permabanned. This is to ensure the user serves all 10 days of the tempban. Infraction points remain after a ban has been served. This means until those points expire sufficiently to drop below 8 every additional infraction will cause another 10 day ban.

If a user reaches 16 or more infraction points, that account will be permanently banned. Permanent bans affect users and not accounts. All accounts registered or posted from that IP address, and all IP addresses the user has history with, will also be banned regardless of who the account belongs. Any new accounts made by this person will be banned on sight. Users that continually make new accounts will be IP banned from the server.

Users have the possibility of jumping straight to permanent ban if he or she commits a permanent ban offense or if enough offenses accumulate the 16 points necessary.

Bans may be appealed by following the template outlined in the Ban Appeal Forum. This forum is only accessible to those who are currently banned and allows a private means of communicating directly with the administration.

--> C. Mult Policy
Users are allowed to own multiple accounts ("mults"). However, in the event that a person's mult is infracted, the mult will be banned and the infraction is instead applied to the person's main account. The "main account" is defined as the account with the highest post count owned by that person.

Mults are also restricted from Shenanigans.


--> D. Appealing
Any moderator action which gives infraction points or in some way restricts access to the forums can be appealed. No infraction points or restrictions means no appeal can be made. If any user feels that an infraction they received is unjustified, he or she has the ability to appeal it. The infraction can be appealed by posting an Appeal in the Appeals forum, per the guidelines specified in the template there.

Appeals are reviewed by the entire moderation staff and voted on anonymously. No discussion is possible within the appeal thread, so the appeal itself should as complete and thorough as possible to defend it's own merits. If you fail to convince you will not get a second chance.

Attempting to appeal, or even bringing up your infraction, within a public thread, new or old, is grounds for both the appeal to be rejected and for the infraction to be increased as there is no point at which your infraction is relevant to the topic of a legitimate thread. Infractions are your indicator to stop negative behavior, not an invitation to make a thread about yourself.