We would prefer BitForums to be a friendly community, so we won't appreciate any hate brought in by users. Outright insulting, flaming, or otherwise harmful language aimed toward another user will not be tolerated in any circumstance. If you see any of this happening, by all means report it to the staff before it gets too bad, since these sorts of things tend to cause all kinds of icky messes and take a long time to clean up once they get out of control.

"Trolling" also falls under this rule, and "just trollan lol" is not a valid excuse to get yourself out of trouble. Knowingly baiting users into a fight is just as bad as being involved in the fight itself, and will also not be tolerated here. Again, if you see any of this happening please report it to the staff as soon as possible so we can stop it before things get too out of hand.

Note however that neither argument nor criticism are flaming. It only crosses the line into flaming if you do something malicious or actually insult someone.

When you post, be sure you say something worthwhile, not anything like "This" or "lolwut". And if you don't like something, take the time to at least explain why rather than saying "I hate teh marios he suxs."

Some guidelines to follow when posting are as follows:

When making a new topic or post, ask yourself the following:

Will the thread/post be informative?
Will this reply be worthwile?
Am I contributing to the topic at hand?
What am I trying to say in my post?
Am I just posting for the sake of posting?

A good rule of thumb is to try to post at least two sentences. Sometimes a one sentence post can be constructive, but if you're having trouble figuring out the difference then try to follow that rule.

Also, fads happen. But, fad posts are normally useless and add nothing to the topic at hand. So please, try to refrain from fad posting all over the place. Just because there's a fad going on in the Picture War Topic doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be spread to the Fountain of Dreams. Use discretion in these things. Normally, fads are only funny for a short amount of time, and are only funny in context, at best. Take away the context, and all you have is a picture/punchline with no joke behind it. In other words, fads don't spread too well. Keep that in mind.

Oh, and spam topics are not allowed here at BitF. Don't ask, it'll just be locked by the moderators..

If you do feel like just chatting, take it to the chat.

While it's ok to mention that you do something illegal (like pirate games), it's not ok to help people commit a crime (like giving out links to places where you can download pirated stuff or giving people tips about finding good pot). A similar principle applies to other illegal activities. Use some common sense here.

We do allow debate topics. However, with our debate topics comes responsibility. Please post constructively in these topics, rather than a "I don't think this should be legal" type post, please explain why, and keep it civil, or perfectly good topic can go to waste. Also, if you do post an opinion of yours on the Debate Board, don't be too offended if someone tears your opinion to pieces. That's the basis of debating, and opinions are fair game when it comes to debates. Now, not everyone is the best at arguing, so don't resort to flaming each other over a simple disagreement in opinion. The main thing in debates is that people need to keep it civil. If you need some help debating, just ask someone who knows!

Also - not exactly a rule, but good debating - research the topic you want to argue about, don't jump into the mix without knowing anything. You will be torn to shreds by the veteran debaters, just to give a fair warning.

And just one final note to remember: Even the best arguments fall flat on their faces when it resorts to bringing stuff like "Yo Mamma" jokes into the mix. Yes this has happened. No it did not end well.

While we do like users talking through our Private and Visitor Messaging systems, there are some rules we need people to follow with those too. Generally, the rules with both are:
1) No "Flooding." A large amount of messages to an specific user or group within a small amount of time is both annoying and slightly harmful to the site itself. Anyone caught doing this will receive an instant week-long ban, if not longer.
2) No advertising. Advertising a new site is allowed only in signatures or when requested by the recipient, no exceptions. Anyone caught breaking this will also end in an instant week-long ban.
3) Respect users' personal space, please. If someone tells you to stop messaging them, then respect their rights as a user and cooperate.

Recently, there has been a number of users who feel that they must take it upon themselves to inform people when they're breaking the rules. Please, just report the post and leave it to the mods to do this job. The mods are the ones with actual punishing powers, rather than the user who can just bicker with someone until they hopefully cool down a bit.

If none of the staff happens to be online a the time, just report the offending posts. Odds are, we'll be handle it later, so you don't need to take the duty upon yourself. Sure, someone may have bumped an old topic: but just keep talking about the topic at hand rather than going off on a "This violates the rules" tangent. These sorts of posts aren't really helpful, and many even go so far as to violating Rule #2. So please, practice the very rules that you are trying to point out to others.

In other words, when in doubt about whether you're mini-modding, just report. You may face a one-day ban if you don't follow this rule.

However, there is a time when mini-modding is acceptable, IF AND ONLY IF you are the original poster of a thread, and someone comes in and de-rails your topic, then you may say "Hey guys, get back on topic, I don't want this locked."

Brawl in the forums is a family-friendly site, so we don't approve of some images being posted directly into topics without warning. Generally if it can't be shown on prime-time TV then try and keep it off of here.

Extremely violent or gory images posted without warning will be infracted. If you absolutely must post an image, try to clear it with a staff member beforehand or link to it with a warning rather than using img tags to put it directly in the thread.

Also no pornography of any sort. Keep that elsewhere.

While this is implied under all the rules, it's still one of those things that deserves a mention in itself. Please, when posting think before you click that little "Post Reply" button. Again, ask yourself if you're following the questions outlined in Rule #2. So, just try to use common sense when you post. Some things that fall under this rule are:

Grammar:
While we don't expect any of you to be experts in the language, readability is always a nice thing to have in posts. It not only helps people to figure out what you're talking about, but good usage of the language also reflects well on you as a user. Also, we do understand that there still are many people who don't have English as a first language. We don't mind if you're still learning the language, and people can often tell the difference between those who are honestly trying to improve, and those who just don't care.

Bumping:
Oh, the dreaded subject of bumping. This seems to be a split decision by many at this point. Again, this is where common sense comes into play. Generally, we don't mind people making new topics on the boards, as long as they do a quick search to see if such a topic exists already. There is a search function at the bottom of the page, and it's really useful when trying to see if there's already a topic about the subject you want to make a topic on.

Generally, as long as the topic is within the first ten or so pages of the board, then it's okay to bump said topic. But, it's generally all right to make a new topic if the previous one has laid dormant for the past six months or so. We don't expect you to search back into the forum's early days for a subject that a new thread could just as easily be made for. So, in this case, the staff is fine if a new topic is made if the old one is past the last ten or so pages.

Screen Stretching:
Please avoid doing this when at all possible. So, using unnaturally lagre fonts and long lines of text to stretch the screen is really frowned upon by the staff at this point. Sure, you may think that it's funny to use really huge text in you post, but everyone who has to scroll for the next five minutes might not think as much. Plus, it really screws up the placement of things such as buttons and various other things of the site, and takes a long time to load the useless space caused by it. So please, don't stretch the page on purpose.

Advertising:
What is and isn't bad advertising is pretty subjective, but just use common sense. If you made a webcomic or a blog or something, you can post it in the canvas, and you can have any advertisements (as long as it follows the rules) in your sig. It's also more tolerable if you say "Hey guys I just ____, here's a link" rather than "Hey everyone please come to this site". Business things are also more likely to be frowned upon. I'm probably missing a couple of factors (and we reserve the right to determine wether something crosses the line), but it should be easy enough if you just use common sense.

There are no loopholes. Try to pull that one and we ban, no questions.

The maximum size for an entire sig (as in, including all images and text, not just the size of an image) is 600x300. Here's an example of an image that's 600x300. See if your sig fits within that.

What the infraction system basically boils down to is that each user is given ten "points." An infraction takes these points away, while a warning takes nothing. Points can be regained over time, meaning that your infraction points aren't gone forever!

However, getting too many infractions can be a bad thing. For starters, anyone who falls below five points at any time is automatically placed "On Probation" and is marked publicly. Anyone who loses all points at any time is banned until they have points again. This could be anywhere from one hour to several weeks, depending on the severity of the rules you broke and the discretion of the moderators.