RULES TO FOLLOW!

This guide was created to provide an easy to access and up to date source of general information for the Serrano Club community. All members are expected to read this guide and are otherwise unknowingly subjecting themselves to the risk of breaking the rules. Please note that you will receive the full penalty of the consequences regardless of whether you have this guide or not.

::Rules::
1. Do not spam.
2. Do not flame.
3. Do not harass.
4. Do not double or multi post.
5. Do not flood.
6. Do not swear/cuss excessively. Changing letters in the word into numbers or symbols still counts but is more tolerated by mods and admins.
7. Do not post/link any explicit material containing sexual, racist or disturbing/upsetting content.
8. Do not link to any form of pirating or make any illegal transactions on the forums.
9. Do not publicly trade accounts (Serrano Club or otherwise).
10. Do not scam.
11. Do not impersonate any regular or staff member.
12. Do not rip.
13. Do not advertise or promote other websites/services as a whole.
14. Do not act like a moderator/admin if you are not one.
15. Do not publicly discuss Serrano Club Forum moderators or their actions unless given permission to do so by a Moderator.
16. Discussions that solely belong on partnership sites should only be posted on their forums, not on Serrano Club.
17. Do not evade your bans.
18. Do not troll/cause unnecessary drama.

Important Definitions
In this section, certain words and phrases used throughout in the Forum Guide will be defined and /or interpreted in order to prevent confusions over what is meant by a certain rule, so the rules cannot be argued.


Spam: A message and/or topic that is pointless and off-topic.

-Anything that does not answer the question the topic starter asks (for example: "I don't know")
-Topics with misleading titles, regardless of the message content
-Quoting someone without adding anything extra of your own (for example: Quoting and posting only "Agree", "Same", "What this guy said" or simply only quoting.)
-Reserved posts not filled within one hour
-A post with ONLY a smiley/smiles
-Posts made in a language outside of its proper section. The main language on the Naruto-Boards is English. All posts and topics made in any other language besides English must go in its corresponding sub-section within the Great Ninja Headquarters section.
-Irrelevant topics (for example: "Look at my signature", "Come to my chatbox", "I need a friend")

Topic not posted in its designated section will be locked or moved.


Flame: Any posts meant to offend or hurt any member in a manner which is offensive and/or insulting.

Light flaming: Harsh criticism and anything offensive, but nothing "major".
Examples: "That sucks h4rdcor3!" (if talking about a poem, signature, etc.), "noob", "you are stupid", "you need to grow up, kiddy".

Moderate flaming: Any sort of offence/insult that is neither extremely offensive, nor light flame. It's basically in a "middle region".
Examples: "idiot", "retard", "moron".

Heavy flaming: Anything racist, profane, sexist, or extremely offensive.


Harassment: Constantly annoying someone with offensive or negative messages in an attempt to make them feel unhappy, annoyed, or embarrassed.


Double Posting: Posting twice in a row without other people's posts in between.
Multi Posting: Posting 3-5 times in a row without other people's posts in between.

If you want to add something, you should use the edit button. See the "amazing edit button" and "the bumping guide" in this guide.
If you double (multi) posted unintentionally, edit all unnecessary posts to state it was a mistake. Those posts will be deleted and you will not be warned.


Flooding: Intentionally posting many times in a short period of time. 6 or more posts in a row, or many multi posts in one topic will automatically be considered as flooding. Flooding can also take place if you create many useless/similar topics, or send many Private Messages to users in a short period of time. If one post takes up a whole page and the content in that post is simply smilies or spam in general, it will be considered as flooding (Examples: post with a very long image, too many images/smiles in one post, quoting a flood post)


Sexual explicit material: Violations include posting links (text link, even just including site's name and domain, not only clickable link made with [url ] tag, is a link too), images, using images in avatars, signatures, cybering on the forum (including Private Messages), and posting distasteful text-based content. Nudity or inappropriate level of bared skin is not allowed as well.


Scamming: An attempt to trick or persuade an individual to hand over the password to their account. Telling someone to change their e-mail is also considered scamming. If you have been scammed, please read this topic.


Impersonation: Replicating someone's profile and/or name in order to appear to be that person. This also pertains to falsely claiming to be a Moderator/Admin of any "Naruto-Arena" project to try and trick an individual.

Advertising: Any sort of link/statement which purposefully draws the attention of the forum members to any other site not related to Naruto-Arena.

Links that benefit our community in a sort of way (e.g; manga/anime sites) are allowed. It is the moderator's decision if a single advertisement can be allowed or not.
Advertising in signatures and player-profiles (such as pokeplushies, etc) are allowed.


Acting like a moderator/admin:

- You CANNOT warn users if they break a rule.
This means you cannot post content such as: "Do not spam", "This is spamming", "This topic is locked", "You are banned", "You will be warned", "Topic closed" or "Posting here will be treated as a spam."
- You CANNOT act like you have influence on the decision.
This means you cannot post content such as: "reported, I will make sure you will get a ban" or "I'm calling a mod to warn you".

Posting content like: "I hope you will be banned", "I think you will get a warning", "This might be not allowed" is not acting like a moderator, but it is considered spam if there is no other content related to the topic.

Reporting:
If you see anyone breaking the rules, use the personal message system to notify a moderator about the incident with a link to the topic. You may also post "this is against the rules" ONLY with a link to the rules AND a statement/quote about which rule has been broken.
Of course you can say "This is spamming" or "This is not allowed" and like when users are asking if a certain behavior is against the rules or not.


Discussing moderators and their actions: You CANNOT make a post/topic regarding any moderators, whether the content is positive or negative. The same goes for their actions (bans and warnings). Whenever we allowed the public to discuss moderators, it has always ended up with unnecessary drama spawning from the members' side.
If you see a moderator who is breaking the rules, abusing their powers, or acting in an immature way, report their action to a Global Moderator. If you find your warning or ban unfair, discuss it with a moderator using Private Messages (if you got warned in a topic, do not discuss the warning there).


Ban Evading: Accessing the forums while you are banned. This includes using any account (created in the past or now) to view Naruto-Boards. Even if you only look at topics (without posting) or use your friend's account, you will be banned (and your friend too). Be aware of consequences of ban evading by reading the Table of Punishment.


Trolling/Drama: A statement or any sort of indirectly content which is "controversial" with the intent of annoying, and instigating a fight against another party. It is basically a post which causes members to fight among themselves.

Examples
drama-boi676: "you won that war only because you were playing cheap, you have no skill".
DramaCauser11: "He was using vulgar language then blocked me on MSN".
drama_starter5: "I was on chatbox of this clan and there were many idiots".
clanDr4ma9: "Captain of XYZ kicked me from the clan because I've lost in a tournament. He should be kicked instead of me for this!"
trolling_man: "XXX clan is full of cheaters! who agrees with me?"
tr0ll591: "people playing this game are idiots!"


Classified Information: Any information that is meant to be kept secret from members.

Bumping Guide
This section explains how you can bump a topic without breaking the double-posting rule. It is really simple and you should be fine as long as you follow the guidelines. Bumping is primarily used in group topics.

A bump may only be used at least 24 hours after the last post on the thread, not 24 hours after your own last post. If you bump before 24 hours it is spam (most people will not time you to the second so wait a minimum of 23 hours). Also, having post after post between you and another person of just the word "bump" is not bumping the topic, but indeed spamming it. Please keep this in mind when you want to bump a topic.

In Short:
1) Bumps are only to be used 24 hours after the last post on the topic.
2) Mis-use of bumps is spam.
3) Do not start a discussion with someone having "bump" in every post.
4) This applies to all of the boards. Not just in the clan section.

Speaking of grammar:

Take the time to at least capitalize the first letter of your sentences. It makes it a bit easier to see. Proper nouns you can leave alone, I forget so it's not like I can yell at you for that. However, capitalizing would help too.

Please PUNCTUATE. It becomes rather hard to read if you string together multiple ideas without any sort of break. It takes under a second to type in a period, or a comma, or even a semicolon ( ; ) if you're daring.

Abbreviations: Take the extra second, PLEASE, to spell out two more characters. It's nearly effortless to do this, and clears up a good amount of confusion. This also includes R, Hu, Wut, Y, etc... While abbreviations such as b/c and w/o and IDK etc. are fine, one to two letters is really not asking much.

Spelling: at least make a conscious effort to spell correctly. If you don't know how to spell a word, or if your finger slips, that's fine; but don't rush so much that you start yo splap the ketyboad like this. This is not a race; people take an extra few seconds to take your time.

1337: 1337 is not cool. It's STUPID. Don't try to complicate by typing in 1337.

Caps Lock: It is not wise to type in ALL CAPS LOCK LIKE THIS! It is annoying and people will have the notion that you are yelling at them. Be wise and look at what you are typing every so often.
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If you just follow those guidelines, things will be a lot clearer, as well as make you look smarter, and well all want to look smart, now don't we?

Follow thses rules and you'll be fine :3