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guide:rules

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Rules

Please carefully read all of these rules; they are designed to make Star Army enjoyable and consistent for all members. They are not meant to limit you unreasonably or to stifle anyone's creativity. The rules below were forged through experience and adaptation. They protect members from abuse and protect the community itself. Each is important and exists for good reason.

By entering or using this website, you agree that you are legally and socially obligated to comply with the rules. If you do not accept this agreement you may not access or use StarArmy.com or its services. We reserve the right to update this policy at any time without notice; policies will be immediately effective upon upload.

The list is being continually refined but ignorance is no excuse to ignore the rules - they are posted here for all to see and to subscribe to. If you refuse to follow them, then the administration will take action. In the event something is questionable or not covered by the rules, the final say goes to the administration. Please have the courtesy to accept their decisions.

General Rules

  1. You will not use the website for any purpose that is unlawful, fraudulent or contrary to the policies of StarArmy.com, and you will cooperate fully with StarArmy.com to investigate any suspected unlawful, fraudulent or improper activity.
  2. You will not use the website in any manner that harasses another member or could interfere with any other party's use or enjoyment of the website. You will respect the privacy of others and not use the website for unwelcome, rude or abusive communications, including the creation obscene, offensive, tasteless, defamatory or hateful member names or content.
  3. You will not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any member account information, computer systems or networks associated with the website, or attempt to obtain any information or materials relating to the website through any means not intentionally made available through the website.
    1. Your accounts are yours alone; Do not share your account password with anyone.
    2. No one is allowed to ask for the password of another user.
  4. You will not encourage others to violate the StarArmy.com policies.

Characters

Character Creation

  • The Creating a Character article is the official guide to creating a SARP character.
  • All characters must be original. No characters from television, movies, or books.
  • Don't build your character as part of an existing family or as related to an existing character without their permission .
  • Importing an original character from another RPG is not allowed, but you can build a similar character.
  • Characters not on the wiki will not be approved.

Limitations

  • Unapproved characters cannot used used in the roleplay, except for in the Cluster Flux freeform RP area.
  • non-player_characters do not belong to role-players, but can be played by them with GM permission.

Intellectual Property

StarArmy.com prohibits the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials!

You will not use StarArmy.com or its services to transmit, store, or provide links to any material that infringes copyrighted works or violates the intellectual property rights. StarArmy.com will terminate members who infringe or are believed to be infringing the rights of copyright holders.

Infringement Remedy

If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide StarArmy.com listed below with the following information required under 17 U.S.C. § 512.

  1. A physical or electronic signature of the owner or a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed, and a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
  2. Identification of the copyright work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online website are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at the website.
  3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed, and information reasonably sufficient to permit StarArmy.com to locate the material (a URL).
  4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit StarArmy.com to contact the complaining party, including a name, email address, telephone number and a mailing address at which the complaining party may be contacted.
  5. A statement that the complaining party has a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.

Notice of claims of copyright infringement on or regarding this website can be sent to The Admin

Members' Intellectual Property

Your original creations here are your own and will remain your own property, but once you add them to Star Army, they're also the community's to use; by participating in the Star Army community, you agree to assign Star Army an irrevocable, non-exclusive, and royalty-free license to utilize the content you submit (such as wiki edits, forum posts, image uploads, and characters) giving Star Army the ability to use the material you contribute in the same way its owner would (including but not limited to public display, making derivative works, and using it in commercial works to raise funds for the Star Army community). This allows the other site members to build upon each others' ideas and also protects the site continuity by preventing anything from being suddenly removed.

If you wish to use Star Army's content, or content derived from Star Army's intellectual property (such as a Nekovalkyrja character), you need to first obtain Star Army's permission.

Membership

StarArmy.com wishes to provide proper credit to the authors of the works created in the RPG. Please post your contact information and online times in the contact info thread, so other people will know how and when they can get a hold of you. If you don't use your real name on the site, then you can't be credited for your work in Star Army publications.

Forum Avatars and Signatures

  • Maximum allowed size is 120 pixels wide and 135 pixels tall.
  • Forum signatures are not displayed on the forum but are visible on member profiles.

Usernames and Passwords

  • Usernames should be 15 characters or less.
  • Only one account per person is authorized.
  • Don't share your password.
  • You're allowed to change your username if you'd like. If you do, please post a message letting everyone know.

Plot Participation

Joining a Plot

  • Only approved player_characters can join plots.
  • Players and GM who already play in and/or run 4 or more plots are not allowed to join or create additional plots.
  • Game Masters have the right to request a list of plots a player is already participating in.
  • Game Masters have the right to refuse a player or player character for any reason, or for no reason at all.
  • You may join an adventure at any point in time, as long as it is okay the Plot GM; however, it is recommended that you wait until the beginning of an adventure before you join in IC. The most common ways of introducing a character are a transfer via shuttle, or catching a ride on a cargo ship.

Leaving a Plot

Don't just disappear in the middle of an adventure; it can create major problems.

See: Leaving a Plot or The Community

  • Players should tell their GM 3 days in advance if they're leaving the plot.
  • Players leaving a plot have the right to take their player_characters with them, if feasible.
  • non-player_characters belong to the GM and players have no right to take them.

If you have shown that you do not have the time necessary to take part in the RP, you may be asked to leave and open a spot for players who do have the time.

Respect Others

Players must respect fellow players. Being deliberately hurtful to or harassing another player or Game Master will not be tolerated, including remarks made in private or without the victim’s knowledge.

  • Do not harass, threaten, or libel the other players or other people.
  • Do not “flame.” Your post will be deleted or changed and action may be taken against you. Flaming is using abusive language and belittling comments towards other players. This includes sarcastic remarks.
  • If someone harasses you, Save a copy of the offending material. Let the Site GM know immediately.

Do not cuss/swear, threaten, harass, or use derogatory racial terms in your posts; The only time you are allowed to cuss is: In-character, in a JP or SP post as part of a character's speech, or in a non-public forum.

Respect the Community

We want the community to be enjoyable to its members and to be a fun place. New players need to feel welcome, respected, and should be shown Star Army’s best.

  • No scaring away new players or potential new players.
  • No Posting idiotic or negative things, especially in a welcome thread.
  • Do not make hurtful remarks or whine about:
    • Star Army in general, on or off the site.
    • Members/Players, to include new members or potential new members, game masters, and the administration
    • Factions (keep the drama in-character, not OoC)
    • Canon technology (such as bio-androids, aether, scalar energetics, and Zesuaium)
    • “The Good old days” being better.
    • Dead RPs
  • Do not make the chatroom look bad by:
    • Posting a non-worksafe link without an appropriate warning
    • Posting off-topic links, especially Youtube links, without a description (spamming)
    • Posting multiple lines of text that should have been in a single one (spamming)
    • Posting gibberish, large blobs of irrelevant text. (spamming)
    • Off-topic discussion while others are trying to discuss SARP.
  • If you participate in chatrooms or communities that promote harming our own, you will be banned.
  • No vandalizing or spamming the wiki, imageboard, or forums. People have worked hard on the content here.
  • Listen to administrators and moderators.
  • Do not un-do moderator changes if one edits something out of your post.
  • Do not pose as an administrator or moderator.
  • Stay on topic with the post title and the forum the post is in.
  • Do not post thoughtless one-line posts on the forums. This is considered spamming.

No illegal stuff. Star Army is a site that lets users add content and communicate with each other, but we need to keep it legal so it lasts and to protect ourselves. That means This includes but is not limited to fraud, underage porn, warez, copyright and/or trademark violations, and unauthorized access of private site materials.

Do not post commercial copyrighted or trademarked material on the site without citing and linking to the source. Do not plagiarize or copy others' work.

No advertising. Do not use the website to solicit members, promote any product, services, or games of chance (lottery, contests, etc.)

Anyone attempting to steal players (convince them to leave the community for another community) from Star Army will be immediately, permanently banned. Any unauthorized use of Star Army intellectual property or IP licensed by Star Army will be aggressively countered by all means available.

Image Uploads

  • Do not post images that are prohibited by law,.
  • Don't post images that are likely to be found disturbing (gore, toilet, violence against women).
  • Don't post images over 550 (forums) or 600 (wiki) pixels wide without permission.
  • We reserve the right to delete your images without notification when we see fit.
  • Don't post images which are primarily intended for advertising.
  • Don't post nudes/hentai in any forum but the Hot Tub.
  • Don't post nudes/hentai on the wiki.

Doing any of the above is basically begging for a ban.

Roleplaying

Communicate!

There are several available methods of Communication available to RP Members. Yahoo! Messenger, E-mail, private messages, and the forums themselves are some examples. Sub-plots, problems, questions, concerns, suggestions, and many, many other things have to be worked out between members, and these are the best ways to do it.

Conflicts

Bad things can and will happen to your character. If the character has an intact ST backup of themselves the GM can kill them off whenever he feels it is necessary for the story or just for a bit of dramatic effect. Killing of characters will also happen if it appropriate for actions they have taken. DO NOT whine about it, you made the decision in the first place therefore you should be willing to accept all consequences.

Any major event, situation, condition, action, etc. which directly involves another Player's character must be discussed with said Player beforehand, if possible. The Player reserves the right to have any post deleted that directly involves their character and was not discussed beforehand, unless that post was made by the GM. The post will be deleted or moved and sent to the offending Player for editing.

In the case that someone has used your character in some way, or done something that went against one of your plots, sort it out politely and quickly. Attempt to work it out with the offending Player first. If this fails, take it to the Plot GM. In an RP as large as this one to become, it is nearly impossible to avoid all problems, but if we can sort them out smoothly, politely and quickly, there will be minimal difficulties.

Listen to the site owner and his appointed GMs. If he says something works one way, he would know, he did create the universe after all and a lot of the technology in it. (GM However has a responsibility to make the limits, uses and capabilities known to the entire site.)

Format

  • Parenthesis are used to signify OOC (Out Of Character) comments. Please don't make off-topic OOC comments during JPs, and keep the OOC to a minimum.
  • Tag the post title with the setting(s) in brackets if required. Example: [YSS Empire, Kyoto] Birth of a Family

Keeping Up

Try your hardest to read each and every new post. This cuts down on confusion and prevents conflicts in the storyline from arising. If you don’t have time, at least read the ones involving your ship. Print them if you need to. You are expected to post regularly (at least one RP post a week). If you can’t for some reason, let people know why and kindly excuse your character or arrange for someone else to play her in the meantime.

As a player, it is also partially your responsibility to keep the game moving. So long as what is happening isn't going to change the face of the world, or isn't combat, don't wait for the game_master. Just continue roleplaying! You are encouraged to develop your character's relationships with others. Forge friendships, find a lover, argue, create rivalries, go out, see the sights! Experiment! Just don't do anything that will change the nature of the game without your GM's permission.

People don't appreciate a player who doesn't post frequently. Some GMs even impose posting time limits in order to keep the pace up. If the game is lagging and you are able to post, do it. And don't just post to yourself! Try to interact with other characters to keep things exciting.

Posting a Joint Post

Once a JP is finished, it should immediately be posted in the appropriate roleplay forum. If editing is not possible (due to time constraints or software problems), post the unedited JP.

JP Posts with strong erotic content are required: (1) To be tagged with [18+] after the title. (2) Not to be relevant to the plot. That is, if someone doesn’t read the post, they shouldn’t miss anything important to the plot.

Starting a Side Plot

In each adventure there are two types of plots: The Backbone Plot, and the various Sub-plots. The Backbone Plot takes precedence over sub-plots. Sub-plots must be worked in and around the Backbone Plot in order for the RP to function correctly. This is not to say that because a sub-plot goes against the Backbone Plot it can't be used. It simply means that you must either rework, or put off the sub plot until such a time as it can be used.

Metagaming

Let's all remember to keep OOC knowledge separate from IC knowledge. Don't direct your character to stuff if he/she wouldn't find it by themselves. That includes sniffing at a random moment when a character has no reason to do so and then find someone stalking them that way. If something is hidden, let it be hidden until there is a plausible reason for it to not be. Just because you know a player character is plotting to kill yours, etc. does not mean you can have your character act like he's especially alert for some reason. Keep it realistic.

Writing

Writing is the means with which we interact with one another. It is vital that you write well, so that others can understand you and so they aren't distracted from the RP by errors. Don't bother posting a sentence if you can't be bothered to capitalize it or put a period at the end. The clearer your post, the less the likelihood it will be overlooked or misunderstood.

  • Sentence structure, and correct grammar and spelling are a must.
  • Double spacing between paragraphs is required. This means paragraphs should have a full blank line between them.
  • All posts should be written in third person past tense. The third person is mostly for clarity because there are many “I's” in this story.
  • Please use your character's name in the first reference to them in a paragraph (especially in JPs).
  • Try to be detailed and descriptive.

Additional Rules

Punishments

Violations of the above rules may result in administrative warnings or bans.

Unbanning

If you're banned, a $10 fee will be charged for the service of removing your ban from the list. Bans from the IRC Chat channel (ONLY) will not be charged if they are warning bans left in place for 24 hours or less.

Notice of Limited Liability

Use of StarArmy.com is at your own risk and we are not liable for damages.

StarArmy.com is not responsible for the content that is presented through member-controlled portions of the website or the forums. While the administration takes reasonable efforts to moderate user-posted content to appropriate topics, we cannot control what members post. StarArmy.com does not make any claims nor guarantee the truth, accuracy, completeness, safety, timeliness, quality, appropriateness, legality or applicability of anything said or written by members. Any information you choose to reveal about yourself to other members is done at your own risk, and we are not liable for any interruptions or errors in the service we provide to you. StarArmy.com is provided “as is” and disclaims any warranties, expressed or implied.

If you have a legal dispute with another member, or suffer any harm arising out of or connected with any StarArmy.com, you waive all claims against and release StarArmy.com from any and all liability for claims, demands, damages (actual and consequential), costs and expenses (including litigation costs and attorneys' fees) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with StarArmy.com. California residents, you waive your rights under California Civil Code §1542. Residents of other states waive their rights under their own state's corresponding laws. Under no circumstances will StarArmy.com be liable to you for any damages, whether they be exemplary, consequential, indirect, incidental, or special, arising out of in connection to the use of the StarArmy.com website, products, or services (whether or not StarArmy.com has been advised of the possibility of such damages).

Notice of Severability

If any provision of this policy is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be deemed superseded by a valid, enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remaining provisions shall be enforced. StarArmy.com's failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive StarArmy.com's right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. The failure of StarArmy.com to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these terms and conditions shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.


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guide/rules.1322424324.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/12/20 15:53 (external edit)