General Rules and Guidelines

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Welcome to Where Worlds Collide!

If you're new to how forums work, please visit Where Worlds Collide: Forum Basics 101
If you are familiar with how forums work, then please go ahead and familiarize yourself with the rules below.

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Index

Forum Etiquette: expected behavior for our forums
Image Restrictions: what images are not allowed
Posting Restrictions: restrictions on posting
Services Not Allowed:
Theft:
Copying: Differences between copying and theft and the rights involved
Alternative Accounts:
Deleting Your Accounts:

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Updates:

• In general, we expect every member to be civil and respect one another

We understand that not everyone is goning to get alone; we do have a very diverse community so there are personalities that are gong to clash. That means treating and communicating members/staff in a appropriate manner free of sarcasm and general rudeness.

• TROLLING is NOT allowed.

Trolling, through a term often misused, descirbes a person who...

Wikipedia wrote:

Sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

Trolling, for us, refers to anyone who is simply trying to elicit a negative reaction from other users. This includes excessive spam threads and creating an alternative account to "troll". Such accounts will be deleted, while the main account will be given a warning of potential banning. The severity of the warning depends on the extent of the trolling.

• Sending other users death threats is NOT allowed.

Death threats are basically telling someone directing that they should die. Such threats can include...

- Threatening to kill someone
- Telling someone to kill themselves
- Telling someone they deserve to die

If we get proof of you sending someone a death threat on our forums, serious action will be taken against you. This could include a permanent ban from our forums.

• Harassment is NOT allowed.

"Harassment" could include the following...

- Consistently posting inappropriate, rude, or threatening comments in someone's thread or via private message
- Creating an alternative account in order to contact a person who has explicitly asked for you to leave them alone
- Threatening to commit either physical or emotional abuse to another person
- Emotionally abusing someone
- Posting someone's name in a negative light
- Criticizing someone's work when there is no ground for you to do so. If you dislike someone's work then that's fine, but don't pointedly be cruel by flaming their work.

The punishment of harassment will vary from case to case.

• Harmful language is NOT allowed

This includes:

- Slurs against others based on their religion/orientation/race/ect.
- Malicious swearing

Using such language will be dealt with appropriately depending on the context.

• NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content is not permitted to be posted on the forums
  

Our forums need to be suitable for all audiences, since we may have users as young as 13. Therefor, NSFW content may not be posted anywhere on the forum, including inside spoilers. The following is defined as NSFW:

- Nudity, pornography, bondage, and other sexually-themed content
- Sexual explicit language, gestures or expressions
- Excessive gore or severe mutilation of the human body (a little blood is allowed, but dismembered body parts is not allowed)

However, nude pictures are allowed to be sold/traded/requested, but the previews of the images must be appropriately censored when posting them. Users do not need to be 18+ years of age in order to sell or post appropriately-censored nude artwork on the forum, but they will accept responsibility should actions be taken against them in the event that their image(s) violate our guidelines.

• Images posted must be PSE friendly
  

Usuers must not post anything that may trigger a Photo Sensitive Epilepsy (PSE) episode for those who suffer from such symptoms. Images that trigger PSE include, but is not limited to, flashing lights and especially so with contrasting visual paterns. Please visit [Only admins are allowed to see this link] for more information. If you suffer from PSE and find an image bothersome, please PM an Admin or Moderator.

• You CANNOT use a display picture/artwork that does NOT belong to you
  

Unless you have EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION from the artist, you man not use artwork that is created for someone else.

However, you can use images such as anime screenshots or GIFs from Tumblr bur you must provide credit to the creator. These images cannot be resold.

• You may only bump a thread every 10 hours
  

This rule is in place to give everyone a chance to have their thread on the front page. If you post bumps more frequently than this, it is considered as spam and will be dealt with as spam.

• Spamming is NOT allowed
  

Spam constitutes as...

- Posting stupid/irrelevant replies in topics
- Replying to a topic 3 times in a row (i.e. there are no users posting between your posts[this excludes bumping])
- Posting potentially harmful links to scam websites
- Having an excessive amount of off-topic chatter in places where it is no appropriate

We do not want to hinder anyone from making friends and being able to have off-topic banter, but having pages of single emoticon conversation is not okay.

• No AUTOPLAY music/video players allowed
  

You may have a link to a Youtube video, but it must NOT automatically play. First time doing so will earn a friendly reminder, a second time will earn a warning.

• What you may advertise
  

You may advertise to off things (i.e. to personal your sites) BUT make sure you advertise is in places where it's considered appropriate
Such places include...

- Your profile
- Your signature
- Tumblr, DeviantART, Facebook, etc.

• Content which may not be posted at all on the forums or sent via PM
  

Such things include:

- Racism
- Sexism
- Pornography
- Animal Abuse
- Drug usage (excluding the term cigarettes)

Posting any of the following will get you permanently banned from our forums.

You are allowed to provide your services to others such as; selling your artwork, cosplay costumes and/or accessories, crafts, and any other fan related merchandise.
The following are not allowed to be sold/traded on our forums...

• Selling of work that is not your own

This includes:

- Characters created through bases you did not design
- Pictures that are slightly "modified" or "edited" that you then claim as your own
- Stolen art/work in general

Getting caught doing so will result in thread selling said work being locked, and the user banned.

• Creations made through "Doll Makers" or similar creation tools/machines

If you create a character using any type of doll maker, you CANNOT sell that design for profit.
You do not have the rights to those designs (you are using a premade doll maker tool) therefore you cannot sell any art made from them as an adoptable. They can be offered as premade with credit given to the makers.

The makers themselves, cannot be sold at all (as premades/adoptables/customs)

• Selling avatars from other sites

This includes IMVU, Second Life, Meez or other types of avatar based sites. Again, these are not your designs that you can sell for profit.

You may only display and sell/trade work that does NOT violate what we have defined as theft.

• If you believe that someone is selling stolen work- do not hesitate to contact a moderator

We don't know how such is handled on other forums and sites, we will take action and lock the threads in question immediately when we are provided sufficient reasons to do so.

• If you suspect someone of stealing, we would rather you not post the matter publicly

We believe in second chances. Sometimes people do just make honest mistakes and they do not deserve to be attacked by others.

Please let us handle the matter.

• While we can punish those that have proven to have sold stolen work on our forums, we cannot not be held accountable for the reimbursing of credits/money that you spent on the art.

We're really sorry that and wish we could return the money that you were tricked into spending on the stolen work, unfortunately we cannot force the person to return it back.

• Depending on how often this may occur, we may be forced to lock threads on occasion to ask for proof before allowing the continuation of displaying and/or selling/trading on our forums.

This will be a measure we may use for everyone's safety. This is NOT something we ever want to actually preform, however if there is reason to suspect theft, we will not hesitate to ask for sufficient proof before they are allowed to continue.

• We cannot do anything about offsite theft

If someone has stolen your work, or know of someone stealing others work, there is nothing we can actually do to help.
Instead, here are some actions we suggest you take should you come across such a situation:

- Contact the original artist/author/creator and let them know
- Try reporting it to those that run the website where the theft is taking place

This also goes to those selling/trading/displaying stolen work on and off these forums.

Copying other artists artwork or authors work is a serious offense. However, below is a list of content an artist or writer cannot own.
This list will be updated as we feel fit and is not strictly limited to the following items:

• Themes

What we mean by themes is vintage, pastel, emo, sci-fi, etc.
No artist or writer can claim they own a theme. You cannot report a user due to them using the same theme you have. If a picture has a retro theme and another user comes up with a different picture but the same theme, it isn't copying. If you write a story around a sci-fi theme and another user has a different story with a sci-fi theme, this isn't copying.

• Order of Posts

What we mean: introduction, examples, prices, requests, etc.
You do not own the order of your posts. We will not issue a warning for a user 'copying' your threads because they are using the same order of posts.

• Thread Titles

Stealing somebody's coding for their thread (using the same logo/banner/images) is theft and will be dealt with. However, if someone has a thread titled "Sunshine" and someone else comes along and titles their thread "Sunshine", know that this is not stealing.

• Elements

These are the elements used to build up your picture. Color, fonts if used, object placement.
Meaning, you cannot claim as your own if:

- The characters eyes are looking up. You were not the first to do so, nor will you be the last.
- Colors. You cannot claim a specific color or any color belongs to you alone.
- Roses framing the bottom of the picture. Unless those roses are copied into another picture, you cannot claim them as your own.

• Basic Concepts

Basic concepts are the first ideas for an art piece or story that you may have either doodled or written down. A basic pose, theme or color palette for art pieces and basic plot for written pieces(i.e. the character discovers their family hold a dark secret). These are not exactly something you can claim as your own. After you've built on these basic concepts into something fully detailed, and another user copies them, that is considered theft.

• Work Created from a Tutorial

Although it's best to use tutorials to learn, some allow you to sell what you make with them... such as the popular tutorial on deviantART. We cannot issue warning for users selling this(as it is permitted), nor can we issue warnings for other users making the same rose. It is a public tutorial.

• Parts of an OC

An OC is an original creation. Although you cannot make your OC identical to another OC, you cannot claim they copied on simple things such as the same hair color, skin color, same age, same race, etc.
- If you create an OC using a "doll maker" or any other creation tool, you cannot report a user for using the same tool as you.

• Names, Titles, Places

You cannot claim ownership over a title of a story, the name of a character, or the name of places, etc, unless you've written them in a language you've created. Alice, Peter, Harry, Bruce are all names used in the real world as well as in written works. New York, Berlin, China, Europe are all real places and are more than likely to be read in many written works. Using the same names for people or places is not cause for a report, again unless they are completely original and you can prove it.

• Username Copying

For example: Infect vs Inject, Moon1 vs Moon, etc.
We cannot issue a warning for a user having a similar name to you. We can only issue a warning if they are impersonating you or another user.

Alternative accounts will not be permitted on Where Worlds Collide.
This is set up to keep other from abusing the rules or using a secondary account to harass other members and staff. We will determine alternative accounts with IP addresses.

There are exceptions to this rule. Those are:

- Members that share the same computer.
- Members that signed up while at school, a library or any public open internet provider. (such open public internet providers may cause computers to share the same IP address)

Those in such a situation, please contact any staff member and let them know that the accounts belong to different people.

You may need to provide proof of being to separate people.

If you are asked; providing a photo of the two of you holding signs with your avatar names will be more than enough.

You are NOT allowed to create an alternative account, use an alternate account or sign in with a friends account while you are banned from the forums.
If you create other accounts while your main account is suspended or banned from the forum, this will not only result in the deletion of your newly created alternative account, but you main account will be permanently banned from posting on our forums. This is because you are essentially trying to undermine what you were/are being punished for.

If you wish to delete your account for any reason, please send a forum PM or PM to one of our administrators.
As admins, we are obligated to delete your account if you wish.

Any of the administrators have it within their right to delete your account if you have broken any of our major rules. They also have it within their right to deny you access to your account, also known as a timed probation or banning, for up to one year depending on the severity of your rule breaking.

There are several methods of banning.

- Banning a username: This will ban the username only.
- Banning a user's IP address: This will enable a user from creating a new account with their internet provider.
- Banning a user's global ID: All account linked to the global ID will no longer be able to access the forums.

Again, this all varies on those involved and the severity of the rules broken.