Forum Rules

[Eich]

General
These first couple are pretty situational, and are not as strict as some of the other rules, but can result in warnings if abused.

• Keep profanity to a PG-13/Teen level.
• Don't create duplicate threads.
• Thread necromancy is fine.
• No pyramid quotes (no quotes within quotes within quotes).
• Don't make duplicate accounts. If we have reason to believe you've made a second account, a mod will ask you about it.
• No spamming. That means no single-word posts or double posting.
• No trolling.

These next few rules will result in warnings or temporary bans on the first offense, but can warrant immediate, permanent bans, depending on how severe the offense is.

• No ethnic slurs of any kind, these are considered hate speech.
• We do not tolerate hate speech of any kind. Hate speech is defined as any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender, or other identity factor. Any posts thought to contain hate speech will be deleted and the poster issued a warning.
• Don't solicit or advertise. That means don't post links to a site you, or anyone affiliated with you through work, makes money off of, or your company's site, without sufficient cause, and don't advertise for your faith or try to convert anyone. This includes selling comic merchandise. We'll allow links to crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter, as well as any smaller, donation-based sites or pages. Art commissions may also be advertised on the relevant thread.
• There is a zero tolerance policy for bullying, including any sort of threats or blackmail.

Discussions

• No political advocacy. We realize it's hard to avoid all mention of political positions one way or the other, and respectful and polite discussion of political issues is fine, but we won't allow campaigning. This covers not only electoral politics, but advocacy as well.
• Political specific discussions and debates can be held in the politics board. You can ignore the political board on your profile under "Ignore Boards Options". If the board becomes problematic or advocative, we (the staff) reserve the right to moderate it or remove it without warning.
• You can discuss religions, beliefs, and traditions (including your own) in a respectful and explanatory way, but please, no advocacy or evangelism.
• Prayer requests and other religious practice, is allowed only in the Mini Chapel. It is open to people of all religious backgrounds. If it becomes problematic or evangelical, we (the staff) reserve the right to moderate it or remove it without warning.
• Please refrain from backseat moderating. Report problematic posts through the site's reporting system.
• If a post or topic makes you uncomfortable, we encourage you to bring your concerns directly (but politely and respectfully) to the poster to facilitate discourse.
• If you've tried that approach and it didn't work, or you don't want to approach the poster directly, please feel free to reach out to any skald, moderator, or admin via PM, or reported post, and we will work to resolve the situation.
• If you have questions/disagreements with something a mod, skald, or admin has asked you to do, and you feel uncomfortable approaching that person, you can involve another moderator or admin in the situation. We also have an anonymous board for transparency requests or forum staff critique.

Art

• Do not post pictures of, or links to, any pornographic material of any kind on the main board. This will result in an immediate ban, no questions asked.
• This board operates under a PG-13/Teen rating. There are minors on this site. As a result, any material containing sexually explicit content or graphic depictions of violence and gore will be deleted and the posters issued a warning.
• Art containing nonsexual nudity or kissing/implied sexual content can be posted on the main board under spoilers with a warning with the ship name and the reason for the spoiler
• Art with violence/gore that is at the level of the comic does not need to be placed under a spoiler
• NSFW (mature and explicit) artwork and fan fiction are allowed on the mature content board, and rules regarding NSFW content can be found on the board itself. Mature content requires a role to access, please see the following section for specifics.

Mature Content
This board is restricted to members who are older than 18 and have more than 10 posts. If you would like to have access, add the role to your profile under modify profile » group membership » 18+
If a moderator or an admin has reason to believe you are lying about your age, your access to the mature board will be revoked permanently.


Warning System

• 1 warning = user is on watch (their actions are monitored by the mods)
• 2 warnings = user has post moderation (moderators have to approve user's posts before they show up on the forum)
• 3 warnings = post ban (user can't post anything)

A punishment lasts 10 days from when the last warning was issued. If a user receives one warning, then another two days later, the punishment lasts 10 days from the 2nd warning. After 10 days the user's privileges return to normal.

Warnings are cumulative. If a user goes back to normal and has had one warning in the past, but breaks the rules again, they would go straight to the second level. If they have had the second level in the past and break the rules they would go straight to the third level. If they come back from a post ban and continue to break the rules, they will be banned from the forum.

We are not responsible for content shared (links) beyond the SSSS board.

[Nimphy]

You forgot 'no swearing or cursing', I think. At least, not above what would generally be considered a PG-13 level of profanity.

[Eich]

You forgot 'no swearing or cursing', I think. At least, not above what would generally be considered a PG-13 level of profanity.

Good idea.  I already put up a censor, but we certainly don't want page long sets of asterisks.  And I kept two milder swear words, because I don't think anyone really gets offended by them much (that ultimatum will almost certainly prove false and bite me in the butt, but whatever).

[SlewedQuasar890]

Awesome set of rules. Simple and to the point, but I don't think their will be much of a problem with this fan base

[Pessi]

No swearing and cursing even in languages the censor doesn't recognise, I guess? We have such a bunch of good strong swear words in Finnish...

[Fimbulvarg]

A no spam rule is probably obvious even if it isn't there, but should probably be added just for clarity. That means things like double posting, single-word posts or tag-posting by multiple users in regular threads in order to inflate their post counter.


I suspect the no-swearing part is going to be hard for Finns and Norwegians for cultural reasons.

[Eich]

No swearing and cursing even in languages the censor doesn't recognise, I guess? We have such a bunch of good strong swear words in Finnish...

I've considered enlisting some help for censoring out some different languages' swears.  I made sure to make the site's character map have all the relevant letters, so multilingual swearing is definitely possible, and would probably slip by me...

A no spam rule is probably obvious even if it isn't there, but should probably be added just for clarity. That means things like double posting, single-word posts or tag-posting by multiple users in regular threads in order to inflate their post counter.


I suspect the no-swearing part is going to be hard for Finns and Norwegians for cultural reasons.

Could've sworn I had a no spam rule... Thanks for the heads up, adding that now.

[Sunflower]

I apologize in advance if this is the wrong thread for this question, but:

What do the colored squares at the left of each post indicate?  They're on the 3rd line, below the poster's name and rank, but above the icon.  (I'd insert a screenshot but, um, I couldn't figure out how to insert a graphic...)

It seems like all Newbies have one yellow square, the one Jr. Member has 2 yellow squares, Eich has 5 red squares, and Noako as Administrator has blue ones.  Are they automatically assigned by rank/role?

I'm just curious.

[noako]

I apologize in advance if this is the wrong thread for this question, but:

What do the colored squares at the left of each post indicate?  They're on the 3rd line, below the poster's name and rank, but above the icon.  (I'd insert a screenshot but, um, I couldn't figure out how to insert a graphic...)

It seems like all Newbies have one yellow square, the one Jr. Member has 2 yellow squares, Eich has 5 red squares, and Noako as Administrator has blue ones.  Are they automatically assigned by rank/role?

I'm just curious.

I guess it's the ranking? Eich is the big boss here, I'm the "second in command" (oh man lol).. I'd guess yellow is the normal user, only with the difference that the more you post, the more blocks you get. And moderators and admin get automatically all the blocks.
So it's red > blue > yellow.

[Eich]

Pretty much.  Regular users can rank up with high post counts, so the more posts you have, the more yellow squares you get.  Mine and Noako's are red and blue so they stand out more.

[Sunflower]

Thanks for the explanation!

BTW, I notice you and Nimphy now have the title "Safe-Zone Citizen."  So do those SSSS-specific titles that we discussed exhaustively apply now?  Can we start aspiring to be "Ruler of a Deserted Airport" and so forth??

[Eich]

Yep.  Just set those in place.  Kept Newbie because it still applies really well, then Citizen, Scout, Ranger, and Ruler of a Derelict Airport.  I wanted the ranks to ascend in order of danger in the world of the comic, so I'm thinking maybe a wandering ranger on his/her own would have a more dangerous time than someone with an airport for defense...  Decisions, decisions.  Also considering adding a "Veteran" rank at a high post count.

[Sunflower]

Yep.  Just set those in place.  Kept Newbie because it still applies really well, then Citizen, Scout, Ranger, and Ruler of a Derelict Airport.  I wanted the ranks to ascend in order of danger in the world of the comic, so I'm thinking maybe a wandering ranger on his/her own would have a more dangerous time than someone with an airport for defense...  Decisions, decisions.  Also considering adding a "Veteran" rank at a high post count.

Nifty!  Well, I doubt I'll ever reach the status of "Ruler of a Derelict Airport."  (Or by then, all the good ones will have been claimed, and I'll have to settle for somewhere like Sacramento.)  But like St. Paul, I can look forward to proudly being "a citizen of no mean city." 

[JoB]

But like St. Paul, I can look forward to proudly being "a citizen of no mean city."

Which, to keep the post-apoc SSSS vibe, will probably have changed to "no man city".

[Sunflower]

Do we have protocol on moving good stuff from the comic's daily discussion pages to here in the forum, if we weren't the authors?

It seems to go without saying that all fan poetry gets safely archived in the Poetry folder by its energetic curators.  (At some point, we may want an index or sub-folders to find poems by page, topic, or author; there are so many and a lot are so good.)  What about other things?

I've been moving factual discussions that looked preservation-worthy into relevant threads, e.g. "Survivor communities" or "Rash monsters."  I've always credited the original author in my forum post, e.g. "Trollsbane commented..." but I haven't linked to the author's Disqus ID or forum profile.  Sometimes I remember to ask (or at least notify) the author on the Disqus page first.... aaaand sometimes I don't.  (So far, nobody's objected.)

Should I wait for a poster's OK before I move his/her posting over here? 
Is it enough to credit the original poster's name, or should I try to link to the actual ID/profile?
Are there any other potential pitfalls to be aware of?  For example, might the original author get offended that his/her content "counts" towards my forum post numbers?  (As if I cared that I'm only 19 18 posts away from the title of "Safe-Zone Citizen"...)