Moderation Policy (All Users Please Read)

If you can’t behave civilly, if you post in a thread attempting to start an argument, participate in an ongoing argument, or bring an argument from one thread to another, you will be banned. Pushing a point based on substance is okay (in the appropriate place), disagreements on substance are fine and to be expected. If your post is intentionally incendiary, however, or you can’t control your temper during a debate and cannot avoid disparaging those who disagree, you will be banned.

If it’s questionable, you will be warned, and if it’s questionable more than once, those warnings will temporarily mute you, and you risk a ban.

Posting in a way that makes your message difficult to read will result in warnings and eventual silencing or banning if you continue. Examples include tiny text, obnoxious colors and quotes with no additional message. ("+1" or “I agree” does not count as an additional message)

Derailing threads, especially intentionally or with image macros, will get you warnings. Doing so repeatedly or obsessively, especially if on the same topic, will get you banned.

Insults and hostility to other users will not be tolerated. Insults and hostility against segments of the fanbase will not be tolerated.

If you can’t control your behavior, you will be silenced or removed.

If you see violations of this policy, do not get directly involved - report the violation, and move on.

This post has been moved and its title modified to make it more visible and find-able by forum members.

[size=12pt]Rules may be changed as needs arise or situations reveal problems.[/size]

To clarify: We do not have a “three strikes you’re out” rule. Many warnings in a short timespan are more likely to get you banned, it is not always a raw count of transgressions. We have private warnings, we occasionally edit posts with moderation text stating the purpose for their editing, we have silencing, and we have bans.
Ideally, the editing of posts will be for the partial removal of content by banned users, in the instance that mass post deletion would disrupt entire threads.

As of incidents earlier this year and evidently ongoing, it should be noted that sexist, bigoted or other slurs are considered warnable offenses. Repeated ignoring of warnings with the same slurs can and will also result in temporary silencing, up to a ban, depending on the nature of the incident. It should never get past a warning or two, though we understand that old habits sometimes die hard (we’ll know if you’re pushing it). The situation resulting in a forum split is an extreme outlier that we hope won’t happen again.

We just don’t need to perpetuate that here, it alienates people. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is a community project with contributors of all stripes. Don’t swing a dead cat in a room so full.

For now, partial censorship of slurs for fiction should be sufficient. First letter or two and the rest can be appropriate *'s for letter count, just to be nice and neat. While yes, this is censorship, it is not complete removal and still allows users to know what was intended if they take half a moment to look at it. *'s are used so rarely in text that hopefully, users who do not wish to read such language can tune these out easier than skipping over whole words. This is a stand-in rule while mods (and later, users) come to some consensus on how to handle the matter.


Bitch, faggot, retard, dyke, and all them racist terms, chink, nigger, the usual.

To repeat an earlier sentiment: If you have a problem with someone’s behaviour or post content, do not continue the discussion with them if you feel it has crossed a line. Report the post in question using the forum’s report button feature. Moderators cannot be everywhere at once. We can bring up a report list, and you can help us best by using it.

If you have personal concerns that you don’t feel justify a specific post report, you may send me (and likely any moderator) a PM to inquire. I am not always online, but I will reply when I have time.