Rules

Site Rules

• Don't be a jerk.
• No insults.
• No personal attacks.
• No name-calling.
• No flaming.
• No trolling.
• Be mutally respectful.
• No malicious passive-aggressive remarks.
• No malicious snide or snarky remarks.
• No slurs.
• No discrimination/hate speech.
This includes, but isn't limited to the following:
• No racism.
• No sexism.
• No religionism.
• Stay legal. Do not advocate piracy or sharing illegal material.
• This includes sharing Malicious items on our downloads section.
• No bad content. This includes, but isn't limited to the following:
• No pornography/lewd content (this includes cropped images).
• Marking something as 'NSFW' does not make it okay.
• No needlessly disturbing or gross content.
• No harmful links.
• Use English. We are primarily based in regions of the world that speak English.

Etiquette and courtesy

1. Be helpful. Not everybody knows as much as you might. Point people to information they might need where necessary. Use constructive criticism the best you can.
• If you don't have anything positive or constructive to say, and you are unable to state your opinion without being rude, then don't post.
• If someone else is posting a rude comment, don't jump on the bandwagon thinking it's okay to start behaving the same way yourself, because it isn't okay.
2. Behave yourself. Don't be annoying or ignorant! Listen to what people are saying, and keep discussions on a sane level.
3. Make sure your posts have a reason and brings some value to the forum. If you can not maintain a acceptable average quality level in your posting you will get warned and eventually banned if no improvement is made.Try to use correct capitalization and punctuation in your thread titles. In your posts, try to use correct spelling and grammar. Just do your best and everything will be fine. This is a forum and not a instant message chat, keep abbreviations and special Internet lingo to a minimum.
4. We do have an open policy on profanity. We do take things on a per post basis. It isn't discouraged, but please don't over do it. Mind your language, slang and derogatory terms can easily offend people if not used carefully, even if they're not directed at any person.
5. Spamming is not allowed.
6. Always try to "give" back to our community. This community is built on sharing knowledge and ideas. For each time you find help or answers here at TF2maps.net, try to help someone else out in return. You may find that what goes around comes around.
7. Be informed. Before starting a thread on something, run a search and see if it's been covered previously, either on the site or the forums.
8. Think about where you're posting. Try your best to post in the appropriate forum when creating a new thread.The "Off topic" forum is not a catch-all for everything that doesn't fit in the other forums. Do not create junk or low content threads! Don't post the same topic in multiple forums. If you are unsure of which forum a thread should go under, just state that in your post, and a moderator will move the thread to the correct forum. Multiple posts are unnecessary and will be deleted. Don't post the same question multiple times in multiple threads in the same forum. If no one responds to your question or request, just post a reply to the same message thread again to bring the message to the top of the list so folks notice it.
9. Respect others work. Do not: decompile/change/release another mappers work without explicit permission. This hurts the community as a whole as well as the mappers who spent months into their creations.
10. Don't circumvent a ban. If you've been banned, do not create a alternative account. If you do, the alternative account will be perma-banned without warning. If your original ban is not permanent it will be extended as a result of attempting to circumventing the ban.
11. Respect the website. Do not discuss any kind of advertising blocking. TF2Maps.net is provided to you free of charge. If you don't want see our advertisement banners, support the site through a donation. If you have any queries or see something that shouldn't be on the forum - please contact a Moderator. Purple or Pink, doesn't matter.

Reporting.

If you see something that you believe is breaking the rules, feel free to report the post by pressing the report button. It is located in the lower left corner of each post. The staff team does its best to moderate the forums and read all the posts, however, looking through everything manually can take a long time and things will get skimmed over. Help us out by reporting posts that you believe need our attention.

The Consequences

• Infractions
• Violation of any of these rules will get you an infraction along with a message stating a reason for the punishment. If you have too many active infractions at once you will receive a automatic temporary ban/suspension from the forum.
• We will contact you if your behavior is unacceptable and we hope you will post in a more thoughtful manner. Continued abuse of the rules will result in a ban at our discretion.
• Warnings
• For minor offenses, Warnings will be handed out. These warnings do not carry with them any risk of resulting a automated ban. The purpose of the warning system is a way for staff to easily alert members when we think the posts/threads they''re making are detrimental the overall forum atmosphere. While not explicitly breaking any rules.
• Receiving a warning is not a big deal, think of it as someone telling you to shape up and behave at a social gathering. All we ask is that you try to understand what caused the warning and try to not make it happen again for the same reason.
• Moderating
• We reserve the right to move, close or edit any thread or post for any reason. We endeavor to moderate our forums in the same responsible manner we ask you to post on them. Please listen to the Moderating Team.
• Appealing a punishment
• Appeals should be done via this form. Staff will review it and reach out with an answer. https://tf2maps.net/link-forums/punishment-appeals.116/

Discord Rules

https://discord.gg/tf2maps

1. Be nice. We're all here to have a decent time. Be respectful of yourself and others.
2. Listen to staff and no backseat moderating or hindering moderation. Avoid posting anything while an admin is moderating unless you are asked to. No jokes, no memes, no gifs, no comments. If you have clarifying information, DM an admin or ModMail.
3. Don't be a bad example/bad influence on the community. New users shouldn't be confused about what behavior is okay. Every member needs to understand and follow the rules. Taking the rules lightly or persistently making light of rule breaking behavior erodes the order of the community. There's no magic shortcut to avoid responsibility.
4. No vigilantism. Do not be any sort of inquisitor. Do not attempt to enforce any written or unwritten rules. Ping/DM an admin or DM ModMail - it's the admin team's job and problem to deal with, not yours.
5. No discrimination, hate speech, or bigotry. Even if it is just implied.
6. Keep things related to the discussion/posts in the channel you're in. Avoid posting things unrelated to the channel's intended content; it can flood out other users who want to use the channel.
7. No dogpiling. Don't gang up on any user(s) or crush them down with a shield-wall of opinions. These things lead to elitism and cliquiness.
8. Don't be confrontational and don't escalate. If you dislike how someone is behaving, block them and DM an admin / ModMail about your concerns. Let the admin team deal with the user(s) breaking rules. Do not create conflict or drama. Humans are allowed to disagree on things and that is a normal part of life. We are here to have fun, help each other, and be creative!
9. No toxic, deconstructive, or entitled feedback. Feedback must be respectful and constructive, never insulting, never demanding. Every creator puts both effort and hope into their creations. Tearing down anybody's work is inexcusable, especially in a creative community. If the creator rejects any feedback for any reason at all, that is their decision and/or problem, not yours.
10. Don't be creepy. This community can be joined by anyone 13 years or older. Nobody wants to see you flirting, being lewd, or being disturbing, even as a joke. Intimate or personal jokes should be tame and never between strangers. Don't pry into people's personal lives and don't obsess over people.
11. No edgy, disturbing, belittling, or repulsive content. This includes but is not limited to: Traumatic past/current events, suicide, threat of killing or harming someone or something, gore-like material, punching-down attitudes, graphic nasty descriptions or images, and any other edgy humor of serious situations and issues. Something being a common meme or acceptable outside of TF2M does not exclude it from this rule (or any other).
12. No NSFW or lewd content. We understand people may have serious and reserved discussions about rather personal and important matters. We ask that if it gets graphic, it be taken to DMs / other spaces.
    (Note: This server can be joined by anyone 13 years or older. Thus, a general guideline would be "would I be okay directing this at a 13 year old?" Because you would be. Not everyone is interested in seeing or hearing such content so please keep it to yourself. 3D Modeling and posting anatomy resources is generally allowed as long as the main focus isn't sexual. As for TF2 gore, it's generally okay.)
13. No spam and no trade ads.
14. Don't intentionally be obnoxious or annoying. This includes but is not limited to: Intentionally being obnoxious to get a reaction, pretending to be a troll, trolling, dancing around the rules, pushing buttons, cutting people off when trying to talk, making decisions to troll or antagonize, and any other form of bothering someone who is clearly expressing that they're being bothered. This also includes, at the broader community level, posting almost exclusively to entertain only yourself; such as, but not limited to, vastly only ever posting things like cryptic memes / random responses to things. (Note: People will express or tell you that whatever you're doing is bothering them so please respect that and leave them alone and don't intentionally bother them).
15. Avoid heated/out of control arguments. This includes but is not limited to: Continuous arguing with one or more users in text or voice channels. (Note: We understand if people want to have a serious discussion or civil argument at times, but we ask to please keep it at a reasonably sane level).
16. Don't expose your own or others' privacy. (Note: If you are going through a tough time, please make attempts to contact and handle it with a professional since we're not licensed therapists. We understand wanting to vent things out and that's alright, but please don't make it publicly known to users who have no idea what's going on or who you are and consider speaking to a friend, family member, or with a mental health counselor privately for help. Suicide Prevention & Mental Health Resources: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/)
17. Don't share or advocate sharing illegal material. This includes the new markdown features in discord.

• Reporting
• If you see something that you believe is breaking the rules, the best way to deal with the situation is to save the relevant chat logs and get in contact with one of the staff members. Using the ModMail bot is the quickest and easiest way to contact staff for discord issues. You can also start a conversation on the site if needed. We will review your complaint and take action if needed.
• The Consequences
• Breaking a rule results in a warning. Breaking a rule within 1 month of receiving a warning results in a temporary mute/ban (duration depending on the incident + history of incidents & warnings). In general, punishments escalate with repeat offenses.
• Pervasive bad behavior that escapes this system will be subject to administrator judgment (we will not allow a user to nearly break our rules, or otherwise subtly detriment our community, for long). Ban evasion will result in a permanent ban.
• Violations revealed after the fact will be punished corresponding to the amount of evidence/logging, egregiousness, and delay.
• As members of the community, you are expected to understand and obey the rules. TF2Maps should not be treated as a private friends-only server; doing so is unfair to users both new and old.
• Moderators reserve the right to act on these rules as they see fit. If a rule seems unclear or a situation is particularly unusual, an admin will use their best judgment, and they have the final say.
• Permanent bans are carried over TF2M's entire platform (Discord, forums, game servers, etc).
• Moderating
• We still reserve the right to kick or ban any user for any reason given the situation.
• Some of the rules are less likely to directly lead to a ban, some offenses will require multiple strikes before any more serious punishment is considered. All warnings/incidents are tracked. Enough minor offenses can easily culminate into a temporary ban, even if no particular incident caused it directly.
• Warnings will be handed out by Gold Stars and Bans will be handed out by Staff or Moderators if needed.