Forum rules
Welcome to TF2Maps.net forums! As you may be aware, this is one of the biggest and busiest forums in the enthusiast community for Team Fortress mapping. Each member brings their own knowledge and enthusiasm to the site and every new member is considered a valuable addition.
Because the TF2Maps.net community is so large and diverse, it is important that some basic rules of conduct and guidelines are agreed on, so that everyone can join in equally and enjoy their stay. These rules and guidelines are based on mutual respect and consideration. They are designed to be similar to the house rules of any establishment where people might meet to enjoy sharing interests, views, experiences, knowledge and opinions.
With this in mind:
General rules
- Don't be a jerk.
- No insults.
- No personal attacks.
- No name-calling.
- No flaming.
- No trolling.
- Be mutually respectful.
- No malicious passively-aggressive remarks.
- No malicious snide or snarky remarks.
- No discrimination/hate speech.
- This includes, but isn't limited to the following:
- No racism.
- No sexism.
- No linguicism.
- No religionism.
- This includes, but isn't limited to the following:
- Stay legal. Do not advocate piracy or sharing of warez/illegal material.
- No bad content. This includes, but isn't limited to the following:
- No pornography.
- Marking something as 'NSFW' does not make it okay.
- No needlessly disturbing or gross content. No harmful links.
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
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 a 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 ban
Ban appeals are encouraged to be done through avenues available to you that do not require making alt accounts. Messaging an admin (purple or pink name) through Steam or Discord is currently the preferred method.
========================
Discord rules
Please see the discord for more information. https://discord.gg/tf2maps
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
Verbal warning
- If you've broken a rule but the discussion has moved on due to various reasons. The staff will still give you a verbal warning if you're found guilty of violating the rule, no matter how much time has elapsed since it happened.
- Verbal warnings can also be issued using our moderation bot Carl.
- Any violation of the rules after verbal warnings will get you kicked. This is a very mild punishment and should be taken as a more serious warning. All we ask is that you try to understand what caused you to get kicked, and try to avoid the situation in the future.
- Any violation of the rules after a kick or depending on the severity of the situation will result in a temporary mute on the discord.
- A user who has previously been warned, kicked, or muted runs the risk of receiving a temporary ban as their punishment for continued bad behavior.
- The temporary ban duration will double for every time it is administered to that particular user, starting at 1 day (24 hours). This is also dependent on the situation.
- Receiving a temporary ban in the discord will not restrict your access to the forums or server.
- A user who has been temporarily banned multiple times runs the risk of being permanently banned.
- Receiving a permanent ban in the discord will also deny your access to the server and your forum account will get banned as well.
- 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.
- TF2Maps.net Staff
Last edited by a moderator:
