We have some EXTREMELY exciting changes to announce that affect our rules and ban ladder. We have recently gone through the rules for both the forum and chat and condensed them to be more lenient and easier to follow. Along with this, we have given our ban ladder a facelift so that it is also more lenient!
These changes have been brought about because we understand the frustrations that our old system caused our users (and, believe it or not, us). Most felt that our rules and ban ladder were too strict and only out to punish users, not help them to understand why we do things the way we do. We do not want to mark infractions against accounts for things that are simple and can be resolved easily. That being said, I'd like to present you a general rundown of what has changed.
Changes to the Rules:
Forum Rules
Chat Rules
The changes made to both the chat and forum rules are consistent with one another, so anything stated below applies to both of them.
- We have taken a step back and become more lenient; users are to rely more on conflict resolution and the ignore feature.
- Rules have been slimmed down so that they are easier to read.
- Cursing is now allowed unless it is being directed at another user (see Harassment).
- Spam for the chat now only consists of sending multiple lines of text rapidly. We removed flooding, lyrics, and movement. Flooding and movement are taken care of by the system, and lyrics can easily be ignored.
- Death and self harm threats have been added together, and rape threats are now stated in the rules.
- Some scenarios have been removed from the Disturbing the Peace rule, and trolling and impersonation have been added to it.
- You are now allowed to talk about bans and warnings publicly so long as it does not contain fictional information or slander/bash an Administrator or someone who is otherwise involved in the incident.
- You may now use multiple accounts in a single room so long as the room is not more than halfway full and another user does not have a problem with it. The moment it becomes a problem it is against the rules.
- You are now allowed to ask the Art Review Team to process poses. However, if this becomes pushy, it can be treated as harassment, so please be respectful when requesting this.
- Role-playing is allowed in public non-RP rooms as long as it has a low population and you are not disturbing others in the room. If the room has a high population or you are disturbing others, it is against the rules.
- There have been other slight changes, and the formatting has also been slightly changed.
Forum Ban Ladder
Chat Ban Ladder
Like the rules, the ban ladder has had improvements to make it more helpful and lenient.
Our old ban ladder, as you may know, was as follows with a 6 month refresh rate/probationary period:
And here is our brand new, totally fashionable ladder:1st warning -> 2nd warning (NG) -> NG -> 12 hr ban -> 3 day ban -> 1 week ban -> 2 week ban -> 1 month ban -> permanent ban
The first thing you may notice is that we have reminders now. Great! Reminders are fantabulous! Instead of getting a warning your first infraction, you will now receive one of these fancies. However, any offense that would result in a ban does not get a reminder and instead skips to the specified ban length. Reminders are just the new "1st warning".Reminder -> 1st warning -> 2nd warning -> NG -> 12 hr ban (chat) 24 hr ban (forum) -> 3 day ban -> 1 week ban -> 2 week ban -> 1 month ban
The second thing (and most exciting, may I add) you may notice is that there's an absence of permanent bans in our ban ladder now. That's right, you no longer accrue small offenses for them to just build up to a permanent ban. Instead, the ban ladder caps out at 1 month. The only way you earn permanent bans now is if you break a rule that automatically dictates you receive one.
To fit our new ban ladder more betterer, we have the following refresh rates/probationary periods now in effect:
Please see the links above under "Changes to the Ban Ladder/Probationary Period" for more information on the new refresh periods and how they work.Reminders, 1st, 2nd, and NGs were 2 month refresh
12 hours, 3 days, 1 week were a 4 month refresh
2 weeks, 1 month, perm were a 6 month refresh
In order to help balance the abolition of the permanent ban on the ban ladder, we have made it to where your probationary period does not progress if you are banned again. It would simply go on "vacation mode" while you are banned until you are released.
For example: User A earns their 1 month ban. They come back, are two months into their probationary period, and commit another infraction and get banned again. Their probationary period is 2/6 months completed and will not progress to a third month while they are banned. Therefore, when they come back from being banned for the second time, their ban ladder will still be at 2/6 months, even though in reality 3 months have passed.
We hope that these changes help you, and we are excited to see the results of them!
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
*** Btw, if you see anything missing/broken/weird about this, please PM me! I had to update a ton of stuff so I might have gotten scatterbrain somewhere.
Thank you!
- The Wolfhome Administration