OLD. BEARBONES OFFICIAL SITE RULES!

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SITE RULES HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN, THEY CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Hey everyone! Welcome to Bearbones, a multi-genre RPG site! Here, our goal is simply to provide members with a home and a safe place they can build a community within!

To ensure the site does stay a safe place, we do have a few rules here we require every member to follow!

OOC Rules
— Unless given permission by the roleplayer(s) you are writing with, godmodding/powerplaying is not permitted. This basically means that your character can not be unrealistically or unfairly powerful.

— Rudeness is not tolerated here. Rudeness includes causing drama or bad-mouthing with members on this site and/or members on other rp sites. Bashing, degrading, or in any way proving to be rude towards another member is a rule break we take seriously. If you feel you're being treated wrongly, be sure to report PMs or posts in which you are. Slurs—even if not meant offensively or being reclaimed—are not allowed because of the age rating on the site, and the fact that we cannot decide what is the line between offensive and inoffensive. As such, we have a list of slurs in our censored list.

Bearbones is not a place to come to start drama or to engage in feuds. We know a lot of our members may be hurt by bans, or any number of circumstances, but Bearbones is not the kind of site to spread drama. Venting about stress is not the same as talking trash about another site, or its members.

— At this point in time, we only add words to the censor considered slurs. Swearing is allowed. There are some words that are technically slurs that are allowed due to normalization and being more universally okay to say, for example 'queer', 'ho', 'bitch'. Note that using these offensively OOCly isn't okay, however--our rules on rudeness still stand so using anything offensively or derogatorily OOC isn't okay. Secondly, using these derogatorily IC is something you should take care to warn for, and please don't if the rper you're with doesn't like it.

Now, as to rules on what happens if you use a censored word—well, it'll show up as asterisks. You won't get warned. If we see you use periods or some other way of making a word that's censored show up, we will pm you a reminder not to do that. Since some people do that already, and it's not necessarily intentionally to get around the censor, that isn't a warning. However if after a pm you continue to do so, we will warn you.

Feel free to ask for a staffer to pm you the censor list so you know what's on it!

— Advertising: We have advertisement boards specifically for advertising roleplay forums, so that we can as well advertise our forum on theirs. You are permitted to advertise in your signature, but again--all adverts MUST be PG-13. If you are asking for help on a project that is permitted in other boards. However, adverts in irrelevant boards or to inappropriate sites will be promptly removed and you will be warned.

— Basic spamming rules apply: excessive and purposeless posting won't be tolerated. Of course you can double or triple post if needed, but spamming for the sole purpose of simply spamming won't be allowed. (this includes making threads solely to spam post for coins.)

— You are allowed to trade or sell your art on this site. You may use our system of virtual currency, or any other site's, including paypal. However, bear in mind that we have no way of moderating if you do this. We can't take your word for it that someone never paid you in chickensmoothie or flight rising (etc) currency, and warn them for theft. If you use another currency, it is at your own risk. Please do your best to trade securely!

— Staff information is kept PRIVATE. Staffers who leak information about pending decisions or private discussions will be demoted from staff, a second offense is a cooldown ban, so on and so forth. Members who spread leaked information will not be banned but they will be told to stop, and if it goes on they will receive a warning, and may eventually lead that to a ban as well.

— Mixing of OOC and IC opinions is a tricky subject, but if you're using IC actions to bully a roleplayer out of playing somewhere, or in any way harassing a member, you will be warned. This is a case-by-case sort of rule.

— Due to our host's needs, members are not allowed to oocly promote illegal drugs, or mention that they take said drugs according to Indiana's drug laws. Ic stuff is not affected by this, and as always, you are allowed to mention that you take medication! Drug jokes are also acceptable, so long as they are just jokes.

— Content/trigger warnings are required for any post pertaining to certain subjects (such as abuse of any kind, drug or alcohol use, gore or blood, murder or general death, torture, suicide or suicidal thoughts, self harm/mutilation, disordered eating, mentions of rape or sexual assault [our rules on this remain the same], homophobia/transphobia/sexism/racism/ablism, and rants about politics or religion). They should be bolded at the top of the post, giving a clear warning but not too much or too little detail.

— Mini-modding is not allowed. Mini-modding is handling rule-breaks or issues by yourself without contacting staff, and basically acting as staff in a situation that staff should handle. If there’s an issue, please, report it to staff.

— The staff team has a right to add or edit rules as seen fit, but we'll be sure to announce any new/edited rules to let you all know!

Thank you for following these rules! If you have any questions, simply PM Eskie! I'll be happy to answer them.

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[align=center][div style="width:500px; text-align:justify; font-size:10pt;"]SITE RULES HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN, THEY CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Overarching IC Rules
— Any plagiarism will not be tolerated. Please report any plagiarism you see! If it's directly from on-site, we can definitely help. If the original source is off site we can help so long as the plagiarist is plagiarizing on OUR site, and you can provide the original source to us so we can verify.

— Realism rules are detailed specifically in each moderated board's guide. This board holds all of them for you to check. We are trying to add rules as questions get answered. Some will not be clear, this is because of how new we are as a site.

— In TNW (The New World), leader inactivity will result in a PM warning after four days of no ic posts (meetings do not count), and then a demotion if an issue continues such as the group suffering from a leader's inactivity and/or the leader has been inactive for another week. Leaders will not be allowed to continue to post inactivity notices and only post meetings without receiving a warning/demotion, as leaders should be a part of the community. If a leader’s roleplayer is aware there will be 4+ days of inactivity, a temporary leader should be announced; failure to do so will result in staff doing this instead and a warning. If a leader does step down/is demoted and there is no second in command, characters in the group will take a vote and staff will monitor this to ensure it is fair. If there happens to be no members, a staff member will step up as temporarily leader and hold tryouts to promote a promising member.

— This site is PG-13. Mature content is allowed, but sexual content is not permitted. Be mature, but also be responsible with what material you post here! (This extends to what sites are advertised as well.)

Rules on Sexual Content
— Sexually explicit images are completely forbidden on-site.
— In IMAGES, shirtless men are fine, shirtless women must be covering nipples simply due to the United States nudity laws.
— In ROLEPLAY, nudity must be non-sexual and it cannot be very explicitly described. IE, you can write a nude woman OR man, but it can't be in a sexual context and description of private parts should not be made.
— Writing smut of any kind is forbidden. Fade in/out MUST be used.
— Rapist characters are forbidden. This includes any acts of non-consent, such as drugging a character to have sex, having sex with a minor as an adult, etc.
— The bare mininum age of any sexual activity in rps—abusive or not—is 16. This rule is to ensure the site's PG-13 rating, and to help abide several laws. This does not endorse rping actual sexual activity, however. If it's a must, please use the fade in/fade out method.
— Consent must be given by both characters.
— Characters can have been abused sexually in their past, however it cannot be written about in the present, or as a flashback. You may write about it in a bio, and a character may refer to their past abuse, but for example, you could not write a oneshot or detailed scene of said abuse.
— Content warnings for rape mentions must be used.

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[align=center][div style="width:500px; text-align:justify; font-size:10pt;"]SITE RULES HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN, THEY CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Voting Procedures (as of 8/26/2018)
— Staff cannot give out concrete information about voting progress, and it's up to individual staff members whether or not they are personally comfortable discussing voting. There's no issue with saying that it's close, but we can't say "you need three more votes to be ahead" before voting is closed.

— Staff members are allowed to precisely discuss after voting is closed, and the same guidelines on comfort apply. If a staff member is uncomfortable discussing voting, they can direct you to someone who is! Exact results will be shared privately if you PM a staff member.

— Voting will require your BB username in the future. This is so staff can ensure that everyone only votes once.

— If we find that someone has cheated, their vote will be removed and they will be warned, but the person they voted for will not be penalized unless there's evidence that they asked the member to do this, or had prior knowledge.

— Begging or asking for votes should be reported by members, as this is not allowed. Proof of begging counts as a skewed vote, and may result in staff redoing the vote if necessary. This will be handled on a case by case basis.

— In the event of a tie, staff members will PM those involved and ask if there's any way they would prefer to break the tie. They can decide for themselves OOC through discussion, or staff could hold a tiebreaker vote. If you would prefer another option, that can be discussed!