Rules
From Neo Mechanica
We do need a few guidlines to make Neo Mechanica something enjoyable for everyone. We'd like to remain as liberal as possible, so that everyone can enjoy themselves and contribute.
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General Rules
These are rules that apply to both editing Wiki pages as well as forum activity. These rules are somewhat general and vague, making it difficult to definitively judge whether a user is violating them. Moderators should give proper warning before acting on an offense to one of these rules, and will assign punishment only after multiple violations.
Proper Grammar and Spelling
It's useless to write something that others cannot understand. Write as clearly as possible to ensure you're properly understood. This isn't as much of a rule as it is a guideline, but general laziness in this area will not be tolerated. Constant misspellings, ignoring sentence structure, and omitting punctuation repeatedly on the forum will get you on the moderation que, and similar behavior on the Wiki will result in undoing the changes you made, and eventually, loss of Wiki editing privileges for either a set amount of time or permanently.
Use User Names, Not Real Names
User names are there for a reason. Mostly, they're much more interesting than our actual names, but also for privacy reasons. Neo Mechanica has a few rules regarding privacy, but the easiest and best way to avoid conflicts with those rules is to avoid giving any personal information about yourself or others, especially real names, locations, addresses, phone numbers, etc. Although many of us know each other in real life, this site is open to the public, and we need to use some caution in what we say. The only exception to this is that you may give personal information about yourself only through private messages on the forum. Additionally, user names help new users know what's going on. If we don't use user names, or nicknames based off of user names (like Nuke for NuclearFallout or Divinity for CerebralDivinity) we will alienate new people, and lose potential members.
Report It to a Moderator
If you see anyone break a rule anywhere, it's your responsibility to report it to a moderator or administrator (since our administration actually often does the moderation anyways). You can only report a violation of the rules through a personal message to a staff member on the forum. Please include the full URL (a link) to where you think someone broke a rule, as well as a brief description of what rule they are breaking. When the rule violation is on the forum, DO NOT post a message in response telling the person that they broke the rule. On the forum, you can also use the "report" button. It's the button at the top of each post with a triangle that has an exclamation mark in it. Send a message/report to a staff member, and let them take care of it. Doing otherwise will get you a warning and possibly a deleted post.
Nothing Illegal
Neo Mechanica does not endorse breaking the laws of any country. Do not do anything on Neo Mechanica, Wiki or forum, that would be illegal in your country or the United States. Additionally, there may or may not be minors on Neo Mechania. We have no age restriction for our members, so long as they are literate and follow the rules. For this reason, it is never allowed to post or link to pornographic material on Neo Mechanica. Although we oppose censorship, there's really no reason to have anything of that nature on our site. Violation of this rule may result in an instant and permanent ban.
Creative Commons
Everything on both the forum and Wiki are under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. This means that anyone can use material on the entire site as long as they attribute www.NeoMechanica.com and use a Creative Commons license on any work derived from this. We'd also prefer that when using material taken from the forum, you credit the user or users that made the post.
Forum Rules
These rules are specific to the forum. Most of these rules are not applicable to the Wiki, but the underlying principle is what is important.
News and Announcements
Please read topics that the staff adds to the News forum. It may include notification of a change in rules, or an addition of a new feature. Either way, you're missing out on some valuable information by not doing so. Similarly, staff should avoid adding to the News forum unless it benefits users.
Spam
Spam should be confined to topics in the Utter Chaos forum. You can post whatever you want in those sections. Elsewhere, please try to stay somewhat on topic and only post when you have something useful or humorous to say. DO NOT make posts merely to increase your post count. There's no way for us to read your mind to figure out if you're honestly trying to contribute to a topic, or just posting for the sake of posting. On that note, your post should probably have more than three words in it. Give some thought to your posts. Make them interesting. Don't just write what you think; write why and how and to what extent, and give details. It will make you sound more intelligent. Trust us.
Double Posting
Double Posting is prohibited in all topics except those that reside in the Utter Chaos forum. Instead, click the "edit" link on the top of your last post, and add to your post rather than making a new one. You can even add "Edit:" before you write in the post to let others know that you've expanded on your post. Double posting is just kind of annoying, and also makes site statistics less accurate. To help maintain the cleanliness of Neo Mechanica, please avoid double posting whenever possible. Violating this rule repeatedly will result in adding a user to the moderation que.
Wiki Rules
The Wiki is our main site and acts as the home page. For this reason, it's the first impression many new visitors have, and therefore needs to be properly maintained.
Joining
Registered members of the Neo Mechanica forum can apply for permission to edit the Wiki. To do this, just post an application to be added to the Wiki Group. Unless the member has recently violated rules or otherwise somehow concerned of the administrator, he or she will add you to the Wiki group. At any point, and for any reason, a given user's Wiki access privileges may be revoked. Usually, this will be because of either a rule violation, or ongoing maintenance. In the later, when maintenance is finished, users will have their Wiki privileges reinstated.
Format
Please keep the proper formatting for Wiki pages. Learn how to write pages and markup properly. If you need help, you cal use the Wikipedia Cheetsheet or look at the source of other pages for an example. We want to keep pages readable on both the editable end as well as the normal, public view.
Tone
The Wiki is a huge contradiction in many aspects, as we want to keep it clean and presentable and at the same time let our members run wild and write crazy articles about bacon and whatever else they want. We see no problem in this, so long as the tone of each page is kept intact. Pages with a serious intent should remain so. Many pages are locked so that only the administration can edit them. We'd prefer not to lock many more pages, but we will if members can't behave themselves. In short, keep serious pages serious, or we'll lock them. Do pretty much whatever you want on the rest, though.
