What are the Forum Rules?

[proteus]

The moderators, governors, and administrators are tasked with running an on-topic, civil forum for "The Lighter Side of Steampunk". Any behavior that puts that at risk can result in action: editing of posts or topics, deletion of material, locking or moving of posts, or even banning or deleting user accounts. We try to use a light touch whenever possible, but we're all human, and we're all volunteers.

That said, we have some guidelines that are more-or-less Forum Rules. Not every violation will be dealt with, and (as implied above), we'll sometimes take action even though none of these specific guidelines were broken.

1. Stay on-topic. It's a Steampunk board and community, and it's fairly well organized. Endeavor to post to the correct boards, and keep individual discussions reasonably on-topic.  We have an Off-topic area for everything else.

2. Behave as ladies and gentlemen. Inflammatory discussion is not the goal here; civil and lighthearted conversation is. This is a tough line to draw -- we don't want to "censor" folks, but we also want to keep it a welcoming place for everyone. See the topic on Controversial Topics for more detail.

3. Harassment is forbidden. In truth, this easily falls under #2, but it's worth calling out on its own. Harassment of any kind, including but not limited to sexual harassment, is not tolerated. Given the multi-cultural nature of this forum, we generally will try to give warning to those who cross the line before we take action; however, in egregious cases, harassment will earn you an immediate ban. We've rarely had to do this, and we don't want to start.  Note that insulting someone over their race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or age is almost certainly harassment.

4. We are a welcoming community. Anyone who continually makes others feel unwelcome is themselves unwelcome.