As we're digging in to 2011, we felt it was time to get rid of some of the cruft that had accumulated in our rules over the past 6 years. When RolePlayGateway was first started as gwing.net, our goal was to create a site that had as few restrictions as possible while still maintaining a sane, comfortable experience for everyone interested in creating high-quality roleplay. When we took a look at what our rules had become, we quickly realized that they simply had become too complex and limiting over the years of trolls, spammers, and uninterested writers.
Effective immediately, we're cutting the rules back down to something closer to the original five:
RPG's Core Rules wrote:
- No trolling.
Deliberately provoking arguments is unacceptable and is a bannable offense.- No spamming.
This includes flooding (repeating messages over and over), mass PMs to members, and using any part other than the RPG Directory to advertise their product.- No obscenity.
We require everyone to maintain common sensitivity. This includes;
- No racist, bigoted, or excessively vulgar or distasteful language.
- No cybering on any portion of the site, even in non-public areas.
- No explicit pornography.
- No disrespect.
All of our members, staff included, are expected to treat one another with respect at all times. Intentional disrespect in any fashion will be met first with a warning, following by an immediate account warning or full-on ban, at the discretion of the staff.- No arguing.
Take it to PM. Public intelligent debate is welcome, but when your post contains insults or personal attacks, you are in violation of this rule and your post will be edited or removed entirely.
As part of this reduction in our core rules, we also determined that it is high time for us to start enforcing some rules regarding how roleplays are created and displayed on a site where we want to encourage young writers to better, even professional authors, as many of them before have (including some of my very own roleplaying partners from back in the day!).
Therefore, we resolved to use the following new rules, only applicable to roleplay, to assure that we don't limit your imagination as writers, but instead create an agreeable standard of presentation for roleplays posted here.
RPG's Rules wrote:
- Roleplay titles must be consistent with publishing guidelines.
Please do not denote the roleplay's status, add unnecessary punctuation, or use ALL CAPS in your roleplay's title.
INCORRECT:~BLOODY CHAINS 2 (OPEN!!!)~
CORRECT:Bloody Chains 2: Broken Links- Adult content roleplays must be tagged with "adult" and must follow collaboration guidelines.
Be reminded: Adult content is permitted on RolePlayGateway. It must 1) be tagged appropriately, and 2) be collaboratively written so as not to clutter the story. Sexually explicit (kissing, fondling, etc.) interactions must be concluded immediately in the responding author's post and must be separated by at least 5 posts of other non-adult writing. Help keep RolePlayGateway smut-free by working together with your game's players to meet this requirement.- Non-original roleplays must be tagged with "fanfic" and must link to the copyright holder in the description.
We must categorize and correctly attribute all content to its appropriate sources. If you create a roleplay based on your favorite movie or cartoon show, you must link to the owner of that universe, its characters, or story. Any member of the Global Moderator Team can help you with this.
Please make sure to read through the new versions of the rules, understand them, and help continue to make RPG the #1 online roleplaying destination on the web today.
