General Forum Rules

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Welcome to The Shimmering Wand(TSW)! We’re glad that you’ve taken the opportunity to join our growing family here on the forum. Hopefully if all pans out well, this site will take off like many others before it and we’ll develop long lasting friends from all over the world as dedicated participants on the site. In order to ensure that things move along smoothly at TSW, we have come up with a list of rules of which we expect all forum partakers to follow. Please read each carefully and make sure that while you’re role-playing on this site that you follow them closely. Below are links leading to other very important guides that every member needs to read before participating here at TSW, so please take a look at them.


Proboards Terms of Service

Wizard's Decree

SCC

Posting Guidelines

Character Guidelines

Role-Playing Guidelines

Graphics Guidelines


Follow The TOS
It is very important for all members to follow the Terms of Service(TOS) for Proboards. Our site was created through the Proboards service and we expect all persons on this forum to read and follow the TOS. If you are caught breaking the TOS you will be warned a total of three(3). If you persist on breaking the terms of service you will ultimately become banned from TSW. Please read the Proboards Terms of Service.

No Hotlinking
Hotlinking is also known as leeching, piggy-backing, direct linking, offsite image grabs, and inline linking. It is when you take content such as images from one site and you copy and paste them on another without uploading it to an image host first. If you plan on using any sort of images on this site you will be required to upload the images through a host prior to use on TSW. Please read the Graphics Guidelines before asking approval for images.

No Spamming
Though this is a forum that is built for the fun of Harry Potter fans worldwide, this is not a site for spamming. It is considered spamming if you are doing one of the following: posting messages that include advertisements for products or other sites, or if you are posting one or two line messages on this forum. There are only a few designated posting boards where any form of spamming is available. For more about spamming please read the Posting Guidelines.

No Flaming
Flaming is the act of posting a deliberately insulting message toward somebody or about somebody. It is posted with the intent of be hurtful and baiting, and it is most definitely not allowed here at TSW. There is a difference between being insulting to members on the site and being insulting in an role-playing message. For more about that please read the Posting Guidelines and the Role-Playing Guidelines.

No Bashing
Bashing is a form of flaming and is the harsh, hurtful, and uncalled for attack on a person, group, or subject that you don’t agree with. Bashing is not allowed anywhere on this site at any point and time. You are not allowed to bash people on this site, their characters, J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter series or movies, or other topics in which members are discussing. If you have a negative opinion on something, it may be best to keep it to yourself.

No Discrimination
Never at any point and time is it alright here at TSW for anybody at to discriminate against another person. Discrimination is the act of believing oneself is better or above another person. Everybody is created equally and being prejudice against somebody for their race, skin color, likes, dislike, beliefs or anything else will not be tolerated in the least. Violating this rule will result in one warning and one warning only. Failure to follow this rule continuously will result in permanent banning.

No Stalking
If you are stalking, it means that you are continuously following a specific person and harassing them. If a member thinks you are harassing them they have the right to ask you to stop and then report to one of the head staff members. If the harassment continues, you will be warned one time and one time only. If that warning isn’t heeded you will be banned permanently from TSW.


No Serious Cursing
This site is rated PG-13 and we want to keep it as family friendly as possible. Knowing we will have members of all ages on here at TSW, we want to make sure that people aren’t dropping harsh, foul language all over the place. There is a very small list of light profanity that we will allow and that includes the follow words: bitch, hell, damn, damnit, crap, shit, and ass. Any other word suggestions can be placed within the Suggestions, Comments, and Complaints section, which can be found within the Wizard's Decree.

Be Productive, Be Constructive
While participating on this site we expect everybody to be productive and constrictive members of our community. Productive members make role-playing fun and interesting. They also help in the progression of this forums purpose. The more productive RPing we have, the better off our site will be with creativity. Being constructive helps the members of TSW to become more productive which leads to the overall well being of The Shimmering Wand. When RPing please try to be as productive and constrictive as possible so that we have interesting RP plots to read and follow. Please read our Role-Playing Guide to better educate yourself before proceeding with any RPing on this site.


No Cybering, No Sexual Content
Because this site is family friendly there will be no tolerance for any sort of cybering(having RP sex on the site), nor will sexual content ever be acceptable. If you have read the Proboards Terms of Service, you will know that it is not deemed acceptable by Proboards or TSW. I directly advise all members to read the Role-Playing Guidelines before RP at all on this site.

No Promoting Drugs, No Promoting Alcohol, No Promoting Tobacco
This is another no-no in the terms of service for the usage of Proboards. It’s not okay to suggest to others that drugs, tobacco, and alcohol are cool things. Nor is it okay to advise others to use them in any ways what so ever. Because of the age differences on this site, we wouldn’t want to suggest to our younger members that those things are alright to do while under the legal age limits. Until further notice people on TSW are not allowed to post any detailed involvement with drugs, tobacco, or alcohol. You may however hint at usage. Read the Role-Playing Guidelines for more information.

No Child Abuse
This means that there is to be no talk to abusing children sexually, mentally, or physically. Those sorts of things will be looked down upon because of their nature and will be immediately removed. There is only one reason to mention mental or physical abuse and you will find that reason listed in the Role-Playing Guide. Please read it closely to find what is and is not acceptable.

No Pirating, No Plagiarism
Pirating is the use or reproduction of material, be it images or posts, that do not belong to you. Just because you like images or the way somebody has written something doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to take it as your own. You must have permission to use images or written content before you can use it. The re-posting of written content not belonging to you is considered plagiarism and it is illegal.

No Distorted Text
TSW will allow no distorted text to be used on this forum. That means that members aren’t allowed to write in all capital letters and they aren’t allowed to write in kewl texting talk. Posts are to be written properly with decent grammar, punctuation, and spelling. All posts are to be written in normal text. When RPing, all descriptions of what is going on is to be written in normal text, thoughts are to be written in italics, and talking is to be written in “quotations”…failure to follow these rules will lead to three(3) warnings before continual activity leads to permanent banning. To find out more about what is allowed in posting, please read our Posting and Role-Playing Guidlines.

User Accounts
Each member of this forum is allowed to have multiple characters to role-play with. However, you are not allowed to create more characters than you can handle. If you fail to keep up with your characters without notifying us of a reason first, we will provide you with three warnings. The first warning will be after four(4) weeks of inactivity in any given account. The second will be after six(6) weeks of inactivity. The third will be after eight(8) weeks of inactivity. So, if you fail to keep up with any of your characters, the neglected account will be removed from your creative care and put up for adoption. Characters put up for adoption it will be dealt with in a first come, first serve manner.