EF Rules Discussion

The EntropiaForum Rules have been revised, and we encourage all members to read and familiarize themselves with these rules:

EntropiaForum Rules

A link to these rules is also available in the navigation bar at the top of every page of EF.

Mindbuster and the moderators had already begun revising these rules before I became involved in EF, and I agreed that it was a very worthwhile project, and should be prioritized.

Please bear in mind that the forum rules exist to ensure a fair and positive experience for all visitors and EF members, and to keep the overall forum atmosphere focused on the mission of EntropiaForum: An effective, enjoyable and productive resource to discuss EntropiaUniverse.

By removing many of the grey areas and ambiguity left by old forum rules, it is my hope that members will have a much clearer idea of what types of behavior and discussions are permitted, and subsequently this will result in more efficient and fair moderation of the forum, and ultimately provide our members with a more enjoyable and productive experience.

As always, we value feedback from the EF community, so feel free to use this thread to share your thoughts and suggestions regarding the forum rules, or to ask questions about any rules that seem unclear.

Thanks!

what about trying to write abit more friendly rule isnted or starting 50% of the rules "You may NOT"

are you trying to kill EF.

Rule 1. The Entropia Forum owner must always identify themselves to the community instead of pretending they are three numbers.

alana said:

Rule 1. The Entropia Forum owner must always identify themselves to the community instead of pretending they are three numbers.

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roflmao...

MortenWing said:

what about trying to write abit more friendly rule isnted or starting 50% of the rules "You may NOT"

are you trying to kill EF.

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Quote the contrary Mort, I am trying to make EF more enjoyable. MANY MANY members have been asking for a revision of the forum rules for quite a while now. As I said in my previous post, Mindbuster and the moderators have been working on this project for weeks now. The nature of any set of rules is to inform what is not permitted, leaving everything else permitted.

If you have a concern about any particular rules, please discuss them in this thread, and if the majority of the EF community feels such rules are unreasonable, then they may be modified or removed. This forum exists for the EF members, not the owner admins or moderators.

I will remove the bold, if that is a problem.

regarding banned avatars, i had little experience of this recently. there was couple of thing it highlighted.

Firstly, the ability to search is only available to registered users. Maybe this is considered part of the punishment, but i thought that it encourages the creation of a second avatar.

Secondly, if i where to be fourtunate enough to global in a competion related LA i wouldnt be able to post regarding that. Effectily being banned on EF means being banned from all competitions. How do you propose to address this?

711 said:

Rule # 7 Spamming, flooding, trolling, or flaming is NOT allowed.

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not to sound like an ass which i guess is against the rules but <deleted>. what you deam as trolling and flaming is nothing more than some peoples normal speaking patterns and in that right i dont see how you can justify banning someone purely based on terms that are subjective. if that is in fact the case...according to some alana sould be banned for wanting to know who the hell is ruling this place these days as the post could be considered trolling defined as: "deliberately provoking arguments" when it is a valid question for this community to know...

anyway, i guess this is my post where i say im say that mindbuster has sold and that i do not totally agree with the "new management" but you can simply dismiss me bacause i dont agree with you at least thats how you worded your rules, so i guess ill hope that ill still be here tomarrow

aridash said:

regarding banned avatars, i had little experience of this recently. there was couple of thing it highlighted.

Firstly, the ability to search is only available to registered users. Maybe this is considered part of the punishment, but i thought that it encourages the creation of a second avatar.

Secondly, if i where to be fourtunate enough to global in a competion related LA i wouldnt be able to post regarding that. Effectily being banned on EF means being banned from all competitions. How do you propose to address this?

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Aridash, the inability to post entries to a competition is a very valid concern, and I will discuss this with Mindbuster and the moderators. One solution that I can think of from the top of my head is to send a PM to the LA promoter in-game.

Very good post, and I will get back with a reply on this one.

711 said:

This forum exists for the EF members, not the owner admins or moderators.

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rofl
okey.. sorry couldnt help myself.

Eron TheCaptain said:

not to sound like an ass which i guess is against the rules but <deleted>. what you deam as trolling and flaming is nothing more than some peoples normal speaking patterns and in that right i dont see how you can justify banning someone purely based on terms that are subjective. if that is in fact the case...according to some alana sould be banned for wanting to know who the hell is ruling this place these days as the post could be considered trolling defined as: "deliberately provoking arguments" when it is a valid question for this community to know...

anyway, i guess this is my post where i say im say that mindbuster has sold and that i do not totally agree with the "new management" but you can simply dismiss me bacause i dont agree with you at least thats how you worded your rules, so i guess ill hope that ill still be here tomarrow

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Eron, the rule concerning spamming and flaming is not new on this forum, and in fact is a very common rule on MANY forums. If a member cannot be polite while expressing his/her opinions, or continually harasses other members of the forum, there is not much else to do but ask them to refrain from such behavior, and ban them if they continue. I'm sorry, but this seems very reasonable to me, and as mentioned, is how the majority of forums are conducted.

You may be right that my identity may be a valid concern to the community, but is not relevant to this thread or discussion.

Eron TheCaptain said:

what you deam as trolling and flaming is nothing more than some peoples normal speaking patterns and in that right i dont see how you can justify banning someone purely based on terms that are subjective.

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lol I have to wonder if you ever read MB's rules I dont even think the wording was changed for this rule....looks pretty much cut/pasted from MB's original rule.

Well, its a very clear set of rules.

It will be interesting to see if the dynamic of this forum changes.

EntropiaForum is a privately owned forum that has the honor of periodic visits and announcements from MindArk representatives. However, EF is NOT an official MindArk or EntropiaUniverse forum, so please do not address MindArk directly.


Although this rule was also mostly cut/pasted from MB's original...I dont think its any secret or pretense that MA uses this forum as a fairly main line of communication to the PE community (as well as information from the community). In fact, there have been many rules stated/communicated here about PE that you couldnt find on any official PE site.

MortenWing said:

what about trying to write abit more friendly rule isnted or starting 50% of the rules "You may NOT"

are you trying to kill EF.

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doesn't that break rule #8?

Whole thing reads like a school rule book.

I would rather see a simpler rule set


1. Respect each other (including mods / admins)
2. No Sales for RW Money / Items
3. Be Nice to MA

anything i've forgotten?

Winston

711 said:

Eron, the rule concerning spamming and flaming is not new this forum, and in fact is a very common rule on MANY forums. If a member cannot be polite while expressing his/her opinions, or continually harasses other members of the forum, there is not much else to do but ask them to refrain from such behavior, and ban them if they continue. I'm sorry, but this seems very reasonable to me, and as mentioned, is how the majority of forums are conducted.

You may be right that my identity may be a valid concern to the community, but is not relevant to this thread or discussion.

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i agree many forums are run this way. however as a member of many forums some personal some game related some none of you business, none have the degree or level of non-accecptance to disagreement. if someone has a different view then someone else its called a flame or trolling here at EF. i think my personal dissagreement to the rule is in that someone could be banned here because of the extremely low level of understanding that people have different views and that this will never be a "happy" community where everyone agrees, instead when there is a problem people throw out the buzz words flame and troll almost as if they are looking for the ban.

a simple example is the comment by hardwraith...is it mean yes. is it uncalled for, yes. is it something that was said and probablly not ment to destroy ones life, yes. yet hardwraith cannot post here as he was flaming (at least what ive gathered thats how it sounds).


as for the profanity in the first post im sorry but as stated in the rules you must be 13 to join here, and i must say if you have lived to 13 and havent said or heard profanity you may need to get off the internet a bit more.


EDIT:

Morg said:

lol I have to wonder if you ever read MB's rules I dont even think the wording was changed for this rule....looks pretty much cut/pasted from MB's original rule.

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yet again not about who wrote its about the level its held to

101 said:

doesn't that break rule #8?

Whole thing reads like a school rule book.

I would rather see a simpler rule set


1. Respect each other (including mods / admins)
2. No Sales for RW Money / Items
3. Be Nice to MA

anything i've forgotten?

Winston

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yes I think I did... well no harm, I can still read forum when he bans me.

101 said:

I would rather see a simpler rule set


1. Respect each other (including mods / admins)
2. No Sales for RW Money / Items
3. Be Nice to MA

anything i've forgotten?

Winston

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I wish we could operate with a short list of rules like this, and rely on people's common courtesy and respect for fellow members, and remove the need for rules and moderation.

Unfortunately, past behavior on this forum has required that some things be clearly spelled out. Mindbuster and the moderators composed the majority of these new rules based on thier experiences in trying to keep EF as user-friendly as possible. And, as mentioned, literally dozens of EF members have asked for a clearer and more comprehensive set of rules for some time now.

As a side note, I particapte daily in over 20 different forums on a wide range of topics. NONE of them has a limited rule set as you described. I have also seen experiments of forums with no rules whatsoever. End result: total chaos and nothing productive whatsoever, simply an escalation of flame wars, threats and negativity.

Eron TheCaptain said:

as for the profanity in the first post im sorry but as stated in the rules you must be 13 to join here, and i must say if you have lived to 13 and havent said or heard profanity you may need to get off the internet a bit more.

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The differnce here is that your profanity was aimed directly at a person, in this case, me.

There is a very big difference between saying:

"That was f&$king funny man!"

and

"F&$k you, man!"

Rule # 18
Any threads or posts about leaving EntropiaUniverse, such as: “I’m Quitting” or "I've Had Enough" or “Taking a Break”, whether for positive or negative reasons, WILL BE DELETED. This includes any individual posts where comments are made in other threads as well. This rule also applies to sales threads. If you are leaving EU and are selling your items, do not include comments in your sales thread that indicate that you are “quitting” or “taking a break.” Members who are curious as to the intention of the poster can inquire through PM or in-game and should not ask within the sales thread.

Are you kidding? What about people who are going on vacation or leaving for reasons unrelated to the game? People are just supposed to vanish and leave people to wonder why?

nor said:

Rule # 18
Any threads or posts about leaving EntropiaUniverse, such as: “I’m Quitting” or "I've Had Enough" or “Taking a Break”, whether for positive or negative reasons, WILL BE DELETED. This includes any individual posts where comments are made in other threads as well. This rule also applies to sales threads. If you are leaving EU and are selling your items, do not include comments in your sales thread that indicate that you are “quitting” or “taking a break.” Members who are curious as to the intention of the poster can inquire through PM or in-game and should not ask within the sales thread.

Are you kidding? What about people who are going on vacation or leaving for reasons unrelated to the game? People are just supposed to vanish and leave people to wonder why?

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Yea I vanished for 10 months and there was rumors going around that I died in the Katrina hurricane LOL

Rule # 18
Any threads or posts about leaving EntropiaUniverse, such as: “I’m Quitting” or "I've Had Enough" or “Taking a Break”, whether for positive or negative reasons, WILL BE DELETED. This includes any individual posts where comments are made in other threads as well. This rule also applies to sales threads. If you are leaving EU and are selling your items, do not include comments in your sales thread that indicate that you are “quitting” or “taking a break.” Members who are curious as to the intention of the poster can inquire through PM or in-game and should not ask within the sales thread.

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This one always made me wonder; why? I have been in other game forums, were this was allowed. Expression about how people feel and not putting lid on it. If you are sertain EU is THE game, threads like that should not concern you. I do agree though, that it can be done in many ways. Since the rule about not-bashing-MA is also there - that should be enough said - but the fact is, that people are leaving from different causes. To many players, EF and EU has been a "second home" or like a job, places were they spend lot's of time, got to know the community (not talking about only single persons you could hastly send a mail too - but the WHOLE community) - and were saying goodbye would only be fair and nice not only to the person, but to the ones "left behind" too. I just left my job to start a new one on Monday - and of course I send out a goodbye mail to everybody at the company and not only a few! The thing is - I might be back one day! No harm done! And the same for people in here! It's a real weird and unhuman rule!

Rule # 15
Discussion of computer games or MMORPGs other than EntropiaUniverse is NOT allowed. Any and all such threads or posts will be deleted. Naming, making reference to, or linking to games or game websites other than EntropiaUniverse is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. All references and links of this kind will be removed, including those that appear in avatar pics, member profiles and member signatures.

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This rule - not discussing other games - is also something I never understood. It should be possible to discuss other games. They are OUT there. Comparison is healthy to all parts involved - and especially EU/MA! We KNOW they are out there! We KNOW most of us are already enjoying other games than EU. Since most other games are costly with a monthly fee and EU is not - what's the problem? Maybe MA could even learn something about hearing what their community thinks about other games compared to EU? And yes, we ALL know this forum is for EU-loving people. But who say we don't love EU just because we discuss the game play in other games? As said - comparison is helthy and developing! And why not do it on a place were the EU community is sticked together anyway instead of "do it some other places"? If this forum is for the community - then make it for the community - and since they are spending so much time in here, let them be able to express themselfs about other hobbies and RL stuff than showing their pets, girlfriends (for some= hands), computers, cars, RL-issued diarys and I know what!

gratz for the excellent result after weeks of work.
it looks like a duck an EU related one ofc.
711 could you pls verify if my nick " Jag Ly " already belong as name to an EU avatar please ?
back on topic : it looks like EULA , where the words that counts are :
" we may, at our sole discretion "

This post was ment to point to the rule #3 .
Nakia, what is exactely the part of my post wich you minus rep it for ?

Just to be sure I understand..

Your thread is locked.

You many not queston why it is locked in the open. In other words, I could be banned if I posted a thread, some MOD for reasons of their own, decides to lock the thread, and my only recouse to to PM the mod?

Am I understanding that correctly?

To put it another way, not trying to cause any problems.

"Ah, King George III, I don't think what you did was fair."
"You said something I don't like. Therefore, do not say anything I don't like"
"Ah, King George III, If i mention this matter to others citizens (players), what will result from my actions?"
"OFF With Your Head"....? (you can always pray that god has time to listen to you before the axe bits?)

DS..

Yeah they even expanded the rule about other games to include "naming", which was being deleted before. It was pointed out (I wonder by who ) that this was not against the rules and was childish. Waaaa, mommy: he... he said.. S$%^&$ L*%$!!!! So now the rule is officially instead of unofficially childish. (note I said the rule the was childish, so i'm not violating the rule about never being critical of anyone).

The rules on this forum are complete bullxxx...

The only reason people come here is because Marco posts on this forum and to get info on what's going on at ma. Without that, people would leave the forum fairly quickly....

It used to be a nice forum but with all the censoring and stuff it's become really strange here. I refrain from posting much cos whatever I say might be locked, deleted, whatever...

Freedom of speech is something unknown here. I understand we should not flame MA all the time or talk about other games strategies but what harm does it to EF to say MA is crap at doing this and that. What harm does it do to talk about competitors. We are here cos we like MA not because our mission is to kill them ... Every criticism, every discussion has something to contribute...

Censoring Foul Language and personall attacks is fine, all the rest is just childish, dictatorial, brainwashing demagogy ...

LokiDarkStar said:

Your thread is locked.

You many not queston why it is locked in the open. In other words, I could be banned if I posted a thread, some MOD for reasons of their own, decides to lock the thread, and my only recouse to to PM the mod?

Am I understanding that correctly?

To put it another way, not trying to cause any problems.

"Ah, King George III, I don't think what you did was fair."
"You said something I don't like. Therefore, do not say anything I don't like"
"Ah, King George III, If i mention this matter to others citizens (players), what will result from my actions?"
"OFF With Your Head"....? (you can always pray that god has time to listen to you before the axe bits?)

DS..

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Loki,

If you read my first post in this thread, you will see that one of the goals of the revised rules is to AVOID the editing of posts or locking of threads without members knowing why. So for you to say:

some MOD for reasons of their own, decides to lock the thread

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is precisely what clearer rules are intended to avoid. We require that questions regarding the moderation of the forum be done via PM to avoid distracting the whole EF community, and lowering morale on the forum.

AJack10600 said:

The rules on this forum are complete bullxxx...

The only reason people come here is because Marco posts on this forum and to get info on what's going on at ma. Without that, people would leave the forum fairly quickly....

It used to be a nice forum but with all the censoring and stuff it's become really strange here. I refrain from posting much cos whatever I say might be locked, deleted, whatever...

Freedom of speech is something unknown here. I understand we should not flame MA all the time or talk about other games strategies but what harm does it to EF to say MA is crap at doing this and that. What harm does it do to talk about competitors. We are here cos we like MA not because our mission is to kill them ... Every criticism, every discussion has something to contribute...

Censoring Foul Language and personall attacks is fine, all the rest is just childish, dictatorial, brainwashing demagogy ...

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It doesn't say MindArk, it says the representatives of MindArk.

AJack10600 said:

The rules on this forum are complete bullxxx...

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Ajack, rather than making a sweeping generalization, why not give an example of a rule that you feel is unreasonable, and discuss your reasons why. This way you can stimulate a constructive conversation about the matter. As I said in the opening post, very few of these rules are set in stone, and if the majority of the EF community feels that a particular rule is unreasonable, we will strongly consider editing or removing that rule.

EntropiaForum Rules said:

Rule # 2
You may NOT have more than one account on EntropiaForum. If multiple accounts are discovered, the original (oldest) account will be permanently banned and you will be left only with the new account to participate on EF. If this rule is abused, you risk losing all accumulated posts, as well as any earned reputation or EFD on your original account.

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Does this mean you will be deleting MindBusters account and make him use his Werty account from here on out?

Faustian said:

Does this mean you will be deleting MindBusters account and make him use his Werty account from here on out?

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Actually, I believe MindBuster is userid=1, so in that case, Werty would be removed