This document is designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members here at Twisted Gaming Service. Please read it and become familiar with it.

1. Forum rules
   
   1. Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions before posting. Users consistently posting to the wrong forum may be given a warning (see policing below).
   2. Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
   3. Members are asked to not act as "back seat moderators". If members note an issue which contravenes something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it to the attention of a member of the Moderator Team via the report post bottom at the bottom of every post. Only do this if a moderator team member has not replied within 6 hours. Do not respond to such topics yourself. Members who constantly "act" as moderators may be warned.
   4. Members should remember this board is aimed at a general gaming audience. Posting pornographic or generally offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
   5. Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users linking to or asking for information on warez, crackz, etc. or re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and their post will be removed.
   6. Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites. The use of inline ([IMG][/IMG]) image tags pointing to data stored on third party systems for which the user has not received permission to link to may be removed.
   7. Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or colored text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned.
   8. Members should use an appropriate, descriptive title when posting a new topic. Examples of bad titles include; "Help me!", "I'm stuck!", "I've got an error!", etc. Examples of good titles include; "My game crashes with this error", "Punk Buster is kicking me with following message", etc.
   9. Members are welcome to use the off topic forum for general "test purposes". These may include checking signatures, testing a link or image, etc. (subject to previous points on decency, warez, etc.). Posting in the off topic forum post count will not increase.
   10. Excessive posting just to increase post count with no real benefit to the thread or site could be considered spam.
   11. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering hosting services (charged and free), installation services, solicitation etc. Recruiting members for your own projects (moderators, designers, professional MOD work, etc.) is not permitted and is also considered spam. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed. See specific item on spam and 3rd party linking for more information.
   12. The moderating, support and other teams reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to Team Members and not users.
   13. The above forum rules where applicable also apply to private messaging. Abuse of the private messaging system may lead to warnings (as above) and/or the revocation of private messaging.
   
   
2. Signatures
   
   1. Signatures may contain up to five lines of text (of normal size (2)) and/or one image, valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 60px high, 468px wide and 30kB (30000 Bytes) in size. Signatures containing an image this large may also include one line of small size (1) text. Signatures containing an image of 30px high may include up to three lines of small size (1) text or two lines of normal size (2) text. Images of 15px height or less may allow up to three lines of normal size (2) text or four lines of small size (1) text. Animated images are not allowed.
   2. Text sizes should be between size 1 and 2 (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons, and so forth.
   3. Links in signatures are permitted to a maximum of four unique pages or sites. TGS Team members are allowed additional links to aid in rendering support for TGS. Such links may only be to *.twistedgamingservice.com or approved material. Linked sites may be commercial in nature. You may not include links in a way which suggests you offer official support, software, mods, etc. for any game listed on TGS. You may not link to cheats, warez, porn, political, racist or other similar hate sites. Links are included in signature size limits.
   4. Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their signature privileges.
   
   
3. Avatars
   
   1. Users are permitted to utilize a gallery avatar or to link to one of their own (subject to previous points on misuse of bandwidth). User defined avatars are to be no larger than 150 pixels square, contain no animation, contain no image which attempts to portray the user as having an official status here (e.g. mimicking ranks or copying avatars of team members), may not exceed 15kB (15000 Bytes) in file size and have a consistently high availability (i.e. links to images on slow servers or those prone to failure may be removed).
   2. Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, and so forth.
   3. Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges.
   
   
   
4. Support of Mods and linking off site
   
   1. If the author of a Mod, map, etc. maintains their own support board (or uses someone else's board) they may direct users to that board or site for the purpose of offering support and/or updates to their Mod/s. Alternatively authors may maintain a topic here at www.twistedgamingservice.com (in the appropriate forum) for each item they produce, directing users to that topic where appropriate. Such topics are intended for support only and not for general promotion of non-TGS product, sites, and so forth.
   2. Members who maintain localized (non-English) Mod support forums may be allowed a link within the Support section of this site. Members should contact the forum management to propose their site.
   3. General linking (within posts) to other sites is generally not permitted. Exceptions may be made where links are being offered in a "support context" for non-TGS related questions. Acceptable support contexts may include (but are not limited to): problems with 3rd party software, hardware, and so forth.
   
   
5. Show Off
   
   1. TGS does not provides a general forum or other solution for users to promote their sites. Consistent with Rules 1k, 4a and 4c users may not promote their sites through their own posts. Such posting constitutes spam and may lead to a warning. Users or other persons wishing to advertise at TGS should PM Twisted Gamer to discuss options.
   
   
6. Policing
   
   1. TGS operates a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offenses period. If the need arises for a fourth warning a temporary ban will be put in place of between 1 to 30 days.
   2. Arguing with team members after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed three strikes a temporary ban will be put in place as above.
   3. Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact the relevant team leader, e.g. if warned by a moderator you should contact a Global Moderator. If they feel you were treated badly they remove a warning.
   4. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account of evade an email ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
   5. An exception to the three strike rule applies if either links, info, spam of Cheat sites/info or when users contact team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.
   6. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While TGS may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence.