Code of Conduct / Forum Staff
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Welcome to Last Life Forum, a place for discussion of all kinds! But mostly about games.
The foremost goal of this forum is to create a positive environment for all of our users. With that in mind, please read and remember these guidelines as you take part in the community.
0. Moderator Discretion
This is a rule that goes unwritten in most online communities, but we've decided to make this explicit for the sake of clarity: The discretion of Last Life moderators takes precedence in the absence of a specific rule. Simply put, we reserve the right to restrict your access to the forum as we see fit if we feel that your behaviour warrants it.
1. Be Decent
Inflammatory, harassing or abusive behaviour (including the use of slurs) denigrating others based on race, nationality, religion, sexuality, gender identity, etc. will not be tolerated. Please flag posts breaking this rule rather than responding yourself.
2. Act in Good Faith
Disagreements are to be expected when discussing media as rich and varied as games, to say nothing of other potential conversation topics. When engaging with other users, you're expected to act in good faith.
This means:
- Argue with an open mind, considering and respecting what might be informing the position of the person you're talking to, even if it's a position you strongly disagree with.
- Don't argue just for the sake of arguing. You should earnestly support your position or attempt to (constructively) point out errors in the assumptions behind someone's argument or thinking. If you're approaching a debate solely with the end goal of "winning", you should rethink your approach.
- Respond to the entirety of an argument. You should at least acknowledge all of the points in an argument, even if you have no counter-argument for them.
- Respect when someone no longer wishes to discuss something.
- Try to assume good faith intentions on the part of others. This isn't always feasible when debate becomes heated (or when you believe that the other person isn't acting in good faith), but an effort is appreciated.
- As with the previous rule, if you're completely convinced that someone is acting in bad faith, flag the post in question to avoid the topic devolving into a meta-discussion.
3. Use Common Sense
Don't post or link to illegal, shocking, or generally distasteful content. NSFW content that is within the bounds of good taste (i.e. not porn) and relevant to the topic of discussion can be posted, but please provide a clear warning, and don't embed any such content directly.
Note that emulators are typically considered legal to distribute (unless they include a copyrighted BIOS), but ROMs are not, so don't link to sites that serve both or the latter.
4. Use Tags, Respect Tags
This forum comes with the ability to apply tags to created topics. If you are creating a topic with the intent of discussing our debating an issue of importance and wish to avoid excessive levity, tag the topic as "Serious" or "Debate".
The presence of these tags on a topic does not preclude the topic from any or all humour. However, posts in such a topic consisting solely of jokes, or those attempting to stifle, mock, or derail discussion will be in violation of this rule.
Additionally, any purely political discussions should be tagged as "Politics". As of this writing, political discussion and debate is on trial status. The administration reserves the right to restrict these discussions should they become disruptive to general forum order.
Enforcement
In keeping with the initial assumption of good faith expected on the part of users, enforcement of these rules will generally take the form of a warning at first. Repeat or continued infractions will be met with suspensions or bans.
Users are expected to report violations via the forum's flagging mechanism. In the interest of the staff's transparency and accountability, flagged posts that are found to be violations will be edited to include a moderator note at the end, indicating the action taken, and the justification for that action. For example:
MOD EDIT: User was warned for this post. (Do not use transphobic slurs.)
Or:
MOD EDIT: User was banned for this post. (Illegal content.)
As per rule 0, moderator discretion plays a large part in enforcement. If, for example, a user makes use of a slur in a manner that seems genuinely unwitting, a warning will be issued, with any recurrences met with a suspension or ban.
If, on the other hand, the use of the slur is judged to be intentionally malicious or knowingly provocative, a suspension or outright ban may be issued immediately instead of a warning.
Forum Staff
Administrators
- Veegie
- Dark Koopa
- Kyoni
Moderators
- Black Ghost
- Ghost
- Mashi
- Fawfil
- Shivers
