Rules
Read them. They will be enforced.
- Read the Gryphon’s Guild FAQ. It is required reading. The following are also required reading to belong to and post to the Guild: sticky threads and posts in the Admin Announcements forum.
- The rating for the Board and the Chat Room is PG-13 (TV-14). Mild swear words (cr*p, d*mn, h*ll) will be tolerated IN MODERATION. If it is apparent such words are a habit for you, you will be asked not to use them. Such swear words are tolerated but discouraged.
- Chatspeak, “leet” and similar should be limited. While some ALL CAPS are okay for emphasis, and acronyms like LOL, BRB, and AFK are fine, excessive use of such conventions is discouraged and will result in a warning. Ppl, u, ur, a/s/l and similar are not allowed.
- Roleplaying in the chat room should be limited to in-character real-time interaction, rather than plots and scenes. Although it’s perfectly all right to post emotes (using “/me does an action” or in *astericks*, etc.) such as *the red gryphon preens his friend’s golden feathers*, “Guilder perches in the rafters”, if you are carrying on a story with someone, or if there is a heavy emphasis on emotes and RP in your conversations in the chat, please take it to PMs, or the Guild’s RP forums. Pie fights, combat RP and similar are not allowed in the chat because they tend to drown out others’ conversations.
- Angst (drama, self-injury, talk of suicide, “emo” behavior) is not allowed in the chat. The reason for this is it tends to result in negative attention toward the person angsting, and also, people in the chat are not equipped to deal with crisis management, nor are expected to. If you do need to vent, there are the Ramble Rant and Support forums (please read the sticky threads and forum descriptions). If you are feeling depressed or self-destructive, please seek the help of a professional. This includes RPed angst, drama, self-injury and so on.
- Media spoilers are a no-no. Don’t post the ending to a book, twists in a plot, or descriptions of a movie that’s just come out, etc. Don’t spoil such things for others.
- Flaming will get you banned. Period. Talking behind people’s backs in the chat room is also highly discouraged (and in some cases, grounds for booting).
- Do not spam the chat. If you have a lot to say, put it in a couple lines, rather than fifteen short ones. This allows others to get their words in edge-wise. On a busy day in the chat, this is more important than when there are only a few people chatting some late night.
- Chat Mods and Guild Admin have final say on policy and enforcement. Obviously, all rules are subject to an individual’s interpretation. Though we do our best to enforce fairly, moderating is still a subjective job. In the end, what the mods and admin say constitutes breaking the rules goes, and if you are asked to stop doing something by an admin, please do not complain or resist — this can result in a board-wide ban. Moderators and admin do a lot to keep this Guild running and it is not an easy (and frequently a thankless) job. If you have a problem with these rules, this may not be the place for you.
- Punishment for breaking rules is being booted from the chat. Repeat offenders may be banned from the Board entirely. Admins/mods within the chatroom reserve the power to boot people from the chatroom at their discretion. The boot times follow as such:
- Boot for 1 hour (time can be extended, depending on offense)
- Boot for 1 day (again, same with the hour.)
- Ban from the board by admin discretion for undetermined amount of time.
Anyone attempting to get around the boot from an admin will receive harsher admin actions ranging from temporary bans to permanent ones.
Harsher swear words are not allowed.
Friendly hugging and cuddling is allowed, but sexual behavior and discussion is not. Take it to private messaging or create a chat elsewhere between consenting adults.
If in doubt, DON’T DO IT. If you are asked to stop a behavior, the mods do not want to hear any of the following excuses: “It isn’t [specifically] in the rules”, “so-and-so has done it”, “I didn’t used to get in trouble for it”.
Such excuses will not fly. Past behaviors do not mean that the behaviors are accepted now. The rules have changed over the years and you are expected to follow the rules as they are now, no matter what people got away with in the past.
You are expected to be intelligent enough to understand the spirit of the rules and follow them, rather than trying to find every loophole and exploit it. If you can’t understand what is meant by the rules (rather than only what is explicitly stated) then you shouldn’t use the chat.
Also, we require parental permission for anyone under 13 to be a member of the Guild.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How do I connect to the Guild Chat?
A. You have two options. The Guild chat is an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel (room). You may either connect to the chat through this Java chat applet, or you can use an IRC client to connect. Some popular IRC clients include mIRC, Trillian, and IceChat. If you have never used IRC before, it may be easiest to connect through the java applet. However, if you’d like to give a client a try, IRChelp.org is a great site that will answer all your questions.
Server: irc.furnet.org
Channel: #GryphonGuild
Q. What do the “@”, “&” and “~” symbols next to people’s names mean?
A. Those are the admin and mods of the channel. They posess the power to change the topic, boot and ban people from the room, and otherwise take care of things in the channel. It is their job to enforce the rules, so please listen to them. In some IRC clients you will only see the “@” for all admin and mods. In other clients, “@” denotes an Op (Operator), “&” denotes a Super Op, and “~” is the channel’s founder.
Q. How do I register my nickname?
A. You may wish to register your nickname so other people can’t use it and pretend to be you. To do so, type the following in any IRC window:
/msg nickserv register [password] [e-mail]
Replace “password” with your chosen password, and make sure you write it down. Replace “e-mail” with a valid e-mail address. If you do not log in for a period of time, your registration will expire.
Q. How do I send a private message to someone?
A. Type:
/msg [nickname] [message you wish to send]
In many IRC clients, it will automatically open a new window. Alternately, it may be displayed within the channel you are chatting in with *YourNick* preceding it, and if another person sends you a private message, it will have -> before it.
Q. How do I make my chat text show up as an action?
A. Type:
/me [action you wish to perform]
e.g. /me jumps down from a rock ledge.
This will send the message:
Nickname jumps down from a rock ledge.
Q. Someone is bothering me, or I don’t like what they’re saying. What do I do?
A. If they are breaking the rules in the chat room, /msg an admin or mod (someone with an “@”, “&” or “~” in front of their name). If they are not breaking the rules but you are still uncomfortable with them talking to you, or seeing what they’re saying in chat, you can ignore them. In any window, type:
/whois [nickname]
This will return their information (sometimes in your channel window, sometimes in the server window, depending on your client and settings). It will look something like this:
Guilder is Guilder@something.something.provider.com (Gryphon Guilder)
Armed with this information, you now type:
/ignore [<nickname>|<user@host> [[-]<message type>]]
For example, to block all messages from the person above, you would type:
/ignore guilder@something.something.provider.com ALL
If they change their nickname or are getting around the ignore, you can ignore the provider itself using wildcards, such as:
/ignore *@*.something.provider.com ALL
This will ignore everyone who is using something.provider.com.
To unignore someone type:
/ignore [<nickname>|<user@host>] NONE
