Mark

Welcome to the Wicked Fire forum.

The overall goal of this forum is to be the melting pot where all site owners, developers, SEO'ers, affiliates, and webmasters congregate and hang out. Think of this place as the wild west of the early internet days. ALMOST anything goes. We are a lot more lax here than at any other forum around, but let's face it, rules are required for members to abide by as a form of self government. Although our rules are a lot different than most other places, we require that you read them before posting here, and we hope that you follow and respect them too.

We have a list of really simple rules to go over, and there's no reason for anyone not to remember them because they are enhanced by this thing called 'common sense'. If you do violate the rules, you'll be issued a warning.

If you are a repeat offender, you'll be added to the banned list permanently. I know WickedFire is a fun place and we don't censor any profanity and/or your freedom of speech, but sometimes there are people that are just asking to be banned, and if a moderator sees fit, he has full rights to ban your ass for good. If this happens, don't come whining to us asking to re-instate your username, because it's not coming off the list. Take this as your last warning, because if we catch you stirring trouble on a new username, you'll be MEC/IP address banned, for life.

Here are our list of rules. Read them carefully and follow them wisely. We can only put up with so much, but we want you to have a good time and learn a lot.

Rules: (revised as of Feb 2007)

1- Use your common sense.

2- Don't post anything that you know will contain any excessive verbal abuse towards another member of the forum that he/she may find overly offensive or not funny. It's only a joke if both people involved take it as one.

3- Don't harass the crap out of other members just to get your kicks.

4- Free speech rules here. There is no censorship whatsoever. But don't paste copyright material here, because I really don't feel like getting sued over your lack of rule #1.

5- Signatures. You may post affiliate links, and banners if you like. Don't make it too excessive and annoying. No audio allowed.

6- No forum promotions whatsoever, this DOES NOT include signatures. I don't care if you own it, or your friend owns it. No advertisements for other forums are allowed without written permission from Jon. Any suspicious forum promotion will result in a 1 week temp ban or a warning.

7- No nudity of minors. I don't care if it's legal in your country, it's not legal in mine, and even if it were, it's repulsive, so don't do it. A minor is anyone under the age of 18 years old.

8- Softcore porn or nudity in general is okay, just don't go crazy with it. Try following rule #1 for this one too. We also have a NSFW (not safe for work) post icon, which MUST be used if you're posting something other than just boobs (post icon for that too). You CANNOT use any other type of post icon as the thread author. Remember, we do have people surfing here from work, and don't want to get anyone fired because your stupid ass "forgot" to post it.

9- Racial slurs are not okay when you are specifically doing it to harass someone. If it's a joke, and no one reports it that they are offended, then it's fine. The English language has lots of good terms that are used in slang, so if you are offended easily, you probably shouldn't be here in the first place.

10- No spamming. If you're caught spamming, you'll be banned for life. No warnings, no second chances. Spamming is also considered when you signup specifically to self promote a thread and your post count is under 10 total. If you have a great opportunity you want to tell lots of people about, stick it into your signature and make real posts. I guarantee that you'll get a lot more interested leads this way, than ruining your reputation on this board in under 5 minutes.

11- All nudity posts must be confined to the "Shoot the Shit" area as this is the hangout place for everyone and the other sections are meants as a means to learn or gather information.

12- No nudity or porn related stuff are allowed in signatures or avatars. Doing so will result in a temp ban until you've changed it. We are pretty serious about this stuff too, as it can get those people surfing from kid friendly environments into trouble.

13- Absolutely ZERO advertising allowed for any type of affiliate program within ALL of our forum topic sections. I don't care if you are some giant affiliate network or even the smallest merchant. We have a paid directory for this, and if you are caught doing it outside that area, we will issue you a strict warning or a ban. Affiliates are allowed to ask "would you use this and that" but if it seems spammy, we're going to investigate it, and you will likely end up with a violation of our rules and banned. Seriously, we are getting strict about this, so don't test us unless you really want to lose your account and program credibility.

14- Mods and admins are not allowed to abuse their powers by changing usernames, banning people they just don't like for no reason, or by doing favors for friends of theirs who are also members here. Mods are carefully chosen, and we run a pretty damn tight ship here, but if you are a member and feel that a mod has used his powers unfairly, you can email Jon directly with proof and a formal complaint at Jon @ wickedfire.com. Your report will be taken seriously and dealt with anonymously. There have been no issues yet, and I don't expect any, but you never know.

15- If you come across a post or thread that looks like it's in direct violation of any of our rules, please report it. There is a reporting icon next to every post, and an email will be dispatched to the entire moderator and admin team. This is the best way to fight against spammers or people who are trying to cause trouble. If you just ignore it, it may never go answered.

16- Reputation points -- We've been getting a ton of reports from people abusing the reputation points that each member has, so since mods and admins are able to see who is giving the reputation (bad and good alike), we are going to start taking action against people who give negative reputation for no apparent reason. If you are guilty of this, you will in turn lose at least 3 full positive reputation bars (over 200 rep points). We are also going to make it harder to accumulate them, and charge members points when they want to issue negative and positive rep.

17- Paying it forward -- This is a brand new rule to increase reputation levels to people who give back to the community (normal posts with meaning and value), and to start elimination those who just sit around leeching and doing nothing productive. It's fine to join WF and sit in the Shoot the Shit area if that's all you want to do, but if you are negative with your posts and annoying, your ass is going to be banned until you learn how to give back to the community. Instead of just banning you for life, you'll be issued a sort of "community service" probation. Depending on the degree of the punishment or probation, you will be required to post a minimum amount of original posts/articles in the sections that have more value. If you still feel like being an asshole, we'll ban you and you can continue your crap on some other forum where you'll be appreciated as an idiot.

Those are all of the rules for now. Please use as directed, and try not to overdose on the lax environment.