PPMB

The Official Paperpusher Board Rules

In no particular order...


1) No posting just to advertise.

If you've come to the Paperpusher Board just to hock some nifty product, a "cool" website, or your Russian lover service, you will be regarded as a spammer troll. You will be banned and your account deleted.

(Note that this is different from a regular poster alerting people about a website he/she recently found. The poster would have already established that he/she has joined the board out of an interest in Daria, not because he/she just sees us as just another market to exploit.)


2) No activity that would be considered illegal in the United States.

(But I imagine would be illegal most everywhere else as well.)

That means you cannot advertise bootlegs or sell illegal drugs. You cannot provide instructions for how to build a bomb (especially if it is aimed at a specific target), make threats of bodily harm against people, or advertise or link to anything having to do with prostitution. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but you get the idea.

(Note: Merely stating that you are aware of the existence of bootlegs, such as on eBay, does not constitute "advertising" them.)


3) No explicit sexual material.

Any images that contain sex or full/partial nudity (except for bared male chests... yeah, yeah, double standard) cannot be posted on the board. If you have artwork that contains nudity, we strongly advise posting a link off site to the general page that the artwork is on -- not a direct link to the artwork itself.

Clarification of policy. The policy will be enforced against any avatars that are borderline.

The user will first be issued a warning that he/she will have a specific amount of time to change the avatar to something appropriate. Only the moderators may decide what is appropriate. If the user fails to, in good faith, reach an agreement with the moderators on an appropriate avatar, unless the user just decides not to use an avatar, the user's avatar feature will be disabled.

Inactive users will be given a longer deadline to change any sexual or borderline avatars, but if they fail to respond, the avatars get disabled.

This policy encompasses not only sexual material, but also ANY avatars that violate the Message Board Rules.

Furthermore, this policy does not just apply to avatars, but also to ANY material in your message, including your signature line and the text of the message itself.

Finally, the warning you receive is the first of three toward a ban. Failure to cooperate will result in a two-week ban, which could become a permanent ban. (See Ban Procedures)

December 2, 2009

Addition: If you have already been warned once about your avatar, changed it to something acceptable before the deadline, and later changed it to something unacceptable (either sexual or in violation of one of the other board rules), your avatar will be disabled and you will receive a second warning of three for a temporary ban (or, depending upon how many other warnings you have received, you will receive your third warning or your notice of a ban).

December 3, 2009


Likewise, writing that provides detailed descriptions of sexual acts (not "They had sex") or of nudity is not permitted directly on the board. A link should be provided to the page that the story link is on.


4) "Hard swearing" options

As the default value, the board uses an autocensor to deal with such words as the f-bomb, the s-bomb, and so forth. Members have the option through the User Control Panel to deactivate the censor. Members below the age of 13 should not deactivate the autocensor and will have it reactivated with a warning if it is discovered.

Images that contain words normally handled by the autocensor are not to be directly posted by img tag or attachment. A text link with a warning about language is an acceptable alternative. Likewise, if you have a YouTube video with hard swearing, you must post a text link with a warning. You cannot post the video directly on the page.

Updated January 4, 2013.

Those who opt to swear are still forbidden to use the ultimate hard-swear words, c--- and t---. This was understood once, but apparently bears repeating.

Updated April 16, 2013


5) No racial or sexual slurs.

Simple enough. (The only time words like "nigger" might be considered permissible is if you were using it in a third-party sense, showing that this is what someone else said, with the intent of portraying that person's word choice in a negative light.)


6) No attacking your fellow board members.

Threads get heated, and people disagree, but you are not allowed to swear at people, insult their intelligence, tell them you hope something bad happens to them, call them a racial or gender-specific slur, or blast an entire group that they belong to if the group is not inherently threatening.

(With regard to the last one: Saying something like, "All Catholics/Texans/short people/city dwellers are evil!" is not allowed. Questioning "Is it really true that short people are evil?" and inviting someone to offer contrary evidence is allowed.)


7) No oversized images, avatars, signatures, or links.

The reason is merely because they can distort the threads in which they are posted, ruining it for everyone else. (For links, simply placing Click here works wonders.)

The maximum size for an avatar should be 150 x 150.

Images placed with the "img" tag should exceed 2048 pixels wide x 2048 pixels high. Images placed as attachments are automatically thumbnailed and are not limited in size.

Keep total dimensions of images in a signature to 120 (height) x 500 (width) pixels. For example, two 60 high x 500 wide images aligned vertically will be fine, but will be a problem if aligned horizontally.

(Note that PPMB does not not host avatars.)
Last modified 06 February 2017


8 ) No posting entire articles on the board, unless they are your own and you control the rights.

Otherwise, you would be violating American copyright laws.


9) Stay on topic.

Threads that wander 10 or more posts off topic might not be deleted, but they might be subject to a moderator splitting them into an entirely separate thread.

A thread can diverge and still be connected to the original topic. This refers to threads that go WAY off topic, so they have little if any connection to the original subject. (Like a thread about fanfics in the Creative Writing forum that veers into a long tangent about essays.)


10. The moderators and administrators enforce the rules at their discretion.

Mods are individuals and will each have a different interpretation of the rules. That does not mean that mods and admins shouldn't try to stay on the same page and avoid inconsistency, but it does mean that a mod might have a different idea of what is within the boundaries of the rules than a regular board member. Just because a mod doesn't enforce a rule as strictly as you would like doesn't mean that he/she isn't doing the job. However, if you feel as though the mod is consistently dropping the ball, Private Message one of the admins and be prepared to give examples as to how the mod has been napping, power abusing, etc. [Note: this does not apply to situations where a rule is very clear cut, such as a moderator being required to lock a thread after 300 posts. "Discretion" does not include moderators being able to ignore the rule. In fact, "discretion" does not mean ignoring any rule, even when the rule is subject to interpretation.]

Likewise, if you feel that a mod has deleted your post unfairly, you may send a PM to the mod questioning his/her actions in a snide-free manner (and the mod should respond with an explanation). Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to bring the post back, but at least you will understand why it was done. Sending the mod a nasty reply, or immediately running to the board to post a complaint, will do nothing but stir things up and make the mods and admins (who might have been sympathetic towards you) angry. If you feel very strongly that a mod was being abusive, again, Private Message an administrator, and the problem will be looked into.

If you feel, in general, like certain rules aren't being enforced (or are being enforced too strictly) and you wonder why, you may post a message about it in the Board Issues & Suggestions Forum, and it can be discussed/debated. You may not, however, use this forum to point a finger at individual mods.

Also, it should be understood that issues will arise on the board that aren't covered by the rules. This won't happen very often, but if said issue appears to disrupt the normal flow of the board, moderators and administrators may act. (For example, nothing in Rules 1 through 9 gives moderators the power to send angry e-mails to certain flaky server companies, demanding to know when they would get our board back up again, yet that's what I did.)

[More clarification of what moderators may/may not do will be covered in a separate section.]