Forum Rules. [LAST UPDATED ON 22-03-2020]

by **☠ ~ Aɳɳ ~ ☠** Sun 05 Jun 2016, 11:20

General Games4theworld Forum Rules:

Please note that due to the Official Forum Closure the Forum Rules and Forum FAQ have become de-facto obsolete.

01.) Games4theworld is neither affiliated with, nor endorsed by any video game or computer software publisher. The team members of Games4theworld are all volunteers, who spend their free time assisting users with games and software issues. Please keep in mind that it is not always possible to solve all issues that arise, nor is it possible to reply to all users in time. No "bumping", see Forum Rule #6 below.

02.) Try doing a good search before posting your question on the Forum. A lot of questions have been answered already, and you may be able to solve your problems more quickly by using the Search function, or looking at the topic titles of (recent) threads. Of course, if you feel you cannot find a solution, you may post your question in the appropriate Forum section.

03.) Be friendly and patient with other Forum users. The Games4theworld team members believe in a spirit of kindness. Due to the nature of online communication, misunderstandings can and do happen. Please be mindful that, even if you may not have any negative intentions in your postings, other users may feel differently. Consequently, the Moderators and Administrators reserve the right to edit or remove messages, if they can be considered offensive. You must respect the moderators and administrators. They all work voluntarily on this Forum and they are human, not machines!

04.) No discrimination. Do not judge or insult people based on their religion, race, age, citizenship, biological characteristics, gender identity, political beliefs, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status or education/knowledge. This is worse than flaming, because it hurts other users as well. Please be mindful that as with the previous Forum Rule #3, the Moderators and Administrators reserve the right to edit or remove messages if they can be considered offensive, regardless of your original "intentions".

05.) No profanity, obscene content (including - but not limited to - pornographic material) or otherwise inappropriate language. Games4theworld stands for a family-friendly environment, hence such content does not belong on our Forum. An automatic censor system is in place which replaces profanities with asterisks (*). Beyond that, the Moderators and Administrators reserve the right to edit or remove individual content, if deemed inappropriate for younger audiences. Do not circumvent the censor system by using special characters to obscure profane content.

06.) Only open one topic on the Forum and keep all discussions in that topic until further notice. Always make sure to open a new thread by clicking on the "Open a new topic" button in a sub-forum. Having these discussions in just one thread makes it easier for the team members to help you, and it also makes it easier for users with similar issues to follow the discussion. Please do not post about one and the same help request in several different places of the Forum, under someone else's topic, or "bump" your threads unnecessarily, as all of these things are considered variations of spamming on our Forum. If your original problem eventually gets solved, please wait for instructions from a Moderator or Administrator on how to proceed.

07.) Do not post links to non-Games4theworld torrents, filesharing or warez websites. The Games4theworld team does not endorse downloads from unrelated sources, nor can we guarantee their safety, hence those links will be censored by Moderators or Administrators. If you wish to contribute to a troubleshooting discussion, try using the resources available on G4TW at first. If you still wish or need to share an external torrent/warez/filesharing link on the Forum, please contact an Administrator and wait for further instructions. It is solely up to the discretion of the Administrators to allow exceptions to this rule. Links which are visible in videos and pictures also fall under this rule. Do not circumvent the rule by putting special characters such as dots or empty spaces in-between the link. Please also note: circumventing the rule by "mentioning" an unrelated download source (persistently) can be considered as illegal advertising, see Forum Rule #9 below.

08.) Do not post any personal information on the Forum. Except for the appropriate "Contact"-fields in your profile and maybe a personal picture on your Forum avatar, you are not allowed to post personal information anywhere else. It does not matter whether the information is about you or any other person. Information like that will be censored by a Moderator or Administrator. Due to the nature of what we do on the Forum, we take great care about privacy concerns. If you feel unsure whether certain information is safe to post on the public Forum, feel free to consult a Moderator or Administrator for advice. Also keep in mind that it is completely up to you, to share personal information with other users through other means. However, please acknowledge that if you decide to do so, the Games4theworld team will not take responsibility for any negative consequences that may arise from this. Please view the Forum FAQ (Section I. / Do you have a Privacy Policy) to learn which types of information fall under this rule.

09.) No advertising or fundraising of any kind. Do not post fundraising requests, or advertisements for commercial products/services/unrelated internet platforms. You are not allowed to make money using our Forum, or otherwise use it for your 'clout-chasing' purposes. G4TW is not a platform for advertising unrelated causes. Messages about political and religious topics can be considered as advertising under certain circumstances too. At their discretion, the Moderators or Administrators can disallow messages if they fail to contribute to a support request, attempt to re-direct traffic away from G4TW, advertise other download sources, or are otherwise inappropriate. Do not use the member-list of the Forum to obtain user information and harass other users to purchase your products or services. Before you can advertise on this Forum please get in touch with an Administrator in private. You must then obtain their permission.

10.) No hacking. Neither are you permitted to hack other users' accounts, nor the Forum software. Trying to guess someone else's password is considered hacking.

11.) The consequences of breaking these Rules. Breaking any of the aforementioned rules will result in one of the following penalties.

- Warning: depending on how serious a violation is, you may be issued a warning from an Administrator or Moderator at first.
- Mute: muting for a certain time. This means that you cannot do anything on the Forum, except for reading other Forum posts.
- Temporary ban: users who continue causing problems after being muted, will be banned from the Forum for a limited time.
- Permanent ban: at this point it's obvious you are only here to cause problems, hence you will be banned permanently.

Please also acknowledge that in case of severe Rule violations, the Administrators of the Forum reserve the right to ban users permanently, and without any previous warnings. In some cases bans are just temporarily.

12.) Appealing of Moderator actions. Should you feel unfairly treated, the first thing you should do is to get in touch with an Administrator in private, to make sure that an action has not been taken erroneously. If you decide to do so, please make sure to voice your criticism in a fair and civilised manner. Keep in mind though that it is solely up to the discretion of the Forum Administrators to grant appeals against Moderator actions or bans. Please do not air your grievances on the public Forums, as those messages will be removed. Please view the Forum FAQ (section VI. / Contact Us) to learn how to appeal moderator actions.

13.) You retain the copyright over messages and other content that you submit to Games4theworld, but there are certain limitations. By submitting messages or other content, you agree that your submissions can be quoted, re-posted, and/or otherwise restored - either partially or wholly - within the Games4theworld platform, and that this agreement cannot be revoked later on. We will then do our best to ensure that you are always given fair credit for authorship. However, for legal and/or other safety reasons the Games4theworld team reserves the right to reject certain types of content, even if you grant us the copyright for hosting it. Bear in mind please that generally, we do not intend to compensate users for their submissions, either financially or otherwise. In the event of third-party complaints for copyright or other legal violations, we reserve the right to modify or delete content. Other than that individual user messages are generally left untouched, unless the items concerned are about personal/contact information, non-family-friendly content, or other Forum Rule violations.

14.) In general, we do not edit/delete user accounts and messages "on demand". Users have the option to delete their accounts themselves, from within the Forum profile options. Please note that by default, account deletions do NOT extend to messages and other content that an individual user has submitted. Account deletions only disassociate the user's (former) G4TW account name from the messages and content they have submitted, i.e. usernames of deleted accounts display the word "Guest". Under normal circumstances, requests for username changes will not be granted either. As far as actual individual Forum messages and other content are concerned, we will generally leave them untouched unless they convey personal information, obscene words, copyright-protected content, or otherwise break a Forum Rule. In this context please review Forum Rule #13 again, and take all further information on the subject from the Forum FAQ under section VI. / Contact Us.

General Games4theworld Forum Rules revised on: 22nd of March 2020