Registration Terms
VIDEO GAMING FORUMS TERMS OF SERVICE AGREEMENT
ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS
Video Gaming Forums provides the services to you, the visitor, based on its Terms of Service (TOS) outlined here. When using the services provided by Video Gaming Forums, you are subject to these posted terms. Usage of the services on this site denotes acceptance of these terms. The TOS may be changed at any time and without direct notice to individual visitors, so it is recommended that you check back with this page at any time you have questions or concerns.
REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS
Video Gaming Forums does not require you to use your real name or other identification that can be easily traced to you, and the e-mail address you provide will be kept private. In order to register on Video Gaming Forums, registrants must be 13 years of age or older. Video Gaming Forums does not knowingly collect any information from any users under 13 years, and if it is found that an underage user has fraudulently registered, their account will immediately be terminated.
CONTENT NOTICE
By viewing the site content, you agree that all content on Video Gaming Forums is the responsibility of the person from which the content originated. You agree that neither Video Gaming Forums nor its owners, administrators, moderators, sponsors or affiliates are responsible for all content that you personally post or upload. Video Gaming Forums does not directly control any content posted on the boards, and does not guarantee the truthfulness or quality of any content. You agree that while using Video Gaming Forums, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable, and that you will in no way hold Video Gaming Forums, nor its owners, administrators, moderators, sponsors or affiliates liable in any way, shape, or form for any harm or loss that may come to you or others as a result of viewing this content. Video Gaming Forums is not responsible for screening content before it is posted, although an offensive language filter is installed on the system that will reject certain posts that may contain certain words deemed offensive or used most often in an offensive way.
ACCOUNT RESPONSIBILITY
Users are solely responsible for protecting their accounts from access by others. You are strongly encouraged to select a hard-to-guess password and not re-use that password on any other sites where it may be read by the owners or administrators of that site. While it is acceptable for users to maintain multiple accounts on Video Gaming Forums, Video Gaming Forums can and does track multiple shared accounts from a single or multiple computers as one account in terms of TOS violations. If the TOS is violated severely enough to warrant the banning of one account, all known accounts shared between a single or multiple users who use the same computer may also be banned for the actions of the violating account at the administrators discretion. Because of this rule, it is highly recommended that board users do not share their accounts with others, nor share their computers used to access the site with others, as the actions of some other person could easily directly impact all known shared message board accounts. If you must share your computer, it is highly suggested that you make sure you log out your account.
PRIVACY AND RELEASE OF INFORMATION
Under normal circumstances, Video Gaming Forums will never release your provided information to any third party without a court order requiring us to do so
MEMBER CONDUCT
You agree that you will not use this service to perform the following actions:
Offensive Posting
Posts of a patently offensive nature are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Using vulgar, profane, or sexually explicit language
- Using race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, handicap, nationality, or gender as a means of insult
- Using sexual preference terms as a term of insult in any way, shape, or form
- Using threatening, harassing, defamatory, hate-speech, or libelous language
- Posting or requesting links to or material from pornographic, obscene, or hate-speech web sites
- Posting links to web sites with potentially offensive content without a clear warning
- Descriptions or details about any sexual act or sexual organs
Censor Bypassing
Video Gaming Forums is programmed with a list of words that are considered vulgar under any context, and these words are not allowed to be posted. Attempting to bypass the censor by misspelling, inserting spaces or symbols, transposing letters, using look-alike symbols, or any other method is not allowed. The only acceptable method of posting one of these vulgar words is to completely obscure it, making it impossible to determine what the word is without context. Additionally, certain words are prohibited from being used in topic titles and user information pages; bypassing the censor to post those words where they are restricted is also disallowed.
Flaming (Insulting Other Users)
Posts clearly insulting other board members, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Name-calling “You're an idiot”, “You moron”)
- Direct insults (“Screw you”)
- Offensive orders (“Go kill yourself”)
- Insinuations (“Are you stupid or something?”) or insults towards family (“Your mom...”)
Trolling (Inciting Flames)
Posts intended solely to annoy and/or offend other posters by going against the clear nature of a board or topic are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Provoking other users to respond with flames
- Provoking fans of a particular system or game, especially on boards dedicated to that system or game
- Making misleading topic titles
- Asking obviously useless questions
- Posting false information as fact
Illegal Activities
Posts that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed
Spamming
Posts that clearly advertise a service or product are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Unsolicited commercial or personal web site advertisements
- For-Sale/For-Trade/For-Auction/Wanted notices
- “Make Money Fast” scams, chain letters, and pyramid schemes
- Advertising for another message board
Off-Topic Posting
The main purpose of Video Gaming Forums is to provide discussion forums for various video and computer games and their systems. It is expected that your post remain on the topic of the forum; otherwise, post need to be made in the “Off Topic” Forum.
Spoilers without Warning
Posting “spoilers” (critical plot details) about games in the title of a topic or in a message without advance warning is prohibited.
- To discuss such information in a topic, users should leave the title of the topic as vague as possible and include a warning (i.e. “SPOILER”) in the topic title.
- In a message post in a non-marked topic, users should leave several blank lines in a post after a warning before revealing any vital plot information.
Disruptive Posting
Posts that disrupt the message boards for other users, intentional or not, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited, to:
- Message posts or topic titles that force browsers to scroll horizontally
- Large blank or content-free posts
- “Bumping” multiple older topics (posting in them well after the last post)
- Posting multiple identical or near-identical messages or topics, including “fad” topics
- Intentionally hard-to-read posts or topic titles (i.e. ALL CAPS, AlTeRnAtE cApS, no spaces, no or excessive punctuation, 1337 speak, et cetera)
- Posting multiple hard-to-read or nonsensical messages in a single or multiple topics
- Posting large ASCII art
- Post counting (i.e. “First”,”100th Post”)
Flooding, Invading, and Board Wars
Users will be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for:
- Flooding a board with multiple disruptive topics or posts
- Invading another board (flooding a board as a group with multiple topics or posts)
- Instigating, participating in, or retaliating in an invasion of Video Gaming Forums
- Announcing or inciting a “war” or any conflict with the regular members of another board
Impersonation
Users will be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for impersonating other board users by creating and/or using a message board account with a name clearly intended to impersonate, mock, or antagonize another user, or otherwise falsely claiming to be another message board member.
Harassment/Stalking/Privacy
Continual harassing behavior directed towards a certain individual or group with the intent of creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the boards, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is strictly prohibited. Posting private information without permission is also prohibited.
Unauthorized Access
Accessing or attempting to access any Video Gaming Forums user account not belonging to the user in question without permission is prohibited. Accessing another user's account in this manner is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.
Bugs and Exploits
Using exploits or tricks in the Video Gaming Forums code to gain privileges, access, or abilities not clearly intended by the board design is prohibited.
Usernames, Profiles, and Forms
Violating any of the above rules with a username or any part of the user profile (signature, quote, e-mail, IM) is considered a violation of the TOS.
Other
Any other activity that is clearly detrimental to the flow of conversation and normal activities of the boards and its users may also be deleted.
TERMS VIOLATIONS
Violation of the above rules may result in action taken against your account (from something as simple as a warning, to deletion of your account). Messages and topics may be removed at any time and for any reason at the sole discretion of Video Gaming Forums and its administrators. All determinations of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable” content will be determined solely by Video Gaming Forums and its administration. You agree that the decision of the moderators and administrators is final, and you may not legally contest their rulings.