Community Conduct

[James G.]

Principles of Conduct
My interest as an administrator isn't preserving users' freedom of speech, but in maintaining a tranquil atmosphere in line with Christian principles. Anything that disturbs my sense of peace, or that I would feel ashamed for any friend or family member to see, aren't in line with that.

This isn't intended to stifle discussion of serious topics (I want those I interact with to feel comfortable opening up), or to judge those who don't 'measure up' to some standard. But I'm not inclined to suffer obscene, profane, hostile, disrespectful, and such like conversation if I don't have to, and it seems reasonable that I shouldn't have to on my own website, which you are visiting.

Someone's attitude and direction are what matters most. A contentious person is not likely to tarry long, but if you are trying to get along and are honestly forgetting, we can work with that.

Rules
These are universal rules that apply in every case, unless they are repealed or altered by the staff. Violations are likely to result in disciplinary procedures.
1. Do not post, upload, or link to anything profane, occult, obscene, rebellious, racist, destructive, indecent, illegal (according to Texas law as of this posting), immodest, hostile, of low character, or anything similar to or reasonably evocative of such behaviour.
2. The staff may apply disciplinary measures, including locking threads, removing posts, and/or giving warnings to users. Do not publicly comment on or discuss disciplinary procedures carried out by the staff. If you are concerned or confused about disciplinary procedures, whether actual or hypothetical, you may privately question the staff.
3. Do not attempt to enforce rules on your own. If you are concerned about the contents of someone's posts, you may privately report them to the staff.
4. We believe in authority and the chain of command. If there is a difference or contradiction between a lower-ranking staff member's post or ruling, and some higher-ranking staff member's post or ruling, the higher ranking staff ruling takes precedence. (This is judged based on their ranks at the time.)

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Regulations of Use
All regulations of use are subject to modification, alteration, or exceptions, on a case-by-case basis with the staff's permission.
1. If a staff member edits your post, do not change, add to, or remove the sections of the post that they edited.
2. Do not publicly share private messages unless you have the permission of everyone who was involved in the discussion. If you are concerned about the contents of private messages, you may privately report them to the staff.
3. You may edit your posts. However, you may not 'scrub' old posts by removing all of their content or replacing it with something substantially different when it breaks the natural flow of conversation.
4. Do not post LLM-generated text, images, video, or audio, except in staff-created threads that are focused in some way on LLM content or in threads where staff have approved LLM-based entries. In the latter case, you must note that your post included LLM-generated content. This includes but is not limited to output from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Siri AI, and such like. An exception to this policy is that LLMs may be used to translate your words into English or other languages; however, in this case, it is good form to note that the translator was used.
5. Do not register more than one account.
6. Do not 'double post', that is, post another reply to a topic in which you have the last post; you should edit your post instead. The exception is if there is a substantial length of time (e.g. several days) between the two posts.
7. Posts shouldn't include unnecessarily large quantities of images or emoticons (especially if they're not wrapped in spoilers).

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Preset Limits
These include some (though possibly not all) of what members cannot do that they may be able to do on other platforms.

1. You cannot change your name on your own; unrestricted name-changing lends itself to confusion. If you want a name change, submit your request and the reason you want it changed to the staff, who will review and either accept or deny your application.
2. Avatars (profile pictures) may not exceed 70x70 pixels.
3. Signatures may not contain more than 300 characters, and they may not exceed 4 lines in length.
4. Images in signatures may not exceed 40x40 pixels.
These last three are all to reduce distractions from post content.

5. You may not delete your posts. This is to prevent users from posting something in violation of the rules and then removing the evidence before the staff can see it. It also prevents users from waking up on the wrong side of the bed and attempting to destroy all of their prior contributions.

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By consistently following these principles, rules, regulations, it is my hope that the Snow Castles site and forum can be a safe place for anyone to visit. If we amend these rules, I expect there will be a post in the announcements board clarifying what was changed, and possibly why.

Thanks for your attentive consideration.