Updating the rules thread layout perhaps

Ok people. Below I've fucked around with the layout of the rules to try to make them be easier to see and read and not be such a wall of text. I've played with the colors (lol I have no taste) and moved stuff into bullets that I sort of like better, maybe?

Thoughts? Any other radical layout changes? Slight modifications? Movement around of stuff? Etc.

I'm trying to find a better way of structuring the rules so that people might actually glance at them and glean something from them. I know I've never actually read them through and through. It's also hard to just grab the bold outlines in the old rules which what's below kind of helps with.

Or maybe the best way is the way it was (but I doubt that).

The Sythe.Org Official Rules​

This is how it works here at Sythe.org:

• Users will be given infractions when minor rules are broken.
  • Infractions expire after 1 month.
  • A user who receives 5 infractions will receive a 3 day ban
  • A user who receives 7 infractions will receive a 7 day ban.
• Users will have more severe punishments as outlined below when major rules are broken.
• If a user commits any unconscionable act not explicitly in the rules, or has repeatedly broken rules, the staff reserves the right to punish the user in any way.

Users will receive 1 infraction for the following:

• Spamming
  • Posting short, unhelpful comments (such as "cool", "nice acc,", "added" etc), including free bumps on other's threads
  • Posting for the sole purpose of increasing post count
  • Posting comments with little to no relevance to the topic
  • Creating multiple threads advertising the same thing, regardless of the section.
• Excessive bumping
  • No double posting / delete posts within 8 hours (spam rules still apply)
  • First Violation will receive one infraction and the removal of bumps
  • Second Violation will receive 3 day forum ban from the forum in which you were over-bumping
  • Third Violation will receive 1 week forum ban from the forum in which you were over-bumping
  • Fourth Violation will receive 1 month forum ban from the forum in which you were over-bumping
• Accusing Someone of Scamming Without Proof
  • Chat logs do not count as proof
• Begging
  • Asking for a staff position on Sythe.org
  • Asking to receive anything for free
• Thread Hijacking
  • Offering your services/Sales on the thread of someone else's services or sales
• Trying to Sell Something that is Free
  • for example, Sythe’s old autos or some free bot. However, selling the method of how to acquire these items is permitted in the relevant forum.
• Oversized Signature**
  • Maximum of 350 pixels in height including all quotes/text/pictures
  • Maximum of 650 pixels in width with all text/quotes/pictures
  • First Violation - Warning (The warning on your profile will expire but the number of violations does not)
  • Second Violation - 2 Week Signature Disable
  • Third Violation - 3 Month Signature Disable
  • Fourth Violation - Permanent Disable
• Oversized Avatar
  • Avatars have a maximum size of: 80x80 for users, 150x100 for staff and donators (width x height)
• Flaming
  • excessive cursing, insults, and/or derogatory comments towards another user
• Advertising MM Services
  • in any place except the User Services and MiddleMan Application forums
• Referrals
  • posting referral links(referrals are allowed in signatures only) for sites, surveys, other games, etc. This includes sites such as Share-cash.
• Trolling
  • harassing other members (malicious harassment of other members or intentional misleading of staff may result in a perm ban - "trolling" is not an acceptable excuse)
• Grave Digging
  • If a thread hasn't had a post in several weeks or months, do not post in it (Except in the spam forum and some other forums / threads. Use discretion when posting)
• Requiring Vouches
  • You may not promise/require a vouch in the market. Vouches are given when the user you're dealing with feels you deserve a vouch, and no one is obligated to vouch under any circumstances.
• Exploiting Site Glitches
  • Blank posting and other things that exploit glitches in vBulletin / Sythe.org / the Donation Center are not allowed and punishment will be handled on a case by case basis.
• Ignoring Staff Decisions
  • Ignoring staff orders, recreating locked or deleted threads or posts, evading censors, etc, will normally result in an infraction although any punishment is permitted on a case by case basis.
• Posting links to "Screamer/Shock" sites.
  • Misleading links/sites that lead to "screamer" or "shock" type sites is prohibited and will result in an infraction. Repeat offenses may result in forumbans/revocation of signature rights.
• PIN Sales
  • Sale of membership PINs is strictly prohibited. Any discussion of this will be infracted. If it continues, you will be banned for 1 month.
• Advertising
  • Advertising a site in a post will result in an infraction. Multiple offences permit up to a month ban. Includes links to other Markets, Goldfarm sites, etc.. If you wish to legitimately advertise your site on Sythe.org then e-mail: [email protected]. Advertising Bots / Accounts will be permanently banned.
• Copyright Infringement
  • posting direct or indirect downloads that infringe on copyright or links of websites related to copyright infringement, including: movies, television shows, games, shareware programs, pirated software, cracks, books, etc. Multiple offences permit up to a month ban.

Users will be banned for 1 week for the following:

• Defacing user photographs
  • Defacing someone else's picture (drawing on it, photoshopping etc.) without that user's full consent will receive a 1 week ban.
• "Trade With Caution" Rank Evasion
  • If your account has been given the "Trade With Caution" rank (a TWC) and you use another account to evade the rank, all accounts used in the evasion will receive a 1-week ban as well as a TWC. Subsequent offences will result in a permanent ban on all accounts.

Users will be banned for 2 weeks for the following:

• Self / Fake Vouching: If you fake vouches, steal vouches or in any way attempt to pass of illegitimate vouches as legitimate you will be banned for 2 weeks and be given a TWC. A second offence will result in a permanent ban.
• Interacting on Two or More Accounts/Sharing Accounts: you are strongly advised not to create more than one account at Sythe.org, but, if you do, ensure that the accounts do not interact. Sharing accounts is not allowed.

Users will be banned for 1 month for the following:

• Porn/Gore: posting pictures, videos, links to websites related to porn/extreme gore, etc. The staff will decide what constitutes porn or gore. It is not for you to decide. Steer clear of posting anything which could be interpreted as this.
• Plagiarism: plagiarism (including the ripping of GFX and RS/User Ed Guides) results in a forumban from the pertinent forum as well as a one month ban the first time it happens.
• Disclosure of Others' Personal Information: posting information such as private emails / MSNs, private Skype accounts, Facebook accounts, addresses, phone numbers, private photos, etc. of someone other than yourself without explicit consent of that person will result in up to a 1 month ban regardless of whether or not the information is publicly available.

Users will be banned permanently for the following:

• Scamming
  • or any suspicious behavior similar to scamming (i.e. attempting to scam), this includes Runescape name Sniping
  • Impersonating other members, and any other similar behavior.
  • Impersonating ranks through the use of your signature.
• Malicious Off-site Activities
  • If you are found to have committed offences elsewhere (as in, on other sites) which would constitute a ban here on Sythe.org had they been committed here, we may use these offences as an indicator of your character and choose to ban you from Sythe.org. Offences committed prior to your Sythe.org membership may also be considered depending on the nature of the offence.
• Posting Infected Files/Malware
  • Keyloggers, viruses, trojans, etc...
• Returning After a Ban/Ban Evading
  • If one of your accounts has been banned for whatever reason and you return under another account, that account will also be banned. Frequent ban evasion will result in an IP ban.
  • Evading a temporary ban will result in both accounts being banned for the length of your current ban plus an additional week
• Selling your Sythe account
  • Self explanatory.
• "Blackhat"/Malicious Activities: Using software tools for deceptive, malicious, or harmful intent (Hacking/DDoSing/Social Engineering). Punishment for these offences will be dealt with on case-by-case basis, but will most likely result in a permanent ban.
• NB: 'Counter-scamming' (i.e. attempting to recover your property from a scammer) is not against the rules, but attempting to scam someone who previously scammed you is. There is a big difference between the two. You should be aware that if you attempt to recover your property from a scammer, that scammer may attempt to report you on sythe.org. If you have insufficient evidence to back your claims that you were indeed recovering your stolen property the staff may be forced to ban you.

Additional Notes/Clauses:

• If there is a banned account on your IP address, other accounts attached to the IP will also be banned. Moreover, if there is any interaction between accounts attached to the same IP address, all accounts will be banned.
  
• If any account (Sythe, Skype, Runescape, etc) you own is hacked, and the hacker scams with that account, your Sythe account will be banned. You must reimburse all scammed members before the staff will consider unbanning you.
  
• Name changes are only given to staff who wish to have a more professional name. They are not a donation perk in any way.
  
• Businesses/Partnerships: Anyone running a business or partnered service implicitly agrees to share responsibility for the actions of their co-owners, as well as any workers they employ. Thus, if a partner or worker scams, all owners of the business will be banned until the debt is repaid. Workers, however, are not liable for anyone's actions but their own (although it is up to the staff to determine who falls into that category).

Last Updated: December 18, 2012
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I like what you did to it, I agree with the fact that it was just a wall of text >.<, kinda discouraging to read through as a new member and it could sometimes be confusing as well.

Maybe you should also add a color to the Banning subtitles, maybe a soft red? Like you used a soft yellow/goldish color for the infraction subtitles

 

It's really nice, but I think this: "If a user commits any unconscionable act not explicitly in the rules, or has repeatedly broken rules, the staff reserves the right to punish the user in any way." may allow Mods/Staff a little too much lei-way for punishment. It should be limited to, at max, a temp-ban and brought to the attention of other staff members immediately for a "conference" style decision.

I know majority of our staff members are exceptional when it comes to decision making, but I do not know all of them to that point.

Finally, I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but I noticed NB(Counter-Scamming) was not bolded in the permanently banned section.

Other than that it looks really good! It really allows for a distinctive understanding of the rules without a 2 year read time.

Thanks for the updates SuF!!!!

 

Definitely looks better and I agree with this.

 

Looks a lot better than before, for some reason the opening paragraph seems out of place, maybe due to the amount of subsections in it and the title being centred, could just be on a phone though.

 

I just didn't do them all. Everything would look the way the infractions do (that is if I used exactly what I put... which won't be the case).

This isn't about the specific rules. Its about the layout and looks. I only changed the top bit as I was too lazy to do it all / there is no point since I guarantee it will change.

I'm going to need concrete criticism and suggestions.

Opening paragraph?

 

The bullet layout you did looks very good so definitely keep it. And if the Banned rules would look exactly like Infractions(including the yellow color) Then i'd say the Banned rules would look better with a red color for the layout, so people clearly see a difference between these 2 rule-types.

 

Wanna find me a less harsh red hex color code that doesn't look rusty like the one I found?

 

Used this: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp?colorhex=FF0000

Sythe's default red(#FF0000);
Users will be banned for 1 week for the following:

#E60000 (Not as flashy as the default red)
Users will be banned for 1 week for the following:

#CF0000
Users will be banned for 1 week for the following:

#B20000
Users will be banned for 1 week for the following:


#FF4D4D
Defacing user photographs: Defacing someone else's picture (drawing on it, photoshopping etc.) without that user's full consent will receive a 1 week ban.

#FF6666
"Trade With Caution" Rank Evasion: If your account has been given the "Trade With Caution" rank (a TWC) and you use another account to evade the rank, all accounts used in the evasion will receive a 1-week ban as well as a TWC. Subsequent offences will result in a permanent ban on all accounts.

 

I like Suf's layout, much more enticing to read.

 

I did too. I sucked at it.

 

I like the B20000 and CF0000 colours... They're dark enough where it isn't invasive, and still sharp enough colour where it stands out. The ones below are too salmon pink and the ones above are too vibrant and pull your eyes away from the rest of the text.

 

I like it a lot better and it does seem as dull as before. Great improvement

 

I may have made this into a monster. Although it may work better with different colors. Or it may work better if only the headings are colored and the rules all have the same color.

 

I actually really like it. The points that need to be sharp are, and breaks down into different subsections of that colour afterwards. Very great job SuF.

 

SuF, you're not getting admin. Stop.

I like older layout. Not sure how it's easier with the second one? On the original people can take a look at the same line, and it's one rule per line. With yours, it's one line the rule, then explanation, then rule, then explanation. If anything, the change in colors makes it look goofy and expanding it like that just makes it appear more tl;dr. Maybe just add a short version at the top?

 

Ok hmm, I'm gonna be honest, I don't really like the green color for the Infractions. If you'd use 3 colors i'd go from Yellow>Orange>Red it represents the "severeness" of the offenses?
This is how i see it;
Green = good, yellow bad, red = worst

If everyone else is satisfied with the current colors then I'm just gonna be ok with it

 

I know you can't understand how anyone would do something that isn't expressly for personal gain. I feel sorry for you, buddy.

I also knew you would hate anything I did.

Also: What does short version at the top even mean?

Yellow -> Orange -> Red would work better.

 

You're right that if it's to represent severeness it might not be the best choice... But now you need to find an orange to go with everything else.

The greens are just infractions. I don't think it's going to make much difference. ^_^

 

The colors also aren't like set in stone. Maybe we won't do them at all.