Forum Rules and Posting Guidelines (Updated November 08, 2011)

[Kilgamayan]

Hello and welcome to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope!  We welcome you to our community and hope you enjoy your stay.  We're a fairly relaxed and open place, and try to be as non-serious as possible, but there are still a few rules that need to be observed while here.

Posting rules and guidelines.

• All posted materials need to be worksafe.  If you want to post not worksafe materials, then link to it and label it with our NSFW tag: [nsfw][/nsfw]. This is not just limited to images - it applies to text as well.
• If it's not your site, do NOT hotlink images from it.  If you see an image from another site, save it then upload it to a image hosting service such as TinyPic or ImageShack
• If you are posting images please limit your images to maximum 640x480px and 150k per image.  If it is bigger than that then thumbnail and/or link to it.

• Please try to post threads and replies in proper English.  Maidens of the Kaleidoscope has members from across the world, and for many English is a second language, so slang and other things might be hard to understand.  You don't have to have perfect grammar, but good spelling and punctuation are helpful if we are trying to understand you.
• The forums have a built-in spell checker, please use it before every post and preview before submitting.
• One word or off-topic replies are frowned upon.  We don't display or track post counts, so there's little use trying to inflate it with low-content posts.  If you still want to be silly or spammy, you can chat it up in The Shrinemaiden Caf?.

• Check sticky topics before posting a new thread.  Oftentimes your question has already been answered many times before.  If you can't find it there, try checking search to see if it hasn't already been discussed.
• Try to post your topic in the appropriate forum.  For example, questions about Touhou gameplay would probably be better served in the Help Me, Eirin! forum rather than the general Touhou Discussion forum.
• Reviving old/dead threads is disruptive and often serves little purpose.  It's far better off to start a new thread than to revive an older thread that has seen little or no activity in the past week or so.  If it's something dealing directly with the old thread, start a new one and link to the old one.

Stance on piracy.
This site has a zero tolerance rule on piracy.  We know you can download the games or the doujins or the music for free from any place on the web, but we will not facilitate it or enable it here.  We greatly encourage you to support ZUN and the other content creators if you really like their work and buy it.  We even have our own forum member who is willing to fill orders for you for items in Japan for importing.  Thread for ordering Touhou items is located here.

That being said here are the rules on piracy:

• No links or torrents to pirated/copyrighted items.  This includes linking to sites that would give info or access to obtaining copyrighted works.  If it's not yours and you don't have permission to post it DON'T.
• No threads asking for support for pirated games and software.  If you pirate it, you're on your own for fixing problems related to it.

Don't ask for pirate releases, and don't tell people how to get them.  Don't even discuss them or that you have a pirated/downloaded copy.  This rule is NOT negotiable.  Please read this post for clarifications on different things that may be discussed or linked to.

Guidelines for your avatar and signatures

• Avatar sizes are limited to a filesize of 75kb and dimensions of 150x150px.  For signature images, you can have multiple images, but you are limited to a total filesize of 100kb and dimensions of 600x150px.  These limits are in place to provide an enjoyable experience for all of our visitors.
• Due to security concerns you must have at least 10 posts before you can have an avatar.

Enjoy your stay and have fun!

[Matsuri]

To clarify on the image size rules:

Due to some miscommunication (mostly pretty much entirely on my part) the resize code is NOT permitted either-- anything over 640x480 and/or 150kb MUST to be thumbnailed or linked. Running an image through imageshack for the thumbnail code shouldn't take more than 30 seconds (and if it does, your image is likely way huge to begin with), so this really should not be a big deal. Apologies for all of the confusion.

Gonna need you guys to do this from now on. Please do not make this any harder than it has to be, as this is the way it should have been to begin with. :ohdear:

[helvetica]

Clarification on the Piracy Rule.

First rule of Piracy, you do not talk about piracy.

There is NO discussion of piracy whatsoever.  No hinting, no saying you got a downloaded copy, nothing.  You can and will be punished for mentioning having downloaded the games.  We do not look kindly upon any piracy discussion.  This community, nor the staff on this site, want anything to do with piracy nor the image it brings.  If you do pirate, you're on your own.  You don't help others do it and you don't discuss having a pirated copy.

ON GAME DEMOS:
Game demos are OK to be posted but we would prefer that a staff member does so.  If you happen upon a game demo you wish to share, please ask a staff member first it check it out.  This is to ensure that 1. the demo is legit and 2. we're not hammering some poor guy's personal webspace.  If we deem it permissible to post, we will either give you the go ahead to post it or we will post it ourselves on your behalf. 

ON SCANLATIONS/FANSUBS:
You can discuss them, but you cannot provide download links to them.  You can post a page or two or screenshots as samples or for discussion but we would prefer you do the legwork yourself when it comes to actually obtaining the whole thing.  It's a horribly grey area and to be on the safe side we do not want to be responsible for providing any copyrighted material that isn't explicitly authorized by the creator.  Basically you can post a page or two or screenshots to bring up a point in a discussion or to give people a teaser to get them interested, but you cannot post the whole thing, either directly or as a link to a downloadable copy.

ON MUSIC:
You can discuss and link to Youtube/Nicovideo postings of individual tracks, but you cannot link or post any downloadable tracks or albums.  This includes torrent files.  Youtube/Nicovideo links are the ONLY permitted links, any random video site is not OK.  Why?  Because Youtube/Nicovideo are very large and respectable video sites, and have mechanisms in place for copyright holders to control the distribution of their works easily.  If they are on that site we trust that the content creator is OK with them being on there.

These rules are in place in order to respect the hard work and dedication these people have put into their creations.  If you enjoy their work, please, support their endeavors and buy their products!  There are multiple legitimate outlets for these items, including a very dedicated MotK forum member more than happy to get items for you from Japan. See this thread for more details on that.

[Alfred F. Jones]

On the subject of birthdays and the Happy Birthday usergroup

Here on MotK, we have a certain tradition when it comes to birthdays. Not only do we have a super-special Happy Birthday usergroup that we give out to people when it's their birthday (as long as they've been active in the past 30 days), this usergroup comes with the ability to change ("hijack") other people's avatars and custom titles. It is the full equivalent of the Idiot Deity usergroup.

However, there are certain unwritten rules about this that come into play, and for the sake of making people's stay on our forums a bit more convenient, those rules will now be written down.

1. When you have Happy Birthday powers, please respect other people's profiles. This means: no inappropriate images, no inappropriate custom titles. Use your common sense. No massive .gif files, no NSFW avatars, etc.

2. It is highly recommended that you create a thread on your birthday, devoted entirely to people wishing you birthday wishes, and allowing you to change their avatar/custom title. Some people do not appreciate having their avatars or custom titles changed, and they will call you out on it, and if you didn't ask for permission, you deserve it.

3. Keep local backups of any avatars you replace. There is always the possibility that even if you got permission from a person to change their avatar, they don't have the original of it. It's your responsibility to take care of everyone's avatar, and to put it back if they don't want yours.

4. If they change their avatars back after you change theirs, do not change them back to your pick. That is power abuse. It's one thing to just force the change, but to actively prevent people from changing back is no fun, and that goes against the spirit of Happy Birthday powers.

Violation of any of these rules, in whole or in part, can and will result in Happy Birthday powers being taken away, or further action, if necessary.

And come on, there's so much room to be had for some real fun within these guidelines, so do us all a favour and don't do something stupid with your Happy Birthday powers, and everyone will have a great time!