Community Blogs terms and conditions

12:01 AM on 03.29.2006   |   Hamza CTZ Aziz

164 comments

The Community Blogs are a privilege.

Destructoid offers you a chance to voice your opinion, it hosts your page, backs it up on a regular basis, and picks up the bill for the bandwidth. Our team actually cares about what-in-the-hell gamers have to say: Your work will appear on the sidebar of the main Destructoid home page, which is read by millions of people a month (no pressure). The bottom line is that somebody is definitely going to see what you have to say, so we ask that you do your best to make it count.

We're trying to foster a great gaming community, so in participating you're helping us do that, and we love you for it. Unless, of course, you're one of these guys:

JERKS, ELITISTS, AND RACISTS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED 

Unfortunately, there are too many people out there that lack any sort of common sense, so we'd like to hereby state some ground rules on what we definitely don't want to see on the blogs. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you'd like to file a complaint against a user. We will respect your privacy and investigate the matter as soon as possible.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU BREAK A RULE

The poster will be warned by email after the first offense. If there is a second occurrence, the poster will be banned from Destructoid indefinitely and his/her IP will be blocked. Banned users may appeal the block by contacting the Destructoid Community Manager via email. 

OUR USAGE GUIDELINES - EASY AND OBVIOUS

1. Don't haze or hate on new users (see Rule 5). Remember when you were new? Treat newcomers with the same respect we afforded you. Please don't cause unnecessary drama -- Destructoid is a community, not a clique.

2. The Community Blogs are open to all user-generated content with the exception of sexism, porn, homophobia and racism, all of which will be removed immediately without consulting the poster beforehand. No questions asked. Expect a swift kick in the ass from our staff.

3. If you feel that you need to put profanity in the titles of your posts, please censor yourself and don't be a f*cking *sshole about it. Remember, your story titles appear on the sidebar of our home page. Title aside, you can use profanity within the body of the post; however we encourage you to use your good judgment in its use.

4. Don't flood the C-Blogs with inside jokes, one-word/one-sentence posts, and other nonsense that might be considered trolling or spamming. Put actual effort into your posts. Repeated spamming of pictures or words will likely earn you a warning from the Community Manager as well (and your blogging privileges may be suspended temporarily). The best advice on this is best summed up in a short and sweet manner: Don't be a dick.

5. Causing drama, being a negative douche bag, inciting spam wars in the comments and creating multiple accounts are also grounds for banning (etc).

6. Please do not post content and label it as "Official Destructoid [WHATEVER]". This goes for reviews, contests, IRC channels, Ventrilo, Counter-Strike servers, WoW guilds, etc. You are welcome to run any type of event or contest on your personal blog that you would like, so long as it could not be mistaken for an editorial feature of the same type. In other words, we don't want to deal with any legal trouble if somebody confuses what you're doing as official Dtoid work. While we appreciate people's enthusiasm, often times the shit hits the fan and people will come complaining to us about something we have no involvement in. We're a small company -- don't create extra work for us!

7. Don't copy and paste other people's work and pass it off as your own content. Summarize what you want to use and give proper credit/linkage. Otherwise, this may be perceived as plagiarism, and you could find yourself in legal trouble. We do our best not to throw you to the wolves, but don't put us in that position or lawyers may eat you, including ours.

8. Obviously, people can and will still find some way of sucking while abiding by these rules, so this list will continue to grow as need be. Above all, you can avoid the ban-hammer by acting responsibly, being respectful, and so on.

9. If you desire to post spoilers, then please make it clear in the title and beginning of your post that you are posting spoilers. Also, do not post spoilers in the comments in other peoples posts without a warning. People who are caught posting spoilers in a malicious way will be banned.

10. User generated contests are OK, but please don't tell users to spam the Community Blogs or Forums as part of the contest. Please keep the contest contained in the contest blog post. 

11. Above all else: HAVE FUN! DON'T FAIL/SUCK!