Community Rules, Guidelines & Policies
Hey folks! Welcome to Friendly Local Nerds - I’m so glad you could join us. This community is meant as an easy-access portal to all things nerdy, geeky, pop culture and collectible that’s in Canada or enjoyed by Canadians. As with any community, there are a few rules and guidelines in place to keep things tidy and help you along your way, and this handbook goes over all of them.
Please Note: even if you don’t read this thread in its entirety, or at all, by signing up for an account here you are agreeing to abide by the community’s rules and that you agree to be held accountable for the consequences of any infractions.
Last Update: August 10th, 2021.
Friendly Local Nerds’ Community Rules;
The following are rules, which means if they are broken, consequences will happen.
Easy Rules:
- Don’t be an asshole.
- Absolutely no gatekeeping.
- Read the rules/pinned threads of boards you post in.
- There is no censoring of swear words, but don’t overdo it.
- The minimum age to join the forum is thirteen (13) years old.
- The spread of conspiracy theories or misinformation is strictly prohibited.
- All signatures have a maximum height of 100 pixels; go horizontal vs vertical instead.
- No inappropriate, graphic or explicit usernames, avatars (profile pictures) or signatures.
- No gifs or videos as avatars or in signatures; it can effect the server and seizure disorders.
- Do not spam the forum; no emoji-only posts, rapid-fire mass replying, pointless messages, etc.
- Discussions should be kept vague or general; no graphic talk of sexual acts or traumatic subjects, etc.
- International members may not promote or advertise their non-Canadian businesses, products or creations.
- You may only have one account registered on the forum. If you wish to unlock your account, contact us via email.
1. No harassment of community members. This includes sending repeated, unwanted messages to people, giving harsh, unsolicited criticism, repeated complaints someone won’t sell, trade or buy with you, extensive mocking or ganging up on others and stalker-like or aggressive behaviour towards members. Sexual or threatening harassment will result in instant bans and the possible reporting of your IP address to the authorities.
2. Keep private details private. Doxxing is a serious problem that’s ruined people’s lives, and we don’t care about your reasons. Let the authorities handle it, if someone has committed a crime and report anything that happens here to the moderation team. Otherwise, we expect you to keep things shared with you private, to not post people’s names, ages, locations, emails, etc and to keep your info safe as well.
3. No illegal content. This includes; admittance or encouragement of crimes, endorsement of serious offences (such as rape, murder, etc) or telling someone how to do something illegal, including ‘light’ crimes such as underage substance access. This does, unfortunately, includes digital piracy and any associated links or directions. We all hate Amazon and the mouse, but you should be paying creators.
4. There is a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination of any kind. This includes 'jokes' in ill-taste, inappropriate memes and general shitty/asshole behaviour aimed at marginalized and minority groups. Devil's advocating, straw-man arguments, 'hot takes’, 'all lives matter' or 'be tolerant of the intolerant' stuff isn't acceptable either; we follow the policy that tolerance is a peace treaty and those that break that treaty are not welcome, which the far right and intolerant do by design.
Specific Policies:
1. The direct posting of explicit or ’NSFW’ (‘Not Safe for Work’) things is strictly prohibited. Linking to explicit relevant creations is allowed in a limited capacity, mainly in the Creativity & Crafting board, the model/figures areas, in the Classifieds & Directories section or through our advertisement policy, provided you post the appropriate warnings. This includes sexual content and gory imagery. If your boss can’t look at it over your shoulder, it’s ‘not safe for work’.
1. Examples: you may link to a nude model you painted, but you cannot embed the image directly into your post. You may put a link to your horror art Patreon in a signature, but you cannot use an excessively gory picture as a preview or link. Both examples need to have a warning they contain NSFW content attached to comply with the policy.
2. The advertisement of your own relevant content is allowed in a limited capacity. If you are Canadian or live in Canada and own a nerdy business, have made nerdy products, have a related blog or site, run a relevant event or create nerd content of some kind, you are allowed to advertise such things within reason. The general rule of thumb is that, provided you are otherwise active, you can post in areas dedicated to posting people’s content or businesses, or that you can point others towards your content or business when they ask you to. Nobody likes people who dominate a discussion with their thing for no good reason.
1. Examples: if someone posts a thread saying ‘looking to buy [X] in [area]’ and you happen to live in that area and sell [X] at your shop, you can let them know. If someone says they’re looking for queer D&D content and you happen to make some, you can link them to it. If someone asks who will be attending an event, you can respond that you are. You can post a picture of something you’re making to a ‘what are you currently working on’ thread. You can post whatever is appropriate in a thread aimed at business owners. But if someone posts about [X], you can’t reply saying you sell [Y] and it’s better, cheaper, etc. You can’t make a thread just to humblebrag about your business. No hidden advertisement things or pretending to be a customer ‘reviewing’ your own product. No spamming your link in every post you make.
Guidelines to Keep in Hind:
- This forum is open to international folks and/or the less nerd orientated… but it is expected that you keep things relevant to the overall forum’s topics; aka, Canadian and nerdy. We welcome all those looking to support our creators, businesses and events, but this isn’t the place to ask about your local American/European retailer.
- The nature of a forum means that everything posted here is publicly viewable. Your posts can be found on Google and guests do not need to register to view most threads. Please don’t say anything you’re not fully prepared to share with the world… or the creators, business owners or event organizers you might be talking about. Things to note: your profile is not viewable by the public, nor is your signature.