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These forums were created several years ago, and at that time he established three rules: Keep it civil, keep it clean, and keep it on topic. Those rules are essentially the same rules I, the admins and the mods use today in the course of our duties.

Let's look at each one briefly (thanks to Eric for writing this!):

Keep it civil: Don't engage in personal attacks, name-calling, or blanket generalizations in your discussions. Say how you feel or what you think, but be careful about ascribing motives to the actions of others or telling others how they "should" think. People seeking to engage and discuss will find themselves asking questions, seeking clarifications, and describing their own opinion. People seeking to "win an argument" sometimes end up taking cheap shots, calling people names, and generally trying to indimidate others. My advice: don't try to win.

Keep it clean: Don't use obscenities, don't use clever tricks to run around the profanity filters, and don't link to sites with inappropriate content. The "acid test" we use is the "Grandmother Rule" -- if it would be inappropriate to say to or show to our grandmothers, don't do it. I want a typical 13 year old kid to be able to come here and participate if they want to without feeling uncomfortable. This should be a minor-friendly place. Think about it this way: how do you act around strangers or work acquaintances? You watch your language and you're on your best behavior. That's the ideal we're shooting for here.

Keep it on topic: Ok, so it's not that we actually forbid off-topic conversation. But keep in mind that this is a D&D and D20 site, with many sub-forums on lots of related topics. Try to put your posts in the right forums (it helps people find stuff, for one thing); off-topic posts go in the Off Topic forum. By popular demand, off-topic polls (not posts -- polls) are forbidden. And in this category I should mention the "no religion, no politics" rule -- please refrain from discussion of a religious or political nature. This last may seem a rather draconic rule, but it has helped keep the peace around here for a long time. There are plenty of places on the internet where one could have those sorts of discussion.

I'd also like to quickly address the issue of what to do if you feel uncomfortable because of another person on these boards. I'd hate to see someone stewing over something for weeks or months, and then leaving because they feel that the moderators don't care about their problem. It is important for you to realise that with over three million posts being made by over 50,000 members, we admins and mods can't know about everything that goes on. If you feel that there is a problem, or that someone is being mean to you or anyone else, please let a moderator know. However, please don't be offended if, in a given instance, the moderator doesn't agree with you. I can assure you that all of the moderators here do their best to be fair and frequently talk issues over. With that in mind, we do have a couple of rules when it comes to moderators, and we ask you to abide by them:

1) We appreciate that sometimes you will disagree with a moderator's decision, or feel that a request from a moderator is unfair or unjustified. With 50,000 members, we're not going to be able to keep everyone happy all of the time, so we settle for trying to keep most people happy most of the time. Whether or not you agree with a moderator's stance, we do expect you to abide by their decisions and requests.

2) If you really, really disagree with a moderator's position on a [moderating] issue, please don't argue about it on the boards. That means no calling out of moderators, no challenging their decisions in the thread, and certainly no attempts to go over a moderator's head. The moderators all discuss such things amongst themselves, and no moderator or admin is ever going to override another. If you honestly feel that you have been treated unfairly, please contact the moderator in question privately and discuss it with them. The end result may not be the one you were seeking, but we will do our our best to be fair.

I find it a little distressing that I have to codify the following in the rules, but several incidents have made it necessary. I would have thought this would be obvious, grounded as it is in basic rules of social interaction. But here it is: (1) do NOT post anybody's private emails or messages on EN World without their permission; and (2) do NOT post moderators' private emails to you ANYWHERE without permission. Ranting about a moderator's decision or instruction here elsewhere is pretty much saying "I do not respect your right to run your messageboard as you see fit", and, obviously, we do not want people posting here who who do not respect our right to run these messageboards as we see fit.

Thanks for reading! If you have a question or comment about this post, please start a thread in the Meta forum.

- Morrus, Eric, Piratecat, Henry, Darkness, Dinkeldog, Eridanis & Hypersmurf

Addendum: it should be clear that these rules are not exhaustive. A moderator instruction in-thread or in private has the same weight as any rules posted here.

Addendum II: if you are the recipient of moderation here at EN World, there's a strong chance that you'll feel the urge to send the old "power-crazy" and "abuse of moderator power" email to the mod[s] in question; in fact, it seems to be quite mandatory at times. In order to save you time and effort, it would be helpful if we just assumed that by definition you consider us both power-crazy and determined to abuse our powers (because, hey, what a terrific thrill it is to spend one's time chastising people on the intrawebs); and, to that end, it's probably not an efficient use of your time to type out and send said email. Although it might make us giggle.