General Conduct

Before you begin conversing with the Mortal Kombat Online community, please make yourself aware of these rules and regulations for posting on the forums.

There are several general rules you should keep in mind when posting on any forum in the Mortal Kombat Online community. These general rules will be listed below for your convenience; more specific rules will follow below these.

• Post new topics in the correct forum. For example, a topic relating to Mortal Kombat 3 belongs in the 2D Kombat Klassics forum, while a topic concerning action figures belongs in the Media & Merchandise forum. If you are uncertain about the topics of each forum, refer to the Forum Index, or description at the top of each forum.



• When posting, make an effort to check that another user has not already created a thread addressing your topic. If you are intending to post multiple times about a similar subject, please consider creating a single thread to accomodate this common topic.



• Clearly state your topic when creating threads in the subject line.
  Topics with no subject, a vague subject (i.e. 'help'), or threads found to be using 'luring' or ambiguous words or phrases may be edited by a moderator. Altering these changes may result in penalties or loss of permissions.



• Posting in old subjects is a-okay. When posting in an old topic, just ensure you are genuinely interested and have merit to continue the discussion. Using existing topics is encouraged and made easier using the search function.



• Do not reply to your own topics excessively or without adding new discussion. Users found bumping their own topics may receive skull points or warnings; continuous attempts at bumping topics may result in the threads being locked, and further penalties.



• Do not type in all caps, or use excessive punctuation, in your thread subject line, or your reply's message body. Posts of this nature will be edited and could be deemed as spam in some instances.



• Links or discussion regarding where to obtain ROMs are illegal and will be deleted immediately and the parties warned. This includes any type of hardware/software piracy. Users found violating this more than once will be penalized or banned.



• Links or images to pornography are not allowed. This includes nudity and strong sexual situations. This FAQ serves as the only warning regarding this rule; users found posting such material will receive a minimum three month ban depending on the severity of the offense.



• Links or images deemed to be infringing on the rights of the owner may be removed (such as embargoed previews; magazine articles). Repeated instances of ignoring this issue will result in a ban. Images or videos which belong to another site's "pay content" section fall under this rule.



• Any form of plagiarism is strictly disallowed. Users found plagiarizing another person or company's art or ideas will be immediately banned. When referencing information, users should be encouraged to provide clear sources and links to relevant documents.



• To prevent flooding and abuse of the forums, you are limited to creating five active threads per forum. This means that any thread active within the last 24 hours or a thread that is still on the first page of that forum after this period counts towards that total. Users found creating excessive amounts of topics will be warned and possibly banned.



• Posting spoilers to recently released material is considered the height of bad manners. Be sure to place potential spoilers between spoiler tags by highlighting text in the editor, or including tags Spoiler goes here. Forum topics should never contain spoilers.

Moderator Edits

When in violation of any posting rule, a moderator will often edit your post. These are not to be edited by yourself, or removed. Imitating or faking moderator interaction will result in severe warning or bans. Users should never impersonate or misrepresent a senior member of staff or moderation.


No Flaming

Harassing and degrading other members is not acceptable. As such, there will be very little tolerance for "flaming". Arguments and debates are a healthy and natural part of the forum experience, but users must always remember to respect their fellow posters. Flaming includes all of the following points:

• Excessively degrading or maliciously addressing other users.
• The use of racist, sexist, or discriminatory remarks at any time.
• Harassing other users persistently in any manner.
• Harassing other users via MKO's private messaging syste.m

Posts found to contain this content will be issued skull points and their source will be warned. Users are asked to use the private messaging system (or off site means) to carry on these debates, however if one party feels the other is harassing them without cause moderators will take action against this person. Repeated instances of this on the public forums may result in a temporary of permanent ban. Each case of flaming will be handled individually and at the sole discretion of the moderators and Staff.


No Spam

Spam is defined as any message which purpose is offensive, has no substantial content, or is generally unwelcome. The term "spam" itself is very broad and is often used to cover a rather broad range of posts types. To better identify what could be deemed �spam� on Mortal Kombat Online, please refer to the following set of definitions:

• Threads or replies which are nonsensical in nature
• Posts in threads that are not of the same topic as the original lead message
• Posts which contain only emoticons or pictures in an unwelcome manner
• Inappropriate responses to questions or other topics

Many instances of spam over a short period of time, also known as �flooding�, will often cause immediate warnings or bans to be issued. Moderators reserve the right to edit or delete any posts deemed as spam. Repeated instances of spam will bring harsher punishment including warnings, skull points and bans.


Advertising

Many members of the MKO Kommunity may have interesting links to material they are working on themselves, or may be of interest to other users. Providing this is not in violation of other rules, users should feel comfortable to share this material, in moderation. Forum staff may require that you contain these posts to a single thread. Another effective way to share work you are producing is with a forum signature, which can support banner images and links.


Banning Policy

Each instance of a user being banned by one of the moderators differs from each situation. With that holding true, each instance may be handled differently from one user to the next. Moderators reserve the right to issue bans at their own discretion. Banning includes removal of access to posting on the forums as well as submitting a message with the private message system. In some cases bans are permanent. If you feel like your ban was unjustified or wish to see if it is possible to get your ban removed please submit a ban review. Links to ban reviews will appear when trying to post a thread on a forum, or using the private message system.