Site Rules for MTS

[Bardo]

Welcome to MtG: The Source (MTS), the largest non-official discussion forum devoted to the Legacy format of Magic: the Gathering. Before posting on this site, take a few moments to read and understand this site's posting rules and guidelines.

Purpose of these Rules. It is the responsibility of all contributors to this site to provide a healthy and productive environment for the free exchange of ideas to share, advance and enjoy the Legacy format of Magic: the Gathering. To provide the foundation for such an environment, we ask that all forum contributors abide by the following forum rules. While these rules apply to you, they exist for everyone else.

While we encourage you to read all that follows; for the more attention deficient amongst us, we’ll boil these rules down to two simple points:

1) Be civil and respectful to others
2) Use common sense

Topics:

1.0 Writing Skills
2.0 Courtesy (No Flaming)
3.0 Lack of Content (No Spam)
4.0 Intellectual Honesty (Model Posting)
5.0 Prohibited Topics
6.0 Forum Specific Rules
7.0 Warnings and Bannings

Appendices:

A. Frequently Asked Questions for New Users

By posting on this site, you agree to follow these Site Rules.

///////////////

[Bardo]

Presenting your thoughts clearly and coherently encourages others to take you seriously and to listen to what you have to say. The best way to do this is to use proper grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure. Also, spell your words correctly. Note the "Go Advanced" posting panel has a spell-checker.

Also, don’t post in ALL UPPERCASE letters; it’s like shouting into someone’s eyeballs. And unless you’re the reincarnated spirit of the beloved 20th century poet e.e. cummings, don’t post in all lower-case letters either.

Use paragraph breaks to separate larger thoughts and avoid writing run-on sentences. Also keep faddish abbreviations in check -- that is, spell your words out.

We know that no one is perfect and we won’t hold anyone to unreasonable standards. Basically just take the time to post so that others will care what you have to say. A good gauge of this and something we encourage everyone to do is to preview your post before making it public. If something looks wrong or isn’t making sense, edit your post so that it does.

After you’ve submitted your post for the whole world to see, read your post a final time and edit accordingly. The more obsessive amongst us go so far as to write most of their longer posts in Notepad or Word before sharing it with the world. We don’t expect you to be this fanatical, but we do expect you to make an effort to write quality posts that contribute to the conversation.

[Bardo]

Simply, be respectful of other forum users. If you can't control the urge, go somewhere else.

In the past, MTS has taken a beating in public opinion for condoning inflammatory, offensive and ugly forum behavior. To an extent, this was true and while it looked crude to outsiders, it was more or less acceptable when the site was small, and when many of the posters knew each other and didn’t take the vulgarity and flaming personally.

As Legacy has grown after the September 1, 2004 Type 1/1.5 banned list split, so has the membership of this site. Accordingly, we’re taking inflammatory posts seriously these days and far less tolerant of flaming/insulting users of this site.

The short of it is this: be respectful and decent to others -- both publicly (forum posts) and privately (PMs). If you see someone acting like a raging douche bag to you or someone else, Report the Post to the site staff. (It’s that little red triangle in the bottom left-hand panel in every post.) Engaging trolls and responding to flame-bait will get you a warning, so just ignore them and report it to us.

If you’re looking to get banned from MTS, flaming others is the quickest way to get that job done.

Last, a Note about Private Messages. While the threshold for flames and insults are lower in the public areas of MTS, if you're using the forum software to deliver insults and harassing comments via Private Message (PM), that is not acceptable either. While we ask that you attempt to resolve the conflict through less formal means at first, if you continue to receive derogatory and insulting messages via PM, forward the message(s) to a mod/admin and we'll take care of it. Harassment of other users via PM may result in warnings, up to a site ban.

[Bardo]

Ever since Internet bulletin boards and Usenet newsgroups sprang up in the early 90s’, we’ve all had to deal with worthless posts and ideas - honestly, far too many of them. At MTS, posting without meaningful and relevant content is the easiest way to get a thread locked. Before you post, ask yourself if anyone cares what you have to say on the topic. If no one will, keep your thoughts to yourself.

Other posts falling into this category:

• Posting decklists without content. Those will be locked as soon as we see it. There's no hard and fast rule about how much content you need with a new deck, but it should be it should cover the basics (e.g. why the deck is worth playing, notable card choices, what relative advantages/disadvantages it has over decks with a similar strategy, etc.)
  
• One-liners or even one-word posts. There's a fine line between wit and spam.
  
• Hijacking threads with off-topic posts. Stay on topic and make your posts in the appropriate thread to keep the discussion on-track and relevant.

In general, strive to add worthwhile information and perspective to the discussion at hand.


Important Note: The Decks to Beat Forum (D2B) has the harshest of all posting quality standards on this site. When that forum was first created, we discussed if only Adepts and above should be able to post there. In the end we settled on a compromise that all users can post there, but that the posting standards in the D2B are higher than the rest of this site. This means, no one-liners, poorly written posts, or other superfluous junk. Treat it like a temple and leave the garbage outside (preferably, on another site).

[Bardo]

The guidelines in the sections above establish the minimum standards of conduct at MTS; basically: 1) have a functional grasp of the English language, 2) be decent to others on this site, and 3) don't post garbage. However, as MTS is primarily a discussion and debate forum, we hope that all contributors to this site demonstrate and promote intellectual honesty in the presentation of their ideas.

Below are some guidelines to keep discussions on this site intellectually honest.

4.1: Above all, be honest and don't lie.

4.2: Criticize faulty lines of logic or incomplete reasoning, but don't personally attack a person making an argument. (see ad hominem attack)

4:3 Don't twist or misrepresent an opposing point of view for the purpose of easily refuting it. (see straw man)

4.4: Don't purposefully omit key facts or information that contradicts your point of view.

4.5: Check your facts.

4.6: Be willing to...

• Admit when you are wrong
• Acknowledge weaknesses in your argument
• Analyze your own biases and assumptions
• Be open to reasonable alternative points of view

Note that this section is framed as "model posting." If we seeing site users burning down straw men, not fully disclosing weaknesses in their arguments, not fully researching facts, etc. we're not going to issue warnings or do anything else punitive at a formal level. Rather, these are the guidelines we hope all posters can abide and embrace.

Lastly, nothing in this section applies to pre/post tournament trash talking.

[Bardo]

Most of the following should go without saying, but for the record, here’s a list of other off-limit topics and content.

5.1: Racially offensive or chauvinistic ranting: 1) will not be tolerated and 2) makes you look like an ass.

5.2: Requesting decklists. The search feature on this site is better than you realize.

5.3: Thread redundancy. If you’re about to start a new thread on a deck, do a quick search to make sure that discussion isn’t already happening somewhere else.

5.4: "Bumping" of threads. If you have no relevant content to add, don’t bump a thread to the top of the forum to get the discussion rolling again. The only exception to this rule is bumping of tournament announcements, but don’t go crazy with that.

5.5: Double-posting. Double posting is annoying and is just like bumping. If you wrote the previous post in a particular thread, just edit that thread and put in your new content. An exception to this is if a thread has been inactive for a few days (at least three) and you have something relevant and worthwhile to add to that thread (new testing results, changes to a decklist, etc.) Otherwise, just edit your posts with new content.

5.6: Discussion Threads on Premium Articles. Linking to premium articles hosted on other sites is acceptable, provided the article is related to Legacy and the author is willing to discuss their ideas on this site. Complaints about premium content are spam and will be moderated as such. (NEW)

5.7: Whining about the moderation on this site. We’re not infallible and if something is bugging you about the way a moderator handled something, PM that moderator, but don’t rant about it publicly. Which leads us to:

5.8: Backseat moderation. Don’t “wonder how long a thread will stay open.” If you see spam, just report it and let the staff deal with it.

5.9: Bold Red Text and regular old red text are reserved solely for MTS Moderators and Administrators. Don’t use it.

5.10: Public personal messages. If you’re writing a post for one or two other people, you’re writing a personal message and no one else cares. Send a PM (Private Message) instead.

5.11: Casual decks. Outside of Cavius' Casual Forum, restrict your deckbuilding on this site to theoretically competitive decks only.

5.12: Sales threads. Exceptions can be made by a PM to the staff in advance, otherwise don’t post sales or your open eBay auctions.

5.13: Assorted things that are annoying and will be deleted. This is is not an exhaustive list, but avoid the following: a) annoying signatures (length, images, etc.); b) offensive usernames, custom titles, and avatars; and c) blatant third-party advertising. The staff reserves the right to moderate this shit with extreme prejudice.

5.14: Discussion of politics or incendiary social issues. Discussing politics, religion, and the like invariably brings out the worst in people and leads to insults, then warnings and thread lockage. Exceptions can be made in some cases by clearing it with Mod/Admin first; otherwise, don’t do it.