No Spamming, Flooding, or Disruptive Posting
Spamming, which is the act of repeatedly posting pointless messages for the sole purpose of gaining points of post count, is not tolerated here. Please, when you post, make sure that your post is:
On-topic with the theme of the topic
Longer than 3 words
Not annoying
Not for the sole purpose of earning posts or points
This kind of behavior is not to be tolerated on any Forums of Online Gamers. One Forum here, General Discussion, is typically more lenient to the quality of posts.
"Bumping" posts, which usually results in short posts being made, will be covered in the next section. "Bumping" is exempt from the Spamming rules.
When responding to a topic, please try to avoid saying non-contributive responses, such as "Cool," or "Awesome." It's not really against the rules, but it is not a good example of a quality post, and continually posting those kind of messages over and over may result in a Demerit.
If you need to say something else in a post but forgot to say it, DO NOT MAKE A NEW POST ABOUT IT! Instead, use the edit button that is located at the top-right corner of your post. Doing this lets you edit your existing post to add any additional information or content to your post. Failing to do this is counted as double-posting, and is a form of spamming.
"Flooding" is the act of posting numerous new topics (instead of just replies) in any given Forum, each serving little point of purpose. Doing this is disruptive to the Forums, as it pushes down all of the legitimate topics to the next page or so. If you have numerous questions you'd like to ask or points you'd like to bring up, please do so in one topic instead of 10. There is no point to "flood" a Forum with numerous topics. If you do such a thing, you will receive a temporary ban for flooding.
It's better to post in an existing topic than to create a new one! If there is a topic on the first few pages asking "Who's your favorite Brawl character?", you don't have to make a new topic asking the exact same question. But there's also no sense in bringing back a topic from 8 months ago just to post in an existing topic (see Rule #5).
Disruptive Posting can be many different things. Basically, anything that is very annoying or unnecessary in your posts, such as using an excessive amount of smilies, or using a thousand exclamation points. If your post causes people to have to scroll their page over (due to a long string of text without any spaces), that is considered Disruptive Posting. If you use a ton of smilies in your post (20+), that is also considered Disruptive Posting. Even purposely posting in l33t or StIcKy CaPs is considered disruptive, if not called for (I mean, doing that once here and there is fine, but if EVERY post you make is like that, then it is disruptive).
5. Revive topics only when necessary
This is undoubtedly one of the trickiest rules that exists, simply because so much of it is either up to interpretation or is situational. To "revive" a topic is to post in it after it has been inactive for a long period of time. When people do this, the topic that was posted in is bumped up to the top of the Forum, regardless of how old it was. Normally, that's to be expected of posts, but when people "revive" old topics that have already been answers or are no longer relevant, then it gets disruptive and annoying, because not everyone checks that dates of the recent posts.
But, not always is it inappropriate and out of line to revive topics. As a general rule, you are encouraged to avoid going back more than 3 pages, or 1 week (in Super Smash Bros. boards), or 3 weeks (in other boards). These are just guidelines to give you an idea of a respectible time span.
Here are a few examples of when it is appropriate and when it is inappropriate to revive a topic:
If you are the creator of the topic, you may freely revive your topic whenever you wish, because if you choose to do so, then there is clearly a reason (such as you not getting the answer you wanted, or you want more discussion on the topic. This is OK.
If the topic is talking about where to find a certain item or something from one month back, even if the question was unanswered, it is not appropriate to post and answer it. It is no longer relevant after that amount of time, and chances are, the person would have already found what they were looking for. This is NOT OK.
If the topic is talking about something generic, like what your favorite type of music is, then it is probably ok to revive it. (Look at some of the posts and see if you think it's worth it.)
If a topic is already on the first three pages, going back and reviving a similar topic is NOT OK.
There are undoubtedly more situations regarding reviving topics than just these, but hopefully the aforementioned will give you an idea of when it is ok and when it is a bad idea to revive topics.
6. Do Not Advertise!
Do not post links in an attempt to promote your site or a friend's site in any Forum.
Posting links to sites that contains the information or content that the topic is about is acceptable.
You may freely have a link to your site or Forum in your Signature, as well as a link in your Website URL field of your Profile.
Any links posted must be appropriate for the general audience, and must follow - for the most part - the rules of Smash-Heroes, at least as far as appropriate content is concerned.
Here are some examples of appropriate and inappropriate means of Advertising:
"Visit my site!
https://onlinegamers.forumotion.com/ IS NOT OK! "Does anyone have a site that has (information)?"
"Yeah, I have that information on my site, here:
https://onlinegamers.forumotion.com/" OK
"I need answers to (question)!"
"http://www.google.com" OK
"Please check out my site, it has cool stuff like Online Gamers'!" NOT OK
7. Avatar and Signature size restrictions
In order to accommodate to the users that have slower connections, all Avatars and Signatures must be reasonable in height, width, and filesize.
For Avatars, the following restrictions are in place:
The maximum size for Avatars is 150x200. Anything larger than that stretches the posts and makes the viewing experience unpleasant.
The filesize for Avatars must be 64kb or less. This means no long, animated Avatars.
Avatars must follow all rules of the Smash-Heroes, which include (but are not limited to): No inappropriate language, offensive, bloody, lovey, prejudice, or otherwise inappropriate content contained in the Avatar.
Failure to comply with these restrictions will result in your Avatar being removed and possible banning or being temporarily disallowed from Smash-Heroes. If you continue to use rule-breaking Avatars, your ability to display Avatars may be suspended.
For signatures, the following restrictions are in place:
You have 500 characters to work with in your signature.
You may have a maximum of 3 images in your signature, and the combined filesize of all of the images in your signature needs to be under 100kb. Anything larger only causes an obscene amount of loading time for those that have slower connections.
Each image in your signature may not be larger than 600x250 in dimensions.
Inappropriate language, remarks, or content in your Signature (either in text, images, or resulting links) is not allowed, and all signature content must comply with the Rules of the Smash-Heroes.
Failure to comply by these restrictions will result in your signature being removed and a possible ban or being temporary disallowed from Smash-Heroes. If you continue to use rule-breaking signatures, your ability to display signatures may be suspended.
The following file formats may be used for images as Avatars, in signatures, or in posts:
.gif
.jpg
.png
Anything else must be converted to one of those formats, otherwise it will not be able to be displayed.
Avatars, Signature images and any images posted on our boards may NOT contain any rapidly flashing 'seizure' style designs. They can be visually irritating and actually harmful to people with epilepsy, so we don't want to chance negatively affecting anyone by having them on our boards.