Forum Rules

Overall Rules:
1. You may not post anything that is lying, mis-leading, or violates the law. This includes anything about software piracy, illegal downloads, and stealing.
2. You may not post anything abusive, vulgar, insulting, harassing, hateful or obscene that may possibly be considered offensive by another user.
3. You may not post anything that directly attacks another user (this is called flaming or threading).
4. You may not post anything that discriminates against others via discussion of race, religion, color, creed or national origin.
5. You may not use excessive amount of emoticons (smilies). 2-4 will normally get the point across. 8 is the maximum amount.
6. No excessive use of exclamation marks. 1-3 per sentence is normally enough.
7. The user is responsible for whatever they have posted – remember, we track IP addresses.
8. You may not advertise other sites unless they are in the right forum. Other Zoo tycoon sites belong in the Zoo tycoon sites forum. Other sites belong in the other sites forum. Signatures do not apply to this rule.
9. The misuse of HTML or BBCode to affect more than just the individual post or reply is not permitted.
10. Multiple accounts are not allowed. We check the IP address to look for this. If you forget your password, you can post in the guest section and an admin will help you. If you are a family that visits are site please PM and admin and let them know.
11. Do not post in dead topics. Most threads will be closed if they are 30 days or older, unless they are pinned. If you would like your thread back open let and admin or mod know.
12. Do not bump topics. This is considered spamming.

Posting/reply rules:
1. You may not post in all capital letters. It is considered shouting.
Example: THIS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING!
2. Try your best to use the best spelling and grammar that you can.
3. Do not use excessive abbreviations.
Example: r u 4 sure u r going 2 IHOP 2nite?
4. Do not double post, unless it is after 5 minutes and you have valuable info to add to the thread.
5. Backseat Modding (eg: "This topic should be closed" or "Raise this members WL") counts as spam. This includes telling other members they did backseat modding.
6. Abusing or misusing the edit button will result as SPAM.
7. may not post a non-contributing reply in any stickied topic more than 6 months old.

New topic rules:
1. Don’t post a topic with the title in all Capitals.
2. Try your best to put the topic into the correct forum. We will help you if you misplace it.
3. You may not post the same topic in 1 different forums.
a. You should check to see if a topic has already been discussed before posting. The search facility is there for this reason. Please use it.
4. You may not use “Please Read” in a topic headline. Members will read the topic if they want to.
5. You may not start any political or religious threads.

Signatures:
1. All signatures comprised primarily of an image must not be more than 150px high and 600px wide. Anything greater and an admin/mod will give you a warning. If you violate this again you will receive your warning raised. If you do it again we will ban you for 14 days. If you repeat it one more time it will be for 3 months. The image itself is recommended not to be more than 100px high, though this is merely a suggestion.
2. The misuse of BBCode or HTML in signatures is strictly prohibited. URLs are allowed ONLY if they do not violate overall rule #9 above.
3. Signatures are considered part of a post and must not violate any of the overall rules as stated above.
4. You are allowed to advertise sites in your signature as long as it is a family friendly site!

Current Projects:
1. Current projects that are posted here are to be projects that will be released here or at an affiliate’s site.
2. If you use another designers model you must first show us written permission from that designer that you are allowed to use it.
3. DESIGNER THEFT WILL NOT BE TOLLERATED!!! This includes stealing someone else’s skins/coding and passing it off as your own. If you do not have written permission we will consider that as theft also!
4. Do not pester designers! They will complete their projects when they want to or are able to.
5. Do not ask designers to make certain projects, unless they have asked for requests.
6. Do not criticize a designer’s work. If you don’t like their project then don’t download it.
7. Do not ask a designer(s) if you can do projects with them. Use our Skinner/coder requests thread to ask for someone to do projects with you.

Downloads:
1. When submitting a download please use either savefile, filupyours, or plunder.
2. You are not allowed to submit a download from another designer without permission.
3. You may download something while it is in the submitting forum, but only at your own risk! The download hasn’t been tested and who knows what it could do to your computer.
4. If you need help with a download post it in the “download help” thread in either one of the 2 downloads forums.

Images:
1. When posting an image please use either imageshack, or photobucket and post it as a thumbnail.
2. Do not post any images that may be abusive, vulgar, harassing, hateful, or obscene. Examples are posting some major violent pictures, cuss words in the pictures, pornography, religion, or a direct/indirect insult to someone.

Avatars:
1. Avatars are to be 90 x 90 pixels at maximum. Anything bigger will result in a warning.
2. All rules above apply to avatars!

Clubs:
1. Do not pester club leaders to be in their club.
2. Do not insult a club.
3. All above rules apply.

Violations
1. First violation may result in the post / reply / topic being deleted and a written warning issued.
2. Second violation may result in the post / reply / topic being deleted and the user being banned from the forums for 48 hours.
3. Third violation may result in the post / reply / topic being deleted and the user will be banned from the forums for 14 days.
4. Fourth violation may result in the post /reply/topic being deleted and the user will be banned indefinitely from the forums.

Any member of the staff has the right to enforce any of the above punishments. Any member of the staff may decide on the appropriate action to be taken in case of a violation.

5. Making a new account to circumvent an account ban will result in your IP being permanently banned.

Some Other Helpful Hints
1. Use the SEARCH function often. It is a great way to find out if anyone has the same interests or questions as you.
2. Most questions about these forums are answered in the forums FAQ, which stands for Frequently Asked Questions.
3. Threads are frequently moved around to the appropriate forums, use the My Topics function to find posts that you have started.

Note: The rules are able to change at any time!