Forum Rules

Discussion in 'Ninjutsu' started by Simon, Nov 3, 2013.

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  1. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

    This post lists the various rules, guidelines, and essential information which used to be lists in many different places. It has been edited for form and layout, while preserving the information

    Newbies please read

    In order to avoid confusion and to keep some of you from being mistaken as a troll, may we make a few suggestions?

    1) Read through as many of the Ninjustu posts as you can, before asking your question(s). The answer may already be there, then you can ask to clarify any fine points.

    2) Don't be afraid to ask questions. We won't laugh (well, not too hard anyways). There are quite a few knowledgeable people here that will be more than happy help.

    3) No politics please. We personally don't care if you train in the Bujinkan, Genbukan, Jinenkan or any other X-Kan, Ninjukai or whatever.
    Also, please don't disrespect someone because they are a member of a different organization.
    It's just possible that you can learn something from them.

    4) You may not agree with what we or anyone else says about Ninjutsu. That's cool, we never said you had to, but present your counter in a civilized manner. We will all enjoy this section more if we're not flaming each other.

    5) Video games, fiction books, movies are not Ninjutsu. If you come off sounding as if you just walked out of one, don't be surprised when no one takes you seriously.

    6) We don’t have all the answers nor anyone's word final. Don't believe everything you read here. Take the time to do research outside of MAP to get your answers clarified. The answers are out there, if you know where to look.

    You'll need a minimum of 20 posts before you can post in the Ninjutsu forum.

    Posting Ninjutsu questions and threads outside of the Ninjutsu forum will be seen as a breach of site rules.

    You may have noticed that the ninjutsu forum has a subsection.

    Ninjutsu Resources

    This is to be used to build a library of articles and posts that members feel are either worthy of serious discussion, or will otherwise prove helpful in furthering our understanding of our art.
    It is recommended that new members to the art/forum do a search of the resources forum before they post a question. You are, of course, welcome to start a thread with your question, but if you think it’s the sort of thing that might have been asked before, you'll get the best response by using the link above.

    Looking for a Ninjutsu Dojo is your area?

    Bujinkan:

    Bujinkan Martial Arts - Warrior Information Network (WIN) Yellow Page Links

    Genbukan:

    Dojo Locator

    Jinenkan:

    http://ryusuidojo.com/Jinenkan Locations.html

    Member conduct

    The ninjutsu forum is a place where many different people can come together for the friendly and open interchange of information on Martial Arts. As a website, we have no agenda and no political leaning one way or the other.

    Ninjutsu Practitioners – MAP is and always will be open to everyone. You are welcome to come here and discuss whatever you like on your art, but if it gets too heated/unfriendly, the Moderation Team need to take action. If someone is being directly offensive towards Ninjutsu, or you, please report their posts so we can act on it. That said, disagreeing in a civil manner is not a breach of the TOS.
    Martial artists who are non-Ninjutsu are just as entitled to come in here and get involved as you are, so long as they conduct themselves within the TOS. Topics that are not clearly related to Ninjutsu may also be moved to a more suitable forum.

    Non-Ninjutsu Practitioners - If you want to come in here and post, you are entitled to do that and we have no plans to restrict access to this section, however you need to conduct yourself in a respectful manner. Flaming, harassment and derogatory behaviour will not be tolerated and will result in the moderators stepping in.
    You should remember that although you are entitled to be in this section, you are in the Ninjutsu section and may read things that do not fit with your personal view on Martial Arts. That does not give you the right to openly bash them or make off topic derailments of threads.

    Everyone - If you have to counter someone that you disagree with, do it respectfully and don't swear, insult, make digs or use personal attacks. If someone does it to you, don’t lower yourself to their level and report them using the report post feature. If you decide to attack them back, do not be surprised if the moderators take action against you also. If what is being posted here is really that bothersome to you that you can't do either, show some self control and don't post.

    MAP is an internet community, which you are all an important part of. In the same way you need to call the police if a crime has been committed in your own community, you may need to contact us if you feel things are not going smoothly here. We want to help stop the problems this section has had, but cannot have eyes everywhere and need your assistance. For that you can use the ‘report a post’ button. Please also be aware that the mods are not on the board 24/7, so just because you don't get an immediate response to a reported post, it doesn't mean we are not aware of the problem and in the process of dealing with it

    Reporting Posts

    Breaches of member conduct

    Ninjutsu as a conversation topic has been shown to be generate a significant amount of bitching, whining, swearing and personal attacks. Despite various softer warning, people have thought their contributions to this place outweighed the fact that they refuse(d) to tone down their behavior and breaches of the ToS.

    Bitching, off topic videos and personal insults will not be tolerated on MAP. If someone insults you, please report the post. Do not escalate the situation by responding with your own attack, as this will also be considered a breach of the ToS. Although trolling (i.e. posting in a manner clearly designed to provoke extreme reactions rather than to contribute to discussion) is against the terms of service, we do not consider every instance of disagreement with the dogma of specific groups to be trolling and it will not be treated as trolling unless it is clearly designed to annoy rather than to query or ask for answers/information.

    The Mod Team will use their judgment about whether you're being an ass or not. So if there's any danger that what you're posting could be interpreted as you being an ass towards another member, we're not going to accept "I was subtly making sure that I stayed just inside the TOS while being an ass" as a good excuse.
    Posts will be deleted and repeated offences will result in bans. If you can't post without taking a swipe at somebody then don't post at all. There will be no debates and you will not receive a pm from a mod warning you that you have breached the ToS. making sure that I stayed just inside the TOS while being an ass" as a good excuse.

    As a simple rule of thumb: instead of trying to judge whether posting in a certain way will allow you to get away with insulting other members, just don't insult other members.

    As in real life, not knowing the rules is will not be accepted as mitigating circumstances. If you break the rules, you will get a warning or whatever level of ban the Mods feel is suitable for a ToS breach.

    Terms of Service

    Trolling (which includes posting comments designed to wind up the regulars) will be dealt with severely. Posting random, stupid or 'funny' comments may also be treated as trolling if the poster obviously has no intention of contributing to a thread.
    Whilst we don't want to discourage back and forth banter, there are a growing number of posters who are doing 'drive-by' posting in threads which they have no interest in contributing to. Please don't do this. If you have nothing useful to add to a thread, please think carefully before posting in it.

    When a Mod asks for an issue to be dropped, repeatedly referring to it in the thread is not appreciated and can be treated as a breach of the ToS. There are a number of posters on here (MAP in general), who don't know when to shut up and seem to think it's clever to try to get the last word in.

    Posting videos

    If you are posting a video and honestly asking for an opinion, understand that this is a worldwide board, full of people experienced in different arts and there may be political disagreement between you and the people giving their opinion.

    It is natural for anyone to see what they do not like easily. It is easier for them to post that as well. Do not always take this as a negative. Sometimes what may come across as smug by some can actually be sage advice.

    Others well they may have an agenda, just accept it. Respond as you may need, however keep in mind that these people do not affect your lives or your training. Go on with what you feel you need to. It's an opinion. Furthermore, it is an opinion you asked for.

    Attacking each other’s organization

    We are sick and tired of people making pathetic attacks on each other's organisations. If it continues we will be handing out bans and complaining that 'well x started it' will not get you any brownie points.

    The fact that people in the same organisation often agree with each other does not make it a conspiracy, but is to be expected. They train in the same techniques, with the same mindset and outlook on life. However, when they disagree it is also not a sign that said organisation in imploding. Human nature dictates that people with the same background will disagree, so using this as a method of attacking them is also not acceptable.
    Now that might sound like a contradiction in terms, well it is, but it is also true. So we would appreciate it if we could leave out the sweeping statements attacking other people's organisations and concentrate on reasonable discussion.

    You might not like the Buj or the Indies, but we am not having any more threads disrupted by petty insults. Reasonable criticism is fine, childish, underhand digs are not. If you can't make a post without a bitchy little snipe, then we strongly suggest you don't post any more.

    Anonymity

    MAP is an anonymous forum. We do not require people to give out their real names and you should also respect the rights of those people who have chosen to remain anonymous. There are a number of reasons for MAP remaining anonymous:

    1. The internet has its fair share of unsavoury poster and we have had a number of incidents in which members have been threatened with violence by people they have disagreed with. By allowing people to remain anonymous we grant them a level of protection from those that would do harm.

    2. Child protection – we have a number of younger members and it is generally safer for them not to reveal their identities on a global forum.

    3. A number of posters (including moderators) have been threatened with ‘never grading again’ or ‘you’ll never be welcome at seminars’ by people with whom they have disagreed (or moderated) from their respective organizations. By enabling posters to remain anonymous we prevent this sort of behavior stifling debate and/or enforcement of MAP policy.

    4. There are organizations that have an unreasonable dictatorial stance about discussing the art on public forums. We aim to encourage discussion about all martial arts styles.

    5. Insisting on the use of real names can encourage people to try and "pull rank" in discussions and similarly discourages people from debating with others who may outrank them, be better fighters than them, or have political influence within their organizations.

    6. From a philosophical standpoint, anonymity allows people's ideas to stand alone without subjecting them to all manner of ad hominem nonsense (your views on kata don't matter because you came 12th in that kata competition etc).

    7. There are a people who wish to remain anonymous for personal and/or work related reasons.

    So in conclusion, MAP always has and always will allow people to post under anonymous user names and we request that you respect this policy and not disrupt threads with constant requests for personal information. There are plenty of other discussion fora that require posters to identify themselves by name. If this issue is of particular concern to you, we suggest you use those fora.

    Reporting a post

    You can report a post by clicking the red warning triangle icon in the top right hand corner of the post in question.

    This will take you to another screen where you can type a brief explanation of why you believe the post should be moderated. Reported posts are confidential. We never say who reported a post, and only moderators will even know that a post has been reported.

    How this works is it creates a notification that every single moderator can see. This makes it more reliable than a PM to a moderator, as the soonest available moderator can get look at it. Granted this still isn't instant, but it is usually much faster than sending a PM.

    You can still contact mods via PM if you would rather, but this may take longer if they aren't around.

    From there on a mod will take action as deemed necessary by the mod team.

    You should only report posts that you believe are against MAP's rule or are causing a problem. If you simply disagree with the poster, then counter their argument in the thread. We won't delete posts that don't break our rules, even if they may be stupid/boring/not in line with the status quo.

    Private messages still have to comply with the rules. If you have had an abusive PM, then forward it to a moderator.

    Quote button

    When discussing a topic in a back and forth manner, it would help immensely with post clarity and moderation if people would use the 'quote' function when referring to other people's posts.

    The 'quote' button can be found at the bottom right hand side of each post, under the poster's signature. If you hover your mouse over it, it will show 'reply with quote', click it to quote that post. Next to the 'quote' button is the 'multiquote button'. This allows you to quote a number of posts from different people in the same reply. To use this function, select it for each post you want to quote and then for the final post you are quoting select the 'quote' button. Your reply will then contain all the posts you are referring to.

    For those of you who prefer to use the Quick Reply function, clicking the Quick Reply button (to the left of the Thanks button) gives you the option to automatically quote the post by ticking the "Quote message in reply?" box between the main text box and the "Post Quick Reply" button.

    The Mod Team would like to thank Count Duckula, who took the time to put all of the previous stickies into one post.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 25, 2017
  2. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

    The forum rules are clearly shown within the Terms of Service, however, there are few points worth making.

    No personal attacks. We have no problem with people expressing an opinion on an article, video or person's views, but verbal insults are not appropriate and will be removed.

    New threads with random videos, or one line posts such as, "what do you think of this?", where there is no input from the poster or attempt from them to start a discussion may be treated as spam and removed.

    You risk a ban if you continue to post videos or one line posts with no attempt at promoting discussion.

    Please add your own thoughts along with your video or link.

    Jokes about bodily functions will be frowned upon and may be removed. Remember we are a family friendly site.

    Make sure you comply with our no swearing policy. Masked profanity is also banned.

    You are not allowed to write asterisked curses (e.g. "You are a *******" etc) any more than you would be allowed to write the words themselves.

    Trying to circumvent the policy by posting abbreviations such as (WTF, BS etc) is also breaking the rules.

    These rules can be updated at any time and the onus is on you to check in periodically to review the forum rules.
    We will allow supporting members to place an advert for their club (including personal contact details) in their style's forum.

    These adverts will need to be approved by a member of the MOD Team and will be closed to any replies.

    Please contact a member of the Moderation Team if you have any questions.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 25, 2017
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