Moderating Guidelines

The following are simple, easy to use guidelines for staff members of the MRC and OIMOLW in how to Moderate boards, what actions are allowed, etc.

Moderating the General Purpose Board

• First rule: NEVER delete a thread. Either close or move a thread instead. Unless the thread is an advertisement, then see the section on Moderating Advertisements.
• Second rule: ALWAYS post a reason why your closing a thread, even if your post only consists of a sentence and a link to the rules.

• First suggestion: Always treat the post you make as a professional post. Don't post your irritation, rage, etc. about how people didn't read the rules and/or FAQ for the board. It happens, so just make your post, close the thread and move on.
• Second suggestion: Never use sarcasm. Online in a board setting, it never works. Even with nice [sarcasm][/sarcasm] tags it doesn't work. Plus, its unprofessional (see First Suggestion)

Moderating a board you are GM of

Moderating a board you GM is different from boards that are shared resources. You as GM have full control over what you want on your boards, and what you allow with the following two exceptions:

• First, you must have at least one post that outlines the basic information required for your game. On most boards this is known as the Leadership, Personel, Rules, History and FAQ post.
• Second, by policy it is best to lock/close a game thread that has ended. Deleting is not a good way to keep a history of your unit. If you feel you still need to clean your board up though, please make sure someone makes up a PDF file of the entire thread before you delete it.

Instructions on how to do this will be are here: PDFCreator.

Also, if you must delete something game related, make sure to do a good writeup and place it in the History section of your required post.

Moderating Advertisements

Advertisements by tradition at the MRC only are allowed on the General Purpose Board, and only after they have been approved by lanji. People to post advertisements are advised to make sure they post Approved by Lanji in their post, so if you are in the process of viewing any board and see an Advertisement or Commercial Endoresement that is not directly related to anything or approved by lanji, delete it immediately.

Please make sure to post a topic on the EITD Boards about deleting the topic, and the Username of the individual that posted the topic.

Constitutional rights on advertisements

Just in case someone brings up the subject, while the MRC believes in upholding First Amendment rights to the United States Constitution, within the bounds of our Rules and Regulations, commercial text is not included in the First Amendment. Commercial speech of any type is protected by a something known as the Interstate Commerice Clause, a case decided on by the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

In short, commercial speech is held to a higher standard then regular speech, and as such is not protected by the First Amendment.