OS-Tan Collections Rules and FAQ (Please read)

[Goujer (she/her)]

Rules are subject to change at anytime.

Please read this, whether you read it or not these are the rules you will be held to.
In order to have a complete and convenient way to know all rules or FAQs for this site, this thread is the official topic for the rules. This thread is the only place you should seek to know what's OK and what's not. Therefore, this post prevails over any other posts in case of conflicts regarding rules.

Table of contents :
Website Rules - What may be done, or not
1 - Terms of Use
2 - Age requirements
3 - Copyright policy
4 - Forum posts
5 - Pictures maximum sizes
6 - Avatars, Signatures
7 - Long-time members privileges
8 - AI Generated Content
9 - The Warning Meter
10 - Gallery Rules

Etiquette - How to be polite on a forum
a - Understand the speed of a forum
b - Search for a topic before making one
c - Only necro when it makes sense to
d - Be On Topic
e - When to or not to double post
f - How to @ people appropriately

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
A - General technical forum FAQ
B - May I become moderator?
C - I hate the default theme, are there a other themes available?
D - I can't access (+18) Hentai and Such section?
E - I want to participate in the wiki/gallery but it says incorrect password when I log in?
F - I want to submit a new banner?
G - Do you support COPPA?
H - What is this site income?
I - Where are the servers located?

Website Rules - What may be done, or not.

1 - Terms of Use
While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented or any other material that may violate any applicable laws. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned (and your service provider being informed). The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should they see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered above being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent the webmaster, administrator and moderators cannot be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

This forum system uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any of the information you have entered above; they serve only to improve your viewing pleasure. The e-mail address is used only for confirming your registration details, password (and for sending new passwords should you forget your current one) and for wishing you happy birthday.

By Registering you agree to be bound by these conditions.

2 - Age requirements and 18+ content
This board is open to any people from 13 years old and above. Hentai sections are restricted to 18+ years old.
Material or discussion that is determined to be 18+ must be placed in the proper 18+ areas. Failure to do so will result in a ban. When in doubt contact a moderator or admin.
Content that is viewed as too extreme or depicts endangerment of a protected group will be removed and posters will be banned.

3 - Copyright policy
All files posted under the forum, gallery, wiki or any other places of this site must be free to share, or your own work. It is tolerated to post pictures under fair use (which means, to illustrate something and without stealing intents) as long as it's not abusive. You are not allowed to post any other non-free copyrighted files without the agreement of the author.

4 - Forum posts
You must post when you have something to say only. Posting small posts ( <= 10 words for example ) without any real interest and / or without link to the topic may be erased without notice. Abusive short posts will be considered spam and may lead to a warning and / or a ban. Ultimately, it is up to the thread owner, moderators and admins to decide if such posts will be allowed or not. If unsure, please contact thread owner AND post smart in the meantime.

5 - Pictures maximum size
5.a : Picture thread(s): No size limits whatsoever; random picture thread contains next to no text to read, so large images should not pose any problems.
5.b : Everywhere else in forum: Stick to maximum display dimensions for pictures: 640x480 - all linked pictures exceeding those limits may be manually edited by an admin.
5.c : Within a Wiki article, please use thumbnails for pictures. To do so, use the [[Image:example.jpg | 300px]] tag. If doubts, please contact an admin or the wiki moderator.
5.d : There is virtually no maximum size for the gallery.

6 - Avatars, Signatures
6.a : Nearly anything goes for avatars, but if you are found to have an avatar that is too disruptive or is in someway viewed as an issue, moderators and admins hold the right to remove your avatar without warning.
6.b : Signatures can be either text or pictures (or both). You can put anything you want in the signature, as long as it doesn't exceed a size of 500x175 pixels. Text signatures are also under these limitations of size. If you current signature exceeds this size, please make an effort to make it fit. Maximum size of 500x175 include both text and picture(s).
We will not cop on these size limits, and it's not very bad if you exceed by a little only, but please keep in mind everyone has not a speedy connection and that everyone doesn't like seeing sigs more than posts contents. As long as your avatar or sig is not intrusive, it'll be ok.

7 - Long-time members privileges
Such a thing doesn't exist.

8 - AI Generated Content
The owner of this site believes that AI generated content is plagiarism and is a threat to society.
Audio, imagery or written material created using or by an AI is not allowed. Posting of this content may result in warnings or a ban. This is up to the discretion of the admin or moderator.

9 - Warning Meter
The forum employs a warning meter that will fill up as your receive warnings from moderators.
You may also receive warnings for your actions on the Wiki and Gallery as well.
The warning meter is a on a scale of 1-100.
The warning meter goes down by 1 level everyday.
Different things will happen once you reach certain threshold on the meter.
Level 10: You will be placed on a watch list, this means all moderators will receive a notification when you post.
Level 51: You will be blocked from posting anything on the forum until your warning level drops below 51.
1st offenses will be given a warning of 5, 2nd: 10, 3rd: 20, 4th: 40, >=5th: 50.

10 - Gallery Rules
Gallery Rules can be found here.


Etiquette - How to be polite on a forum

a - Understand the speed of a forum
Forums such as this are a very old method of communication compared to modern platforms such as Discord and Tumblr. There are many similarities to those methods of communication and a forum but a forum is meant to be slower and more curated. Posts are meant to be a bit longer and more thought out, and a reply is not guaranteed.
This is something to check a few times a day when meaningful.
Of course there are places on here where this is more relaxed, typically these areas are marked as such.

b - Search for a topic before making one
This forum has had many topics made over its many years of existing. If there is something you want to post about, make sure you look around and check if any topics that apply to that post. It may be better to find a topic closer to your discussion than make a new one.
Overzealous topic creation, or duplicate topic creation may lead to your topic being merged and warnings being issued.

c - Only necro topics when it makes sense to
As mentioned this forum has many old topics. But not all are free game for a reply. Topics like Forum Games and topicless are always welcome to reply in no matter how old. But certain topics, such as a creative writing discussion project topic are not unless you are one of the original members of the discussion.
Some topics are made as someone's work piece and for referencing. We don't want to bury someone's work if it is not needed.
Failure to follow this may result in a warning and post deletion.
If you are uncertain or in doubt, contact a moderator or admin for advise.

d - Be On Topic
Staying on topic is important to a forum. Topics are individual discussions about what their title describes. If you go to a pizza place you expect to find pizza for sale, not clothing.
Other topics exist for a reason. If you thought of an off-topic tangent to the topic you are in, find or create a topic that is appropriate for that and post there. Abundant failure to do so may result in warnings.

e - When to or not to double post
Double posting or tacking on a nothing post to bump up a topic is typically not beneficial to the forum. It is mostly considered rude and loud mouthed. Sometimes a topic or post doesn't get a reply or attention, that's okay, no one hates you.
You might considered deleting your topic and moving the discussion to a more general topic, like On topic[less], if you want to put something out there that might not stand well as an alone topic.
That said there are exceptions, such as when you make a topic with the topic description as the first post and then add your thoughts as the second post.
When in doubt ask an admin or moderator.
If you are caught bumping too much you may receive a warning.

f - How to @ people appropriately
@ing people is a newer feature of the forum. It lets you send an alert to someone from a post.
Typically this is done to show that you are responding to a certain person's thoughts in a reply post, or to direct someone's attention to something you know they might be interested in.
Do not @ people to bump your topic or to try and get engagement, it is rude. If you do this excessively you may receive a warning.


FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

A - General technical forum FAQ
You can check forum general FAQ here, common to any forums.
Here are topics covered :
* Login and Registration Issues
* User Preferences and settings
* Posting Issues
* Formatting and Topic Types
* User Levels and Groups
* Private Messaging
* Attachments

B - May I become moderator?
No, you can't. And best way to not be one is typically to ask to be one.

C - I hate the default theme, are there a other themes available?
Yes, you must login then go to your forum profile, select "Look and Layout" then "Current Theme".
We currently have Windows XP, Ubuntu and Open Suse themes.

D - I can't access (+18) Hentai and Such section?
You must be part of the adult group. To do so, please login and go to the My Groups panel from the menu in the top left of the screen, then request membership to the adult group.
You must have your birthday supplied in your profile and it must show you as 18 years of age or older.
Ultimately, it's up to the admins to accept or not.
Please note, this group is not used only for Hentai, members are not all pervs.

E - I want to participate in the wiki/gallery but it says incorrect password when I log in?
The Wiki and Gallery operate on a separate login system than the forum. At one point the forum and wiki shared login info but the method of doing this is no longer functional.

F - I want to submit a new banner?
You can send your banner by a DM (to Goujer) or in a thread. If it's good enough, it'll be uploaded.

G - Do you support C.O.P.P.A.?
Not strictly, but the site is small enough that it might not matter much.
That said we like to make sure no one under 13 years old is on the site, those found as being younger will receive a ban lasting until they are 18 years old.

H - What is this site income?
Right now I am looking for a way to add a small banner ad to the bottom of pages so the site can provide some income on its own.
The goal ideally is to make this as unintrusive as possible.
We highly encourage you to install an ad blocker such as uBlock Origin and a privacy protector such as Privacy Badger if you do not wish for ads.
If you want to help support more directly you can make donation to Goujer, however.

I - Where are the servers located?
Earth

[Goujer (she/her)]

The Site Rules have been massively overhauled, I took a lot from the original rules made by Fedora-tan back in the day, but they have been updated and had a bunch of content added to them. This should be a better one stop shop for all the rules.

[Goujer (she/her)]

Added Gallery Rules