[Benjamin]

Just a reminder of the rules for the forum, please take the time to familiarise yourself with them:

• The list of mods/admin on this forum can be found here. Feel free to send us a message if you need any help regarding anything.
  
  
• Please do not tell the moderators or admin how to do our jobs. We know our roles on here, and we can all see each others actions and have been doing this job for years. Constantly doing this will not work in your favour.
  
  
• You may not use this forum as a means of advertising your own website.
  
  
• Do not post all in capital letters, or use txt speech. Not only does it look bad, it is also very hard to understand. You may get a warning for the first time you do this, but in general, threads like this will just be deleted. If it persists, infractions will be given.
  
  
• Do not speak in foreign languages, this is an English speaking forum, so please speak in English. (The odd word or sentence is acceptable but post after post is not).
  
  
• Do not insult other members in any form, be it in a thread, visitor message, PM, social group or blog. If someone insults you, report it and ignore. Do NOT report it, and then answer them, as this winds things up more. To add to this, do not knowingly try to cause arguments. We are not blind and even a little sniping comment can spark off a huge argument.
  
  
• Do NOT abuse the report button. We get hundreds of reports a day. Please don't report things that are not breaking any rules as it only makes our job harder. Someone saying something bad about your favorite housemate does not justify a report. If you do submit too many false reports, you may find YOU are the one who is punished.
  
  
• Do not insult fans of housemates. It is fine to insult housemates, to a certain extent...as long as it is not too over the top (eg. $^&%*%(% is such a fat ugly horrible bitch, I wish she would just die a horrible and painful death) but insulting fans, counts as insulting other FMs. This includes stereotyping fans (IE. all &^%&*$%&^ fans are shallow) and accusing people of jumping on bandwagons, just because they like someone you do not.
  
  
• Fan threads are for exactly what it says, fans. Please do not enter these threads and insult the fans and/or the celebrity. You will face the consequences if you choose to ignore this.
  
  
• Racism/homophobia/xenophobia/discrimination of any sort will not be tolerated and will be punished, no questions asked.
  
  
• Do not make threads/posts asking why members are banned, you do not need to know.
  
  
• Spam will not be tolerated. This includes posting posts made entirely of smileys and posting GIFs 24/7. The odd post like this is fine, but when it becomes frequent, or you appear to add not much else to the forum, a warning/infraction may be given. The one exception to this, is in the LF discussion thread, where screenpcaps of what is happening are often posted. Creating multiple thread on the same subject also qualifies as spam. We do not expect you to read every post, however, it is easy to scan through the first page and see if there is already a thread on the subject you are discussing...before you post your thread.
  
  
• Posting pornographic images and images deemed unacceptable by the mod/admin team will also incur action against you, the same as posting links to a pornographic website or video. Again, younger members use this site too, please bear that in mind.
  
  
• Posting spoilers, without a spoiler warning in the title, and spoiler tags inside the thread, will be punished. Not everyone wants to know things before they happen. To post a spoiler, just put the text inside [ spoiler] [ /spoiler] (minus the spaces)
  
  Spoiler:

  
  
  
  And it will show up like this
  
  
  
• Do not dispute infractions or warnings on the main forum. This causes unnecessary drama. PM a member of staff, or reply to the infraction message and we will get the message and look at the post again. Do not do this if you did break a rule. Just accept the infraction and move on if this is the case.
  
  
• OTT housemate hate will not be tolerated. This includes making posts simply to insult a housemate without adding anything else to the post. It is obviously fine to criticize housemates, however...there is a line that should be clear to most people. And posts saying, for example 'Emma is a dirty slutty bitch' with no other content, is pretty pointless and will probably be deleted and depending on the actual wording used, possibly an infraction would be given. Wishing death, or harm on housemates is also not allowed. Please remember you are talking about real people here, people who have simply signed up for a gameshow.
  
  
• Insulting mods is never a good thing and will only lead to you getting further punished, so think about that before insulting us on how we do our job.
  
  
• If a thread gets locked, and arguments removed, then the thread is reopened, do NOT continue on the argument. It causes unnecessary work for us, and is frustrating for the other members. You may receive an infraction for doing so.
  
  
• Do not try to avoid the swear filter, it is there for a reason. If we find you to be doing this a lot, you will receive an infraction [this includes swearing in gifs, jpegs etc.]. Please remember that people as young as 13 have access to this forum.
  
  
• If you create a multiple account, your ban will be increased further, no disputes at all, whatever your reason for creating said account (the length is at our discretion - typically 3 days). If you continue to make multiple accounts, your ban may be made permanent. If you then continue to make accounts, a complaint will be sent to your ISP. Just dont do it...
  
  
• Do not have inappropriate images in you avatar/signature (this includes swearing). Also, keep signature sizes to a minimum. A signature that takes up too much space, will be removed, and if you continue to add it, you will be punished. The signature guidelines can be found here.
  
  
• If one of your posts is edited, do NOT re edit it. It was edited for a reason.
  
  
• If posting information on something, please include a reliable source or you may find your post/thread deleted.
  
  
• If you would like to host a forum game you need to ask permission from the mods/admin first. You can do this by requesting in the Games & Awards Thread. You will then be told if you are allowed to run the game and when will be suitable to run it.
  
  
• Awards for games will be at Admin's discretion. They may or may not allow you to have an award for the game.
  
  
• Please do not just create a game and expect it to run when you want. Other games are going on, as well as BB/X factor, so you could find your game just deleted if you choose not to follow the instructions.
  
  
• Any member that would like to run a forum game will also be required to have at least 1,000 posts.
  
• In short, just be respectful to other members, and put some thought into your posts. Most members won't even need to think about the rules as they would do this anyway, but some clearlyt need this long version typed out so here it is
  
  
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  On a totally separate note, if there are any newbies reading this post wondering how to get started (ie. get an avatar and brighten up your account) there is a thread here with the links you may need
  

[Benjamin]

Just bumping this as we have several new members and more will be signing up in the lead up to the next BB.

[Benjamin]

Think it's worth bumping these again just to refresh everyone on the rules of the forum.

[Vicky.]

Copied over...as it was pretty hidden and some clearly do not know the longer version of the rules

Also ammended, as it still had wording about the private appeals forum which sadly, had to be removed due to misuse.