Charter 2.0 - Required Reading

Given that the previous charter was a hulking behemoth full of kneejerk reaction rules to problems we were having at the time, I think it's time for a grand revision, just to tidying things up and keep the rules a little clearer. When you've finished reading, please thank this post to indicate that you have done so and are going to abide by these rules. If you're not willing to abide by these rules, then you can find the exit here:

1. First and foremost, you must obey the boards.ie Terms of Use. In case you skipped those on the way in, they're over here. In brief, no spamming, abuse, NSFW content, illegality, etc.
   
   
2. Returning fire is as bad as opening fire. If someone hurls abuse at you, and you hurl it back - you're both in trouble. "But he started it!" is going to get you about as far as a unicycle with no wheel. So, take a deep breath, step back from the situation, and use the report button (). We'll handle it from there.
   
   
3. Buying and Selling: If you have something you're trying to shift, be it a textbook, a UCD ball ticket or a second hand bike, and you think a UCD student might want it, you may not post an ad here. You may, however, post an ad on boards.ies sister site adverts.ie, and put a link in one of our For Sale stickeys, links to which are in the Useful Links sticky.
   
   
4. If more than a quarter or so of your post is in a language other than English, please include a translation. If we can't read it, we can't moderate it.
   
   
5. Discussion of Piracy, including ways to circumvent the UCD firewall and such, are explicitly banned. While this rule may seem redundant, as such posts would break the ToU and rule 1 anyway, We've had problems with this in the past, so it needed to be said.
   
   
6. Whedon's Law, aka: Don't be a Dick. If you're jumping into a thread purely to give out to someone for bad grammar, abuse them for a poor result, tell them off for not using google - consider doing something more constructive with your life.
   
   
7. NO SHENANIGANS! The rules above are by now means all-inclusive. If you're acting the maggot, but not breaking any of these rules, we'll still come down on you. If you think you shouldn't do something, you're probably right

That's the crimes, here's a selection of the punishments available:

1: Warning
2: Infraction
3: 1 Week Ban
4: 1 Month Ban
5: 1 Year Ban
6: Permaban

In general, first time offences will start with smaller punishments, repeat offences will result in punishments of increasing severity. However, and this is important, This is not a step by step checklist. In some cases, we will skip levels among these, including jumping straight to infractions/bans for initial offences, if we feel it is warranted. Generally, if we feel you've been around long enough to know better, we'll come down harder. Likewise if you've just wandered into the forum to stir ****, don't expect to come back.

That's all from me, as mentioned above please thank this post to show your acceptance of these rules. Anyone who pings my radar and didn't thank this post, will be come down upon like a ton of bricks. Metric, rather than imperial.