Rules
Welcome to The Rabbit Hole community forums. We're a laid back group, so be polite, have a sense of humor, and have fun, and we'll all get along swimmingly! By popular demand, we've put together a list of community rules and guidelines, so please enjoy reading this scintillating material...
Gameservers
Come play games with us, we'd love to have you! Here are a few rules to keep everyone's experience a happy one:
- No cheating, hacking, or exploiting maps. There really is no excuse for this and we will happily ban you.
- No racism, sexism, harassment. See the forum rules if you're unclear on the definition.
- No derogatory, racist, prejudiced, or sexist remarks.
- No porn or offensive sprays
- Show good sportsmanship. Don't whine about spawn camping, crit kills, unfairness, and so on -- it's a pain to listen to. If you suspect someone is hacking, alert an admin or take a demo and submit it to us.
- No bashing other players because of their skill level. Everyone is welcome here as long as their goal is teamwork.
- No (excessive) profanity
- No spamming text or chat commands
- Don't impersonate admins
- Don't abuse the voting functions
- Please support the intended style of gameplay on each server (fun and events on TRH1, "srs bsns" on TRH2)
- On TRH2: No micspam
Follow the rules and obey the admins and moderators. If you disagree with them, don't argue on the server. If you feel an admin or moderator has made a wrong decision or abused his or her admin powers, please bring the issue up with the senior staff at . Explain the situation in as much detail as possible and expect to be asked for proof in the form of screenshots or demos.
Forum Content
We don't take ourselves too seriously on TRH, and we hope you won't either! But to preserve wholesome (or at least marginally decent) discussion and your mother's innocent eyes, we would like to remind you of our forum rules.
Do not make provocative or offensive posts for the purpose of agitating others or venting hostile feelings (e.g., trolling, ranting, flaming). Posting links to browser hijack sites, shock sites, and other malicious content is not allowed, even if it is done jokingly. In extreme cases, breaking these rules may be grounds for an immediate ban.
Content that is not safe for work (NSFW) must be posted on the N(ardo)SFW board, especially as some of us check the forums at school and work.
Meaningless or one-word posts (e.g., pyramid quotes, quote trains, big blocks of quoted text followed by "This", a quoted sentence followed by five smileys, etc.) do little to contribute to interesting forum conversation and are rarely as amusing as you think. We also don't like spam posts (including repeated posts of the same content), or posts advertising other clans or server communities. Please avoid all of these.
Threads should have descriptive subject titles. If your thread is named something unhelpful like "hey, check this out!" we may rename it on your behalf. Duplicate threads may be merged with existing topics, moved, or deleted. When posting a URL, please include a short comment about where it leads and why you're linking it. I suspect not many people bother with uncommented YouTube links.
If your post was edited or deleted and you are not sure why, please review the forum rules. Do not make posts asking why other posts were moderated. Reposting material that has been removed may be considered a violation of forum rules. We may delete entire threads that you just happened to post in. In this case, please don't think this reflects badly on you.
Signatures and Avatars
Signatures should be no larger than 200px tall by 500px wide, under 70K, and be in good taste (no nudity, profanity, gore, or other content inappropriate for school or the workplace). Please keep animations to a minimum - they should not be flashing, blinking, spinning or otherwise distracting from the forums. We may love you, but we don't always love the freaky flying toasts, Azumanga Daioh jiggly boobs, busty women ironing babies' bums, dancing sandwiches, spastic power rangers, flashing tentacle heads, hypnotic swirly smilies, and 3-minute Meet the Spy animated .gifs. ;)
Avatars should be no larger than 90x90px (the forum should set this for you on upload) and conform to the same content restrictions.
Depending on the forum settings, your signature may only appear at the bottom of your first post on each page.
Users with oversized, weird, inappropriate, or distracting images will be asked to change them. If we don't hear back from you, or if your signature is just too bad to keep showing up on the forums, we may remove it or (depending on our mood) replace it with the pretty rainbows and unicorns signature of your dreams.
Accounts
Each user only needs one account on the forums (and on Ventrilo). Nobody loves a sock puppet. You are responsible for all comments made on your account and actions undertaken with your Steam ID. (i.e. no dog ate my homework excuses. ;)
Ventrilo
Our Ventrilo server is open to all community members, so be welcoming and courteous to others! If you're a new visitor to the TRH Vent server, introduce yourself so we can meet and greet you. Any applicable gameserver or forum rules apply here too, such as no racial slurs, sexist comments, or harrassment. You know we're cool with jokes now and then, but please don't let it get out of hand and make sure the other party is okay with it.
- Use reasonable phonetics for your name. Nobody wants to listen to the text-to-speech introduce you for 30 seconds.
- Make an effort to use the channels as intended. If you're in the Random Chat channel, expect that it can get noisy -- we like to talk! If you're in a game channel, please keep the unrelated chat to a minimum as others are trying to play.
- Phantoms take up user slots on our Vent server. Please don't use them when the server is full.
- Please use headphones and a push-to-talk key. We'd prefer not to listen to ambient noise and echoes.
- We don't have many private meetings or conversations, but sometimes they do need to be private. Don't interrupt if you've been asked to leave.
- Admins may move you to other channels with your permission. Users who are disruptive, however, may be moved, kicked, or banned at the admin's discretion.
Harassment
Harassment of others is considered a very serious offense in The Rabbit Hole and serious cases will result in immediate community-wide bans. Types of harassment include
- frequent or severe ridicule of other members' physical traits, personality, abilities, ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, religious choices, etc.
- bullying of individuals or groups through persistent negative attacks or other behavior intended to cause distress, lower their self-esteem, or be intimidating (including girls, gays, furries, foreigners, bad players, and Chris)
- pestering another user over any medium (in-game chat, Ventrilo, private forum messages, forum posts, IM, phone, etc.)
- impersonating other users
- unwanted attention of a sexual nature
- distributing information on any user's identity or otherwise compromising their privacy without their consent
If you have been harassed by other TRH members or on TRH servers or webspace, please report it to the administrators at .
Bans
We truly don't enjoy banning people (except for cheaters and server trolls) and will always try to warn people before taking action.
Users who violate forum, Ventrilo, or other community rules will be warned by the admin staff and may have their TRH accounts suspended. Admins will generally alert you of in-game infractions verbally, in text chat, or with a kick, and may escalate to temp bans depending on the response and the situation.
Permanent bans are enacted when users grossly or repeatedly violate forum, Ventrilo, or server rules. Attempting to circumvent a ban will lead to additional bans and may result in the permanent removal of your account.
Ban and Unban requests will be handled only through our Sourcebans interface. Please keep comments supporting or discouraging the banning or unbanning of members out of the forums.
Contact Us
If you have questions about specific incidents or moderator actions, please contact the TRH staff at rather than sending private messages or chats to individual admins. We handle issues as an administrative team and want to ensure that your feedback is handled promptly and appropriately.
If your comments are so sensitive that you worry about sending them to the admin email list, you may contact the "Master of Rabbit Discipline" (j/k) directly at .
The Real Thing
We all bend the rules a bit when we're with friends — all of us regulars are tolerant of various infractions that make up people's lovable personality quirks. We're not trying to restrict people's fun or, God forbid, do any babysitting (bug's most hated activity) by posting rules. If anything, this will help the admins' job be less of a pain. But please try to follow the spirit of these rules, especially in situations where admins may need to take action to prevent copycat behavior. We want TRH to be a welcoming place for everyone!