Rules
Read them. They will be enforced.
- Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse for breaking them. Please refer to this page regularly in order to keep up to date.
- We require parental permission for anyone under 13 to be a member of the Guild.
- Read the Gryphon's Guild FAQ. It is required reading. The following are also required reading to belong to and post to the Guild: sticky threads and posts in the Admin Announcements forum.
- The rating for the Board and the Chat Room is PG-13 (TV-14).
Sexual innuendo and sexual behavior are not allowed. Take such behavior between consenting adults to PM or a more appropriate chat room. Friendly hugging and cuddling is allowed, but only with permission and consent of those involved; please note that many people don't like roleplayed contact such as licking, hugging, scritching, etc. Ask first!
Please do not use profanity in the chat. Swearing, vulgarisms, and the use of pejoratives are not allowed. Please note that some words are contextual. It is fine to refer to a donkey as an ass. It is not okay to use the word as slang or an insult. If you have to ask whether a word is allowed, just don't use it. There are plenty of other words which are not questionable or offensive and will communicate your intent.
If you link to a site that has swearing, post a warning. Please do not link to adult or sexual material in the chat.
- Chatspeak, "leet", all-caps, and similar should be limited. While some ALL CAPS are okay for emphasis or humorous intent, and acronyms like LOL, BRB, and AFK are fine, excessive use of such conventions is discouraged and will result in a warning. Ppl, u, ur, a/s/l and similar are not allowed, as they have been known to drive gryphons berserk, and berserk gryphons are a pain to clean up after.
- Roleplaying in the main chat room (#GryphonGuild) should be limited. In-character (IC) real-time interaction is permitted, including short pastry scuffles and the like, but please refrain from long plots and scenes. Extended pie fights, combat RP and similar are not allowed in the main chat because they tend to drown out others' conversations. Although it's perfectly all right to post emotes (using "/me [does an action]" or in *astericks*, etc.) such as *the red gryphon preens his friend's golden feathers*, "Guilder perches in the rafters", if you are carrying on a scene or story with someone, or if there is a heavy emphasis on emotes and RP in your conversations in the chat, please take it to PMs, the Guild's RP forums, or the Guild RP channel (#gryphonguildrp). This is a very case-by-case basis, mostly to ensure that it doesn't interfere with anyone's conversations.
- The Guild RP channel (#gryphonguildrp) is for in-character interactions and roleplay. Out-of-character comments should be limited to those necessary for the RP (BRB notifications and such) and general chat and discussion should be taken to the main channel (#GryphonGuild) or PMs. All other rules for the Guild and Guild chat also apply to the RP channel (pg-13, no drama/angst, etc.)
- Angst (drama, self-injury, talk of suicide, "emo" behavior) is not allowed in the chat. People in the chat are not equipped nor expected to deal with crisis management. If you are feeling depressed or self-destructive, please seek the help of a professional. If you are considering hurting yourself please consider calling or emailing a support hotline. Please do not rant or vent excessively in the chat; there is a subforum on the board for that (see sticky rules for Ramble Rant and Support subforums before posting). This rule includes RPed angst, drama, self-injury and so on.
- Media spoilers are a no-no. Don't post the ending to a book, twists in a plot, or descriptions of a movie's storyline, etc. Don't spoil such things for others.
- Flaming will get you banned. Period. Abusive behavior toward individuals and groups of individuals is not allowed, whether they are in the chat or out of it.
- Do not spam the chat. If you have a lot to say, put it in a couple lines, rather than fifteen short ones. This allows others to get their words in edge-wise. On a busy day in the chat, this is more important than when there are only a few people chatting some late night.
- Do not post links to websites that crash browsers or force them to act in uncontrollable ways, or otherwise prank fellow Guilders. Be clear what your links are about if they may be loud, disturbing or offensive. People do not appreciate having their time wasted.
- Chat Mods and Guild Admin have final say on policy and enforcement. Obviously, all rules are subject to an individual's interpretation. Though we do our best to enforce fairly, moderating is still a subjective job. Mods may also miss something in the chat if they were away or just not reading carefully. In the end, what the mods and admin say constitutes breaking the rules goes, and if you are asked to stop doing something by an admin, please do not complain, resist, demand clarification, or try to talk your way out of it -- this can result in a board-wide ban. Please politely stop as requested. Moderators and admin do a lot to keep this Guild running and it is not an easy (and frequently a thankless) job. If you have a problem with these rules, this may not be the place for you.
- Punishment for breaking rules is being booted from the chat. Repeat offenders may be banned from the Board entirely. Admins/mods within the chatroom reserve the power to boot people from the chatroom at their discretion. Boot and ban durations are at the discretion of the mods. Anyone attempting to get around a chat boot from an admin will receive harsher discipline ranging from temporary bans to permanent ones.
We have two chats. The first is an IRC channel. Instructions on how to join the IRC chat can be found below. Our other chat is a web-based chat, which can be accessed here. The same rules apply to both chats.
Frequently Asked Questions
#GryphonGuild IRC Channel
Q. How do I connect to the Guild Chat?
A. The Guild chat is an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel (room). You can use an IRC or telnet client to connect. Some popular IRC clients include mIRC, Trillian, and IceChat. IRChelp.org is a great site that will answer all your questions about how to use IRC, including connecting and commands.
Server: irc.furnet.org
Channel: #GryphonGuild
Q. How do I change my nickname?
A. If you didn't enter a nick (username) into your client, the server (furnet) will assign you a nickname, which is usually preceded by "Guest". If you want to change it, type:
/nick [your name]
If the nickname is already in use or belongs to someone else, you will be changed back to a Guest, and must choose a new nickname.
Q. How do I register my nickname?
A. You may wish to register your nickname so other people can't use it and pretend to be you. To do so, type the following in any IRC window:
/msg nickserv register [password] [email]
Replace "password" with your chosen password, and make sure you save it (I recommend a program like KeePass Password Safe). Replace "email" with a valid email address. If you do not log in for a period of time, your registration will expire, and someone else will be free to use the nickname.
Q. What do the "@", "&" and "~" symbols next to people's names mean?
A. Those are the admin and mods of the channel. They posess the power to change the topic, boot and ban people from the room, and otherwise take care of things in the channel. It is their job to enforce the rules, so please listen to them. In some IRC clients you will only see the "@" for all admin and mods. In other clients, "@" denotes an Op (Operator), "&" denotes a Super Op, and "~" is the channel's founder.
Q. How do I send a private message to someone?
A. Type:
/msg [nickname] [message you wish to send]
In many IRC clients, it will automatically open a new window. Alternately, it may be displayed within the channel you are chatting in with *YourNick* preceding it, and if another person sends you a private message, it will have -> before it.
Q. How do I make my chat text show up as an action?
A. Type:
/me [action you wish to perform]
e.g. /me jumps down from a rock ledge.This will send the message:
Nickname jumps down from a rock ledge.
Q. Someone is bothering me, or I don't like what they're saying. What do I do?
A. If they are breaking the rules in the chat room, /msg an admin or mod (someone with an "@", "&" or "~" in front of their name). If they are not breaking the rules but you are still uncomfortable with them talking to you, or seeing what they're saying in chat, you can ignore them. In any window, type:
/whois [their nickname]
This will return their information (sometimes in your channel window, sometimes in the server window, depending on your client and settings). It will look something like this:
Guilder is Guilder@something.something.provider.com (Gryphon Guilder)
Armed with this information, you now type:
/ignore [user's nickname@user's host] [-|+|^] [message type]
For example, to block all messages from the person above, you would type:
/ignore guilder@something.something.provider.com ALL
This would ignore all their private messages to you and their normal channel conversation.
If they change their nickname or are getting around the ignore, you can ignore the provider itself using wildcards, such as:
/ignore *@*.something.provider.com ALL
This will ignore everyone who is using something.provider.com. Note that this may unintentionally block people you didn't mean to if you make it too broad.
To unignore someone type:
/ignore [user's nickname@user's host] NONE