Reposted and updated by Ayulsa, further updated and formatted by Deciare.
Well, we're pretty relaxed when it comes to rules, but there are a few common things you'll want to keep in mind. I'll list them all here for easy reference.
Table of Contents
- Board staff
- Post content
- Explanation of each forum
- Images
- Avatars and signatures
- Off-topic discussion
- Custom titles and Species
- Use of ARM member translations
- Advertising
- Disclaimers
- Miscellaneous
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1. Board staff
- Our forum staff currently includes four Administrators (aquagon, Deciare, Ayulsa, and wizzardx) and a number of Moderators (subject to change). Please ask us if you run into any problems.
- Usually, there should be at least one staff member online in case you need help. Check the Forum Staff section near the bottom of the Board Index for a list of staff members who were recently online.
- If you run into trouble but can't contact any staff members, try asking other forumers - they might know quite a few things, too!
- Even though they're the board staffs, they're still human (or Reyvateil), and may still make mistakes. If you see any staff member breaking the rules, be sure to remind them.
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2. Post content
- The main language used on these forums is English. You can post with other languages as well, but please keep it to a minimum rather than doing it on a regular basis. This rule also includes Hymmnos.
Feel free, however, to use any language for artistic purposes in Silver Horn, in your signature, etc.
The main point here is not to abuse other languages for wrong reasons or holding long discussions most members won't be able to understand. A few quick exchanges of words in Indonesian is fine, for example, but an entire page written in it (outside of threads specifically created for that) is not.
- Before making a new topic, please check to see whether there's already another topic about the same thing.
- Even though this is a community for fans of Ar tonelico, feel free to discuss anything else you like here. Just make sure it's in the right section of the forum. Please try to avoid discussions of religious, political, or adult nature, however, as they are very sensitive subjects that may get out of hand.
- If your post contains spoilers, be sure to enclose them in a set of [spoiler] tags. If a topic is likely to be full of spoilers, please make a note of that in the topic's title.
- Avoid using too much violent or rude language unless you have legitimate reasons (such as when writing stories). Also avoid using swear words and curse words; they're not nice.
- In very rare cases, Moderators may have to edit your post's contents. Examples include: when your post breaks the forum layout; when you post spoilers without warning; when you directly link to an oversized picture; or when you accidentally slip in a bad word. Any such changes will be as minor as possible.
- Trolling and flaming are not allowed. Consider other people's feelings as well as your own, and avoid insulting or pressuring anyone into doing something they don't want to. Don't make fun of people's weaknesses. Also, please avoid making careless comments like "it sucks". Whether something is good or bad is up to each person to decide. Instead, say something that expresses your personal opinion, such as "I don't like it". It's best to avoid posting in topics that discuss subjects you don't like.
- If you are being harassed or bullied by a forum member, including an Administrator, please contact one of the (other) Administrators for support. We'll do our best to make sure it stops right away.
- You can edit the contents of any of your own posts by clicking on the "Edit" button at the upper right corner of each post. It's recommended that you edit your post if you realise that you just forgot something, rather than making another post right away (a double post).
- Please avoid double posting (posting twice in a row) unless you want to add completely new and important information. For example, an author can double post successive chapters of a fanfic; and a translator make a separate post for each song in a song translation topic. Doing so keeps information organised, so it's okay.
- If you accidentally double post (by clicking on "Submit" more than one, or when your Internet connection experiences problems), you can click on the square icon marked by an "x" at the upper right corner of your post to delete the duplicate post. You can only delete a post that no one has replied to yet, though; if you need to delete a post that has already been replied to, you can ask a staff member to delete it for you.
- Please don't spam (by posting meaningless or unrelated content). Spam will most likely be deleted.
- When a topic gets old and you think there's nothing left to discuss there, you can ask a staff member to lock the topic. Regular members can't post in locked topics, but the topic can be unlocked later if necessary.
- As long as you're going to provide insightful information and interesting new discussions, please feel free to post in old topics (commonly known as "necroposting" or "dead topic bumping") even if they haven't had any new post for a long time. Unless necessary, there is really no need to make duplicate topics about the same subject.
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3. Explanations of each forum
- If a topic seems to fit in more than one forum, you can post it to the forum that you think is most appropriate. If it turns out that another forum was more appropriate after all, it can be moved to the right place, so don't worry.
- Observatory: If you are having troubles with the forums, or if you have any suggestions, feel free to post here.
- Members and Community: Here you can a learn a bit more about our community. This is also where you can introduce yourself if you're a new member.
- Wing of Horus: Everything that doesn't fit in the other forums goes here.
- Anime: For anime and manga discussions.
- Music: Anything music-related.
- Firefly Alley: Here you can discuss anything related to studying - be it for fun or schoolwork. Science, languages, technology, art, programming, guides, howtos, questions - anything goes. If you want to learn Hymmnos, however, please check Site-related Project Discussion.
- Dive Therapy: A place for quiet reflections and deep, serious discussions. Due to the emotional nature of this sub-forum, please avoid posting jokes or off-topic content here; they won't be tolerated and will get deleted much more easily than in other forums. This forum has an extra set of rules, listed here. Please read them before posting in the Dive Therapy forum.
- Ar ciel: Topics here should be about Ar tonelico (both At1 and At2, as well as discussion about the recently-released At3).
- GUST Games: For discussing games by GUST CO.,LTD. - the Japanese game developer and creator of Ar tonelico. Please don't discuss At-related subjects here.
- Gaming (General): Anything about gaming (that is related to neither Ar tonelico nor GUST), be it games, consoles or technology discussions.
- Site-related Project Discussion: This used to be a forum about contributions to the site, but somehow became a Hymmnos language discussion forum. Was yea ra chs hymmnos mea!
- The Silver Horn: Anything creative (art, avatars, signatures, wallpapers, fanfics, poems, etc.) can be posted here. Song translations should still be posted to the Site-related Project Discussion forum, though. Please do not take others' works without permission, and do not claim others' works as your own. Copyright violation is lawbreaking in most countries, and can get you into serious trouble.
- Axis Courtyard: A place where you can create/join a fanclub. It is not limited only to your favourite At characters. You may even create a fanclub of, say, red tea. However, please keep in mind that no matter how crazy the concept behind a fanclub is, it should still stay on topic. Otherwise, it might end up in Wackyhabara.
- Ar tonelico 2 Retranslation Project: The biggest community-wide project begins here. This area serves as a place for the team to organize everything in one area. For those of us who aren't actively participating in the project, come on in anyway and cheer the team on!
- Rakshek Resort: A forum for fun-related threads, such as "The person above me" game, and many more.
- Roleplaying: A forum is for organizing RP. Here you can take part in stories, submit character applications, and much more.
- Wackyhabara: This forum is the most random part of the ARM. Threads deemed to be too random or off-topic are moved there and you are free to continue the randomness there. Please do not start new topics in this forum. Also, note that all the other forum rules (besides randomness/off-topic) do still apply. This includes posting spoilers.
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4. Images
- On the forum, when posting fanart drawn by other artists, you're also encouraged to also credit the original artist (list their name, or give a link to their website) as a courtesy, but this is by no means required.
- Ecchi (somewhat suggestive pictures with slight nudity) images are allowed for direct viewing, but if a picture crosses the ecchi border, they should be made into a link.
- Adult images and images with excessive violence must not be directly displayed. Post those only as a link, and warn viewers about the image's content.
- No posting of illegal or forbidden images or materials.
- To directly display an image, enclose the image's URL in a set of [img] tags, like in the following example.
- Code: [ Select all ]
[img]http://artonelico.isisview.org/styles/prosilver/imageset/site_logo.gif[/img]
- Images in your posts should not be larger than 800x600 pixels, and file size should not exceed 500KB. If your picture is larger than that, please copy/paste the URL instead of using an [img] tag.
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5. Avatars and signatures
- An avatar appears above your name in the right column, and a signature is attached to the end of each of your posts. An avatar is always a picture, and a signature consist of text, pictures, or both. They're both up to your creativity, and can be set in the avatar and signature sections of your User Control Panel.
- Avatars should not be larger than 100x100 pixels, and signature images should not be larger than 600x250 pixels. Please try to keep the file size of your avatar and signature images below 500 kB each. You can use more than one image in your signature. To put an image into signature, put enclose the image URL within a set of [img] tags, as explained above.
- The overall size of a signature, including all images and text, should be at or less than 600x400 pixels. Larger signatures will be cropped off at the edges. This is to avoid having signatures so large that the posts in between become hard to spot at a glance.
- Signatures have a limit of 500 characters. An image URL, together with [img] tags, can already use up quite a lot of those characters. Also, each Chinese, Japanese and Korean letter takes counts as 2 characters toward the limit of 500.
- We only accept externally hosted avatars and signatures. You must first host the image you want on a free (or not free; it's your choice >.<) image host. There are many out there, including Photobucket, Imageshack, Xs.to, FileDen, and others. If the image you want is already hosted somewhere, and they're link-free (meaning you can link to them without having to ask for permission), you may use that image's URL directly.
- No adult or violent content in avatars and signatures, please.
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6. Off-topic discussion
- As with our everyday conversations, off-topic happens. Basically, it's when we begin to talk about something different from the topic's title without noticing. Off-topic is usually harmless and fades away after a while, but sometimes it ends up becoming the new topic.
- It's okay to go off-topic, but please try to keep it somewhat under control, to be considerate to other members who're following the topic. If the off-topic subject seems interesting enough to stand on its own, feel free to make a new topic for it (provided that no other similar topic exists). Forum staff may split threads that have gone too far off-topic into new threads, as well.
- If the thread you want to post in seems off-topic, post anyway. On-topic posts always take precedence over off-topic.
7. Custom titles and Species
- You can set your own custom title and species with the Custom title and Species fields in the profile section of your User Control Panel.
- The Species field is just for fun, it is not a method of discrimination of any sort.
- Please avoid putting offensive or otherwise controversial contents in your Custom title and Species fields. The board staff has the right to modify or remove those fields from your profile at anytime if deemed necessary, without warning.
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8. Use of ARM member translations
- Introduction: The ARM member translations are intended for fan enjoyment, and we don't like to be strict or make a lot of rules. But there have been some problems with use of our member's translation in the past (eg: lack of crediting), so we added this section. For some general background on why we have these rules, you can also read this forum posting.
- Crediting: If you make use of ARM member translations (either on this site, or other sites), please remember to credit the translators (and possibly also mention the "A Reyvateil's Melody" forum, or another website where the translator has an active account). This is just good manners.
- Miscrediting: It's prohibited to name someone else as translator. eg: running a translation (already in English) through Google Translate and then claiming the new version as your own. That's just dumb, but we've seen it before.
- Offensive use of translations: Offensive use of the translations are prohibited, you should ask for permission first. Offensive is a subjective word, but basically any use where it's highly likely that the translator (or Ar tonelico fans in general) would be upset by the way in which you're using their translation. If you're not sure then please ask the translator if it's fine first.
- Banned member use of translations: If members were banned, and one of the reasons for banning was abuse of translations, then they are prohibited from using the translations outside the site, and especially misuse (as described in these rules). Also, see the next point:
- Hall of shame: While we can't easily enforce translation misuse rules off the ARM forum (eg: for banned members), we can name the worst offenders, for more people to be aware of their misuse. You can find the page over here.
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9. Advertising
- We request that you do not post unsolicited advertising-related links on the forum. If it looks like you are trying to profit financially by posting links, your links may be removed without warning by the forum staff. Links like these are spam (not the off-topic type), and we don't want this kind of thing on the forum (it's ugly, and gives the place a cheap feeling).
- Examples of advertising-related links include referral IDs, trying to sell someone something, links to blogs filled with advertisements, and anything else that looks very spammy or commercial, and which the forum members are not likely to be interested in.
- Places where you should not post unsolicited advertising-related links, include (but are not limited to) forum posts, your sig, and PMs.
- By "unsolicited", we mean any type of (financially-motivated) posting, that wasn't requested by another member. So if a member expresses their interest in cheap memory cards, you may reply with a link to a page like that if you know of one. But in most cases, we do not want links like this in the forum.
- Feel free to continue linking to other fan/hobby/etc sites as usual, if the links are not spammy (financially-motivated). Although the other rules (eg: off-topic), do still apply.
- Examples of websites which are fine to link to: your YouTube channel, your Last.fm profile, video game fansites and forums, so long as you are not trying to make money by linking to them.
- Staff members will use their discression in judging links. If it is hard to tell if a given advertising-related link is acceptible, the forum staff may remove the link without notifying you in advance.
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10. Disclaimers
- We shall not be held responsible for any content being posted on these forums. The author of each post assumes full responsibility for the content of that post.
- We have to say so in case someone goes wild and causes trouble, we all want to stay safe -.-
- It is highly recommended that you choose a strong but easy-to-remember password for your account. Also, for your safety, it's best for you to have multiple email accounts. Don't show the "main" account that you use for important messages. You can enable/disable showing of your email address in the global settings section of your User Control Panel.
- We do not endorse nor prohibit posting illegal download links to copyrighted materials (musics, images, softwares, etc.) However, both the person who posts the links and the person who downloads assume full responsibility for their actions.
- An exception to the above rule is download links of official Ar tonelico materials. This includes, but not limited to, musics, book scans and the games themselves. Do not post download links to those materials on the forums.
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11. Miscellaneous
To sum it all up, there are three general guidelines you should know:
- Use common sense.
- Respect yourself and others.
- Have fun and don't be shy!
& 
! 
