Dread Lörd Kaolian wrote:
Member agrees that posting on the forums in this site is a privilege and that the posting of deliberately false information, linking to pornographic or illegal sites, or the consistent use of abusive and profane language can cause him to lose his posting rights. Allakhazam.com reserves the right to remove the posting privileges of any person for any reason without any warning or recompense.
A little care might be needed here. There seems to be an uprising trend to post 'Friday threads' that normally always contain (deliberate) false information. I know you're not targeting those types of posts with the above statement, but the 'legal status' of Friday jokes is not clear now.
Dread Lörd Kaolian wrote:
II. Off topic posts
Any post deemed off topic by moderation staff may be moved or removed at the discretion of the moderator, with or without notice.
III. Stupid, Inane or controversial posts
There are a lot of different posting styles, opinions and views on the forums. Not all of them will be things you agree with, condone, or even things that make sense. While such posts can be annoying, they are allowable. Use the karma system to deal with such posts, as it is working as intended.
Perhaps it would be interesting to add a paragraph saying that readers who consider a post off topic or controversial (in addition to the karma system) can report any such post/thread in the 'Site Feedback' forum with a request to lock, move or nuke the post/thread.
Dread Lörd Kaolian wrote:
VI. Linked content
Links to external content require deliberate user action to view, so they are granted somewhat more leeway than images and avatars. For content that exceeds PG-13 guideline levels as defined by the Motion Picture Association of America, please ensure that you include a [NWS] marking (Not Work Safe) in bold red font in your post above the link (for language, excessive violence, or sexual content amongst others)
It would be nice to actually have a hyperlink to the cited PG-13 guideline in the rules text, so readers of those rules can easily 'click through' to check out what the contents are.
Dread Lörd Kaolian wrote:
X. Karma
If you are rating every post in a thread or a forum, especially in a long thread, up or down, you might be karma camping. The decision is based on an admin review, and we generally take into account the tone of the thread, your past rating history, any user complaints we receive, and how often such incidents occur.
If you are following a specific user around and rating every post they make up or down, you might be karma camping. The decision is based on an admin review of your rating history, their rating history on you (if any), the tone of recent posts you and they made, and if they or you did anything particularly offensive in their posts. If two people want to karma camp each other into oblivion, well that's fine with us.
Threads started in the forum for a group of users to all rate each other up are extremely discouraged.
I agree with a remark stated by previous posters, the counter measures that can/will be used by admins are lacking from this section. The statement "well that's fine with us" even seems to imply there will be no actions and posters are allowed to do as they please with karma camping. The same statement also seems to be in contradiction to the section about Ratebots, since in the above section you are basically saying karma camping somebody to up their karma is ok (but only if they don't share the same IP?).
Just a few thoughts that crossed my mind while reading the text.