Code of Conduct

All Swabs Online site members and guests are responsible for knowing the information contained in the following Code of Conduct.

Swabs Online Staff (SOS), reserves the right, but does not assume the responsibility, to restrict communication which SOS deems in its discretion to be harmful to individual guests, damaging to the communities which make up SOS, or in violation of SOS's or any third-party rights.

Prohibited profile content, private messaging, board posting, and e-mailing, behaviours include (but are not limited to):

• profanity, vulgarity, or explicit content For example:
  • "masking" by using alternative characters/spellings and spaces to get around profanity filters, leet-speak, and combinations of words that produce an offensive result.
  • "filter testing"
  • discussion of or in-character enactments of "cybering" or sexually explicit material
  • discussion of or in-character enactments of graphic violence
• hate speech (e.g. racial, ethnic, sexist, homophobic and religious slurs)
• promotion of or engaging in certain illegal activities, For example: drugs, drug paraphernalia, rape or solicitation of a minor, computer hacking, and copyright violation
• harassment of another specific person (e.g. persistent flaming or continued personal attacks on the boards or "in-character harassment" without prior out-of-character permission.)
• trolling or baiting by putting to the screen inflammatory statements designed to elicit a negative response from the community
• spamming through repeated posts, or off-topic content by word or intent to boards or lists (e.g. scrolling, flooding, polling, or by "bumping" a boards post more than once in 24 hours)
• No useless posts. This includes: Thread bumping, useless one liners, Flamewars, Trolling and Spamming.
• advertising or promoting a business or commercial site without the permission of the SOS
• impersonation of another person, site staff or SOS member by either screen name or self-representation (e.g. faking a screen name by using similar-looking characters, "spoofing" speech in a chat room, or claiming to hold an official title or position relating to the site or using a SOS avatar frame)
• reregistering a banned username, a variation of a banned name, or declarations under a new screen name that you are "really" the banned name or attempts to resubscribe under another address after being put on REVIEW by the moderator.
• off-topic posts or thread hijacking.

These disruptive behaviours are grounds for removal; SOS are the final judges of whether a member's behaviour qualifies as inappropriate or a disruption.

• only one account per user
• Check that your question has not been answered anywhere else on the site.
• Post your comment/question to the most appropriate place. Any posts deemed to be in the wrong forum will be moved. Do not cross-post the same question to multiple places.

In other words, behave yourself. Treat other people you encounter in the rooms just as you would treat them in person--politely.

Disciplinary Procedures

If a member of Swabs Online has demonstrated he or she cannot behave, the member may initially have his/her profile banned and/or may eventually LOSE his or her account.  At the sole discretion of SOS.