Welcome to Gaia! :: Organization/Military Roleplay Rules and Guidelines | Forum

General Posting Guidelines

Please be sure to follow the Terms of Service and Rules and Guidelines here, as in all forums.

Common violations to avoid:

Flaming & trolling. Posts directed at another member which are hateful, abusive, or intentionally inflammatory are considered flaming. Making intentionally inflammatory or provocative posts to incite responses from other members is considered trolling.

Spam. Posts that are gibberish, off-topic, contain advertisements or begging, or have low or no content are considered spam. Please keep posts relevant to the roleplay you are participating in.

Sexually explicit content. Posting, requesting, distributing, or offering sexually explicit material is not permitted anywhere on Gaia. Sexually explicit content includes explicit photographs, text, artwork, video, or cybersex conversations. Setting thread rules or guidelines to limits which allow such content to take place is not permitted. Additionally, rules or guidelines encouraging members to take overly explicit or graphic content to private messages or off-site is not tolerated.


Terms of Service violations may result in a warning or a ban on your account.

If you find Terms of Service violations, or threads that may need moved to a different forum, please use an appropriate report. The procedures for doing so can be found here.

You can find online moderators by following the "View Forum Moderators" link at the top of the forum.


Gaia Staff will NEVER ask for your password! If anyone asks you for your password, report it.

Gaia-Appropriate Content in Detail

Gaia Online is available to users as young as 13, and as such, all site content, including roleplays, must adhere strictly to the Terms of Service to ensure it is appropriate. Many users have asked what is considered inappropriate in a roleplay context. Below is a list of guidelines to help you judge what is appropriate and what is crossing the line.



Content Guidelines

• Romance
  
  Roleplays that revolve around two or more characters meeting and falling in love are perfectly safe on Gaia. However, certain romantic interactions and themes are not considered appropriate and may result in a warning for those involved. Roleplay threads based heavily on sexual themes or fetishes, such as cybering, rape or bondage, will be removed from the forums, and participants in the violating content will receive appropriate penalties against their account.
  
  The roleplay of non-sexual interactions, such as hugging and kissing, is allowed on Gaia Online. This is a general display of affection and breaks no rules. However, there are several activities that are considered to cross the line and be inappropriate. The list below outlines such common violations:
  
  • Grabbing/touching of private areas, fondling
    
  • Sexual encounters, also known as cybering
    
  • Inappropriate, sexually-explicit dialogue, "talking dirty"
    
  • Nudity, a character stripping or being stripped in detail, or for acts of seduction
  
  If you find users breaking these guidelines in your roleplay thread, or any other roleplay thread, please report their posts so that a moderator can review them.
  
  
• Fighting and Violence
  
  Many roleplayers enjoy a good fight now and again, but please use your discretion when depicting violence. A general portrayal of violence is allowed; this includes bloodshed, slicing, killing, beating, and other general actions. However, extremely graphic depictions of violence are not permitted. Going into explicit details down to the last organ hitting the floor is considered inappropriate and may result in a warning for graphic content.
  
  
• Slave, Master, Kidnapping, and Pet
  These kinds of roleplays are based around a dominant/submissive style and may be a common sight in the roleplay forums, but they are very prone to containing or encouraging Terms of Service violations. These types of roleplays belong in the Series-related/Miscellaneous Roleplay forum and MUST NOT contain the following:
  
  
  • Sexual content
    
  • Abusive content
    
  • Collar/charm/other slave systems which categorise slaves as targets of/preferring abuse or sexual advances
  
  
  Slave roleplays which encourage or contain sexual or abusive content will be removed and those involved in the violating content will receive appropriate penalties against their accounts. Remember, as a roleplay creator it is your responsibility to monitor roleplay content within your thread. If you see someone violating the rules, report them.
  

How to keep a roleplay free of content violations

When setting up the rules of a roleplay, the following guidelines should help you enforce appropriate content in your thread:

• Cybering is not allowed anywhere on Gaia. This includes the forums, private messages (PMs), Gaia Towns, and the game chats. Therefore, you should not post something like "take cybering to PMs". If your roleplay is found with something like this, you may be asked to change it and/or receive a warning for encouraging explicit content violations.
  
• Some users post "PG"-type ratings in their rules threads, such as "PG-13". This in itself is not a violation, but if a roleplay rating clearly supports or encourages explicit violations using the rating and other elements, the moderators may take action. Examples include "Rated R", "Rated XXX", "No limits!".
  
• Be especially careful with 'borderline' roleplay concepts, such as slave roleplays. Given the context, any suggestion of sexual or abuse-based content (e.g. through a collar/charm category system) may be viewed as encouraging content violations and result in the thread's removal.

If at any point you spot roleplays or roleplay posts violating the above guidelines, report the post or thread. You will NOT be punished for roleplayers violating the Terms of Service in your own roleplaying thread if you have not encouraged the behavior, and have taken appropriate action to stop the behavior by reporting the relevant posts.