1. Please post in the correct forum. Incorrectly placed topics and posts will be moved to the proper location (or deleted, if they violate our rules; see below).

2. Please be respectful of all fellow Paper Warriors Forum members. Insults will not be tolerated in any form, especially insults about ethnic groups, nationalities, or religions. If you do find an element of a post offensive, please report the post to a moderator - do not take up the issue in the thread itself. This includes insults against ex-members or members currently serving a ban.

3. Do not steal credit for images that are not yours. If you are posting an image from a different website, give a citing link below the image or risk having the image removed.

4. Any debates regarding politics, religion, or other sensitive issues should remain in the Debates sub-board, and will not be permitted to continue if they become insult/flame wars

5. Do not spam. Spam includes excessively off-topic posts, one word replies ("Lol" "nice" "cool", etc), and anything that is just intended to annoy and serves no discussion.

6. Requests for a designer to list a credit to you on his drawings should be handled by PM or email. Don't post messages in the forums asking for credit. These messages will be removed by a moderator. If you believe that a designer has refused to properly credit yourself or another designer, please send a PM to myself or any of the staff. We will then launch a review to determine whether any forum rules have been infringed upon or broken.

7. Although we aim to allow more liberty from censorship than JG (as we are not pitching toward an educational audience), this must be taken in moderation. Specifically, profanity is allowed when in the context of an RP or when posting to nobody in particular (e.g the Grumble Topic), but is not to be used to attack other members directly or indirectly (see Rule 2). Also, if you're overly gratuitous with your particular vernacular outside of the context of the grumble topic or RPs, you will be asked to tone it down a little. Use of such elements should be in a constructive manner for the benefit of the forum and project in question; otherwise it can and will be treated like spam if it is an ongoing issue. We do not want this forum to become a swearfest for swearfests' sakes. As for obscene content, please limit your prose to inference. Any explicit content can and will be deleted with prejudice.

8. Paper Warriors is not an extension or subsidiary of any other website. Therefore, despite whatever may have happened on another website, everybody gives a second chance and everybody gets a second chance. If people are dumb enough not to use it, well....we're not so big on third chances...

9. If you believe that any of these rules has been broken within a post, the "Report To Moderator" button at the bottom-right of the post can be used to instantly alert the staff team to the issue.

Punishments for violating these rules can range from deletion of the offending post/topic, to temporary suspension of your account, or banning from the forum, depending on severity and frequency of offenses. Each incident will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis with reference to past indiscretions, and the staff will decide on a course of action from there.

Otherwise, have fun and enjoy the Paper Warriors creative vibe!

-Knight Errant

(Adapted from Matt Fritz's rules from Junior General)

In addition to this, there are also a few points of ettiquette that I would like to expand upon in detail. Namely;

Crediting
Crediting your sources is mandatory for Work in Progress (WiP) and presentation/showcase pieces. A simple "thanks to everyone whose work I have used" is not ok; you must include those designers who have had the greatest contribution to your work at the very least, though subsequent smaller contributions can be credited with a simple "and everyone else from (source site) whose work I have used".
If your sources have come from off-site, then simply put the site name or its abbreviation in brackets next to the username (e.g Toaster (JG) or Alimeria (NS))
If you are having issues with getting credit, please resolve these issues via PM with the creditor/creditee. If they persist in failing to give credit, contact a Moderator-General or an Admin. We will resolve these disputes on a case-by-case basis, reviewing evidence from both parties.

Debating
At Paper Warriors, we know that from time to time members might want to discuss topical issues with their colleagues on the forum, and wrangle over differing points of view. This is fine, but so long as it stays in the Debating Board. As these debates are intended to be friendly, member-to-member discussions, two main rules apply:
1) No unregistered members can view the Debating Board. It should not be the primary reason for a person to join this forum
2) Debaters must debate the topic, not the debater. Any personal attacks on another member will result in the locking of the thread and potential repercussions depending on the severity of the circumstances. Be civil and measured. Also, anyone who triggers Goodwin's Law can expect to receive harsher sentencing. 

Image Sizes
This forum supports user uploads direct into the forum (to a size limit of 400KB per image). However, it would be greatly appreciated if you could use image-hosting services such as Imageshack, Photobucket etc. to host larger files where possible.
It is now PW policy that WiP images be hosted externally instead of uploaded to the forum. Attachment space is to be reserved for Showcase-style works.
Additionally, signature images may be no more than 100px deep and 1000px wide. This is simply to prevent large-scale cluttering of signature space and ease reading forum threads.

Acronyms
Just a few common acronyms explained:
AG = Admin-General = Me
MG = Moderator-General = Global Moderators for the Forum
GM = Game Master = The guy/gal running a particular forum game
PNG = Portable Network Graphic = The preferred image file format
JPG = Jpeg = NOT a good format for pixel art
JG = Junior General= Like this site, but with more of a historical/educational, kid-friendly focus. Also referred to as the "pioneer site".
PW = Paper Warriors = This site
NS = NationStates = A nation-building game whose forums often feature pixel artists

Quote from: Knight Errant on January 09, 2013, 09:09:30 am

2) Debaters must debate the topic, not the debater. Any personal attacks on another member will result in the locking of the thread and potential repercussions depending on the severity of the circumstances. Be civil and measured. Also, anyone who triggers Goodwin's Law can expect to receive harsher sentencing. 

You wanna know who else used rules to stop debates? HITLER!

What did I just say? Don't make me crack down on you...

The Staff are working toward a solution to the attachment-space issue, and with it comes a new bit of PW policy. From now on, any works to be posted in WiP threads must be hosted externally. Only Showcase-formatted items (i.e made with title, credit line etc) should be uploaded directly to the forum. This is to ensure that permanent files can be hosted here into the future without pressuring our attachment limit.

You may want to put this into effect on earlier WiP files; however, this is not mandatory. The above model will be effective come the end of the week.