To give some background, three years ago our previous home decided that we were no longer welcome and, to give the many people who no longer had a place to talk about Dan and Phil a new home, In Depth Bants was created. IDB was registered, made public, and had around a hundred accounts registered within the first day. It was a fairly hectic time, and our rules were written and posted fairly quickly.
We needed to have rules that were reasonable, fair, and written with the goal of making IDB a welcoming place. However, our rules have remained largely unchanged since then - other than a couple of additions and clarifications - and while they are suitable for the forum, we wanted to refresh our rules to better serve the community that IDB has become home to.
The largest change is the format of the rules page. Rather than a clunky numbered list of rules, we’ve split the rules into categories. We’ve also merged some similar rules and added or changed wording to ensure clarity.
We’ve also added one new rule. The previous rules covered the use and sharing of personal and private information of people we discuss {Dan and Phil, their family, other content creators, etc.} but not that of our users. This new rule doesn’t change our moderation in practice - we’ve always worked to protect everyone’s privacy here - but it does make it clear to new users that we take user privacy seriously.
We’re also not expecting a significant change in our moderation from this update. We’ve always tried to be as reasonable as possible with our application of the rules - for example, rule 1d {one account per user} does say that use of multiple accounts is grounds for all accounts created by you being banned, but we recognise that mistakes happen and are usually much more lenient with our moderation.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions please do leave them in this thread. If you’d prefer to get in touch with us privately you can send me a message or use the contact information in this post.
This rules update goes in to effect from the time of this post.
These are the new rules:
For comparison and transparency, here are the previous rules:1. General
a) Be respectful of all users. Disagreements are permitted, but you are expected to remain civil at all times. Do not post any material that you know to be, or would reasonably be expected to know to be, defamatory, abusive, harassing, hateful or hate speech, or in support of hate speech. Threats of any kind are not permitted. This applies to all of the forum, including posts, your signature, your avatar and profile, and private messages.
b) No trolling. Do not use inflammatory, abusive, or hateful language, impersonate anyone, post spam, or otherwise act in a way that is a detriment to the board. The moderators reserve the right to decide if a poster is trolling. Trolling is grounds for an immediate ban. This applies to all of the forum, including posts, your signature, your avatar and profile, and private messages.
c) Any physical or mental health discussion that occurs in the threads should be conducted with the utmost sensitivity, and potentially triggering conversations should be marked with a clear disclaimer. People with health conditions should not be shamed, insulted, or demeaned. Definitive statements about specific health issues (“armchair diagnoses”) should be avoided.
d) One account per user. Do not register more than one account, for any reason. If you want to change your username, make a request in the username thread, or message a moderator. Use of multiple accounts is grounds for all accounts created by you being banned.
e) Do not post gratuitous links to pornographic material. Links to nudity or other potentially “not safe for work” (NSFW) material are permissible only in the context of a mature discussion. When posting a link to potentially not safe for work material, clearly mark it as "not safe for work". When embedding potentially not safe for work material, place it within spoiler tags, and clearly mark it "not safe for work" outside the tags.
f) If you wish to use this forum to post a message that is:
i) an advertisement, an offer to trade or sell products or services, a request for money, goods, or services, or a charitable appeal; or
ii) content promoting a cause, venture, or website; or
iii) a request for information for surveys or other information gathering purposes,
you must ask for and obtain permission from the moderators before posting. This applies whether or not money is involved. This applies to all of the forum, including posts, your signature, your avatar and profile, and private messages.
Prior approval for non-commercial gift exchanges, such as "secret Santa" exchanges, is not required.
2. Copyright and IP
a) Directly linking to copyrighted content is strictly prohibited on public threads. Posting of illegal or pirated material or links to it is strictly prohibited.
b) Posting content without crediting the creator, when the creator has stated they do not wish their material to be shared elsewhere without credit, is strictly prohibited. Posting content specified by the creator not to be shared is strictly prohibited.
3. Personal information
a) Posting of private personal information of individuals discussed on this forum that the individuals themselves have not made publicly available is strictly prohibited.
This includes, but is not limited to, addresses, contact details (off or online), and private social media accounts. It also includes the current location of any individual we discuss, or of any individual associated with them (past, present, or future), if there is a risk of harassment or loss of privacy.
If you are unsure whether the information you would like to share with the forum is suitable, please contact a moderator privately.
b) Do not post personal or private information relating to forum users that you do not have permission to share. This includes, but is not limited to, addresses, contact details (off or online), and user's locations. Do not use this forum or the information available here to harass, "doxx", or otherwise cause a loss of privacy for any user.
Further information
Posts or sections of posts may be removed at the moderator's discretion and without prior warning if we believe that the content of the post violates forum rules.
Rules violations may require us to take action against your account. Action taken against your account may include warnings, temporary suspensions, and permanent bans.
Our contact details
A list of the forum moderators can be found here, or by clicking "The team" at the bottom of every page. We also have an IDB twitter and an IDB tumblr. Emails can be sent to us at indepthbants at gmail dot com.