THE RULES OF PAPER TOWN

[Batsy]

Welcome to Paper Town! My name is Batsy, and I'm the site owner. Thank you for coming to read the rules. By following these guidelines, you help make Paper Town a more fun, safe community for us to play in. Please read through it--I know it seems like a lot, but it makes things better for everyone.

These rules are subject to change at any time. If and when they do, the changes will be added into the Rule Addendum thread, so if you need to go read the updated rules, you can just check that thread for what's new.

DISCIPLINE

Infractions of the rules will be dealt with as such:

First infraction - Warning
Second infraction - Second warning, placed on moderator watch list
Third infraction - Final warning
Fourth infraction - You will be banned

Note that the above discipline list covers major infractions, such as spamming or being rude towards the other citizens of Paper Town. Basically, if you've just made a small mistake, we won't log it. Infractions that are harmful to the community/that you've been reminded about before are logged.

Banning applies to the user, NOT the account, and as such, all known mules will be banned as well. Banning is permanent.

In some cases, certain infractions (such as abusing glitches, or creating extra accounts in order to take the starter money; yes, we've caught people at this before and banned them) will result in an instant ban. Such instances are noted in the rules.

GENERAL CONDUCT

Citizens of Paper Town are expected to act in a mature fashion. Put-downs, rude comments, or discriminatory comments (based on sex, gender, race, religion or lack thereof, disability, etc) towards your fellow members will not be tolerated.

Language: In general, you may speak as you wish. Please respect your fellow citizens. If you're chatting in a thread belonging to someone who isn't a fan of swearing, do your best to respect that. Also, in following the above rule, do not use swear words in an angry manner towards other members.

Remember, it's one thing when you "hate it when the f***ing bus is late" versus calling someone a "f***ing [fill-in-the-blank]." (Word filters here are mine, there are no filters in place on the site.)

Trolling and/or harassment will not be tolerated. If you don't like someone, leave them alone. This site includes games played on teams. If there is another member you feel extremely uncomfortable playing with, please notify a moderator or administrator and we will make a note of it. We're all here to have fun, and not everyone can be best friends.

Private messaging the staff with problems should be kept to a minimum. DO NOT continually harass the staff with PMs of the nature of asking the staff questions or for help with the site. That is what the Help and FAQ forum is for. You may send a PM to a staff member if your issue is sensitive in nature. DO NOT PM multiple members of staff. This will be considered spam and you will be issued a warning.

POST CONTENT

Mature Content: All images/writing posted on this site must be appropriate for children under the age of 18. It is fine to discuss mature topics in the Corner Table forum as long as the discussion remains tasteful (for example, no discussion of sexual techniques), but please mark your topics with an [M] to respect those who would rather not read it.

If your artwork or writing contains explicit sexuality or heavily grotesque violence, you may link to it offsite but you must include a warning. Include in the warning what type of content it contains; some people are more averse to one than the other.

You may post images (or stories) involving the milder side of these things, such as above-the-waist frontal nudity/nude bottoms and mild violent themes simply by placing a small warning message above the image. Basically, you don't have to link offsite because of a little bit of blood or some bare breasts.

[Batsy]

SPAMMING/PADDING POLICY

Spamming is against the rules. Don't do it.

Both padding your posts with gibberish or extra, hidden code to earn extra Cranes is forbidden. For example:

[Batsy]

MULE ACCOUNTS

Mule accounts are traditionally used for storing extra items/Cranes or for RP purposes. You are currently allowed to have one mule.

When you create your mule, you must write "[your username]'s mule" in the profile. This is very important. Without writing that, we may suspect you're trying to cheat with mules because of the matching IP address, and the account is likely to get deleted, both because of IP and if it has no posts.

Mule accounts may NOT participate in team events except in the case you do not join on your main account. It's not fair to have your main account on the Red Team and your mule on the Blue Team, nor is it fair to have two accounts on one team. When signing up for an event with a mule account, you must point out that you're using a mule account.

TRADING

All trades must take place only within the realm of Paper Town. This doesn't mean you can't negotiate a trade of your Golden Tome for 2000 Cranes over instant messenger. What it does mean is that in no way are you to create trades such as "I'll trade you 20,000 Cranes for your Angelic Halo on Gaia" or "I'll give you 3,000 Avarician Credits for your Golden Tome." This is offsite trading and it is explicitly forbidden! If caught, you'll be in trouble on the other site as well.

REAL MONEY TRADE

Real Money Trade or RMT means selling your digital items or assets for real money. If you are caught doing RMT either as buyer or seller, you will be banned. No exceptions.

You may trade your red cranes or collectible items for cranes on-site. You may not re-sell red cranes/collectibles to someone for real cash.

[Batsy]

THREAD POLICIES

You are allowed one of each of the following types of thread at a time:

Item Shop - Buying and selling Paper Town items.
Quest - Recording progress and accepting donations in order to get items.
Charity - Taking donations of Cranes and items to pass on to other citizens.
Art post - Showing off your artwork. You may have different threads for posting art and posting writing if you wish.
Art shop - Sell your artwork to other citizens of Paper Town.
Art request - Ask the artists of Paper Town to draw for you.
Art auction - Sell your art to the highest bidder.
Art contest - Have artists draw for you in exchange for prizes.

If you wish to start over on one of your threads, you may ask a mod or admin to move the previous thread to the garbage (this is not the same as deleting it, so you will not lose Cranes) in order to start a new one. This doesn't apply for starting a new contest or auction after your old one has expired.

STAYING ON TOPIC

Offtopic chatter is allowed, and often encouraged--but please make sure you're doing so in a thread that welcomes it. Please try to keep this sort of thing out of threads with solid topics, site announcements, help threads, etc. Remember, it's okay to discuss, but if it turns to chatter, take it elsewhere. There are plenty of places where it's fine.

ANSWERS TO THE TEXTUAL QUESTIONS
You may copy-paste these answers as they must be spelled correctly.

Canada - Ottawa
China - Beijing
Czech Republic - Prague
England - London
Italy - Rome
Japan - Tokyo
Germany - Berlin
USA - Washington DC

[Batsy]

OTHER AVATAR SITES

There are no rules specifically governing the discussion of other avatar sites here.

You may not solicit the members or moderators of Paper Town to staff another avatar site for you, nor should you ever harass members, moderators, or me for information on how to create your own avatar site. Doing so is a warnable offense. You may plug an avatar site in your signature and in the coffee shop bulletin forum, in which thread you may mention you are looking for staff, but you may not personally seek out staff for your forums or avatar site by soliciting members.

GLITCHES

Yes, the site still has glitches that we're working on. Don't exploit them on purpose. If you do by accident, tell a mod or an admin right away and we'll be more than happy to help correct the problem.

YOU CAN GO INTO NEGATIVES WHILE PURCHASING ITEMS. Be very, very careful of this! Yes, this is disabled and yes, it seems to happen anyway. We do apologize for this and in the meantime ask you to be careful. Anyone found to be exploiting this glitch on purpose will be banned.

Remember, when done by accident, consult a mod right away. Let them know when you spent the money, what you spent, what you bought and which items you want to "return" to the system because you couldn't technically afford them. They will pass the message on to an admin who can correct the problem.