Site Rules

Dear colleagues, as of today the site has the ability to issue temporary bans for rule violations. I have therefore decided to draw up the rules of conduct for alternathistory.net, listing the violations and the corresponding ban durations.

The Alternate History site is a platform for discussing ONLY historical and technical events and alternatives, and considers any discussion of current political events in the territory of the former USSR unacceptable. This applies exclusively to the republics of the former USSR.

1. Rudeness. A first offense will be punished with a one-week ban. A repeat offense — one month. A third instance of rudeness will result in a permanent ban (though with the possibility of returning under a different nickname). One more thing: mild forms of rudeness — the kind their authors don’t even consider rude — will be punished with a one-day ban.
2. Posting photos and images not hosted on the site’s server (see: How to upload graphic and video materials to the site). If this happens without an explanation, the first offense will result only in a verbal warning. A repeat offense will be punished with a one-day ban, and thereafter: one week, one month, and permanently.
3. Posting tags not separated by commas. Same as point 2: verbal warning, one day, one week, one month, and a final ban.
4. Posting other people’s publications without a link to the original source. Standard as well — penalties as in points 2 and 3.
5. Spam. Banned immediately and permanently.
6. Trolling. First, what is it? Trolling (from the English “trolling” — fishing with a lure) is a form of online communication that violates the ethics of network interaction, expressed through various forms of aggressive, mocking, and insulting behavior aimed at stirring up conflict. The first identified instance will be punished immediately with a one-week ban, and thereafter — one month, then permanently.
7. Flaming (from the English “flame”) — “arguing for the sake of arguing,” an exchange of messages in multi-user online spaces (e.g. internet forums, chats, social networks, etc.) amounting to a war of words, often no longer related to the original cause of the dispute. Users will be punished for flaming only after the fact of flaming has been pointed out to them. If, after a verbal warning, the pointless argument does not stop in the moderators’ opinion, the participants will be punished with a one-day ban. Repeat offenses will be punished according to the standard scale: one week, one month, permanently.
8. Openly settling personal scores with one another and showing disrespect toward other forum members and the Administration.
9. Displaying racism, Nazism, intolerance, disrespect, or other similar views, as well as engaging in political agitation, calling for extremism, revolutionary action, etc.
10. Creating multiple accounts.
11. Discussing the actions of the administration and moderators is punished with a one-day ban for the first offense, one week for the second, one month for the third, and permanently thereafter.
12. Deleting your own articles is punished with a permanent ban.
13. Topics aimed at discussing questions of sexual orientation in any context are considered deliberately provocative and are deleted immediately. Creating such topics will be treated as deliberate flame-baiting. The penalty for the first offense is a one-day ban; for a second offense, depending on the severity, a permanent ban may follow.
14. Any discussion (in topics or comments) of the current political situation or form of government in the republics of the former USSR is considered “flaming” and provocation on the Alternate History site and is punished in accordance with the rules.
15. Off-topic. Comments unrelated to the subject under discussion. Enforcement begins with an off-topic warning.

Rules for Writing Topics and Posts

(Penalties here are relatively mild, starting with a one-day ban and then following the standard scale.)

1. By publishing materials on alternathistory.net, you remain the owner of the content and may dispose of it at your own discretion.
2. Responsibility for published content, if it violates the law, rests solely with the author of that content.
3. The use of large-size text, twice the size of regular text, is not permitted.
4. Do not use color tags unless necessary; like other tags, they are intended for highlighting individual fragments within a post.
5. The use of red is strictly prohibited, including in user signatures. Only forum moderators and administrators may use this color when editing user posts. Quoting red-colored messages is also prohibited (if you want to quote them, change the color to black).
6. Do not write topic titles or posts in all capital letters, avoid transliteration unless necessary, try to write without errors, and do not overuse slang.

All violations not listed here will be punished with a light one-day ban, and the identified violations will subsequently be added to the list of rules.