"What I noticed that the staff let the word 'sexy' slip through. I think that the word is not appropriate for this site and they should add it into the filter."

The_Crossing - We monitor and review words constantly. Of course there are some words that are highly inappropriate or have become too associated with something else that is seen as inappropriate. Those could never be allowed or are highly unlikely to be allowed. There are however many words which fall into a grey area. In these cases we mainly look at how frequently a word is used in an inappropriate context and we change the filter accordingly.

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On a side note and unrelated to the above, I just want to thank the Community members posting on this thread. Not so long ago there would often be harsh comments posted when members responded to each other. I think that the change is noticeable and I'd like to thank you all on behalf of the Modmin team because you are being helpful and courteous. It is much appreciated and I'm delighted to see this.

Thank you.

ACC rocks. The only problem I could ever have is the misconception that the modmins aren't just like we are. I see that a lot. For some reason the modmins are just... Scary.... To some people. The position is to be respected, not feared.

ACC is awesome. It's the only place I can be myself without getting  criticized.

"ACC rocks. The only problem I could ever have is the misconception that the modmins aren't just like we are. I see that a lot. For some reason the modmins are just... Scary.... To some people. The position is to be respected, not feared."

PaperLuigi3 - Thank you for your comment and kind words. It is a misconception that Modmins are scary and you are obviously correct in that we are just members of ACC like everyone else - only with certain extra permissions and responsibilities. However, some of that misconception is our fault and if people don't respect the Modmins, again that is something that we were responsible for previously.

I'm not getting into the blame game here but there have been periods in ACC were Modmins have been harsh and inflexible. If that created a gap between the Modmins and the Community then we have to acknowledge and accept that. Having said that though, there are restrictions in the features we use which don't allow us to work fully as we've wanted to. In the last couple of years though we've managed to find or discuss alternatives and although the Community have seen only partial results from this, please trust that other changes will follow.

Respect is something we have to earn, it's not an automatic expectation. However, we do expect a respect for the rules but we also appreciate that rules and policies need more regular updates.

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"ACC is awesome. It's the only place I can be myself without getting  criticized."

FeraligatrFTW - That's good to hear!

We do our best to stamp down on cyber-bullying, harassment, trolling and flaming. We hope that all members who feel victimised can feel that they can get help from the Modmins.

I created a blog on Tumblr on Thursday, and I want to share it on the Tumblr thread on the Off Topic board. As of now, it is completely ACC appropriate. However, it's a blog about history, and there may be, at some point, something I post that is somewhat inappropriate, so I don't want to post a direct link.

Would it be OK to post the name of the blog (which would allow people familiar with Tumblr to easily find the blog), along with a warning that it may not be safe forever? If not, would it be OK if I also guaranteed that it would be safe for at least a certain amount of time (two weeks, a month, whatever)?

"Would it be OK to post the name of the blog (which would allow people familiar with Tumblr to easily find the blog), along with a warning that it may not be safe forever? If not, would it be OK if I also guaranteed that it would be safe for at least a certain amount of time (two weeks, a month, whatever)?"

While I can't voice the official opinion of the modmins, this is my understanding of the rule that most applies to your question.

First, let's take a look at rule 1.3:

"1.3 Sites with Offensive Content - 10/27/2012
Posting offensive content, images or patterns is not permitted anywhere on ACC. In addition, it is not permitted to mention the names of sites which contain predominantly offensive or inappropriate content, as defined in Rule 1.2 of the Site Rules. It is also not permitted to post direct links or URLs to such sites. Many social networking and online video sites are poorly moderated or can contain content that is considered inappropriate for ACC. You may mention these sites and post direct links or URLs to them, but it is your responsibility to ensure that there is no offensive content anywhere on the page. This includes comments by users of that site and any advertisements that appear on the same page. If offensive content appears on the page after you have posted a link or a URL and your editing time has expired, the Moderators and Administrators of ACC will take this into consideration when deciding to issue notifications."

As explained in the bold section above, if any offensive content appears after you've posted a link, that will be taken into consideration. I would think this applies to mentioning the name of a site, too. Personally I wouldn't worry too much about it, as the rule has made it clear that if anything offensive does appear on the site following linking/mentioning it, that will be taken into consideration, and presumably you would be punished less severely, if at all.

Yeah, that would be a level zero violation, which I'd still like to avoid.

" there may be, at some point, something I post that is somewhat inappropriate, so I don't want to post a direct link."

If you were to post something inappropriate after posting the link, it would be no different than if you posted the link while you had the chance to edit the post.

The part of the rule that Da ninja piggy bolded is there more to protect a person who posted a link and through no fault of their own the link became inappropriate. The best example I can think of is if you posted a link to a video on YouTube & then someone else posted an inappropriate comment trying to get you in trouble. In a case like that, the Modmins won't hold you responsible for posting the link but they will remove the link.

"Would it be OK to post the name of the blog (which would allow people familiar with Tumblr to easily find the blog), along with a warning that it may not be safe forever? If not, would it be OK if I also guaranteed that it would be safe for at least a certain amount of time (two weeks, a month, whatever)?"

Posting the name of the blog would be no different than posting a link to the blog. Since you are in control of the blog, it's your responsibility to make sure that the blog stays ACC appropriate.

Of course, the Modmins may have changed the way this rule works so it might be best to wait for a current Modmin's response.

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It's for reasons like the way the rules work why I still enjoy my time on ACC even after being a Modmin. I take pride in the way I & the Modmin teams of "my time" wrote the rules to allow for flexibility. If it wasn't for this type of flexibility, we probably would have had to ban all links to fun places like YouTube just because of the potential for there to be inappropriate stuff on the other sites.

"The part of the rule that Da ninja piggy bolded is there more to protect a person who posted a link and through no fault of their own the link became inappropriate."

Yup, that's totally right. I didn't realize 707penguin was talking about the possibility of posting something offensive himself, so that's why I bolded that section.

I actually have a suggestion a little off topic from 707penguin's question. In that part of the rule I bolded, I think it could be re-worded a bit to clarify exactly what it means. Because right now, it reads as:

"If offensive content appears on the page after you have posted a link or a URL and your editing time has expired, the Moderators and Administrators of ACC will take this into consideration when deciding to issue notifications."

It's a fair assumption to make that "offensive content" means any offensive content, but according to what Dalek said (and I believe he's correct) that's not the case. If one was to post a link to a page, and then that same person posts something offensive on the page on a later date, they have broken the rule. However, with the current way the rule is stated you could make the assumption that the person is protected, because it just says "offensive content". It doesn't specify the conditions of how the offensive content got there. If we changed the wording of that sentence to something along the lines of:

"If offensive content appears on the page at no fault of your own after you have posted a link or a URL, and your editing time has expired, the Moderators and Administrators of ACC will take this into consideration when deciding to issue notifications."

I think this would help clarify exactly what the modmins will let slide, and what they won't.

All right, fair enough. I can accept that.

Looking back, though, this mysterious "inappropriate content" seems a lot more sinister than it actually is. Perhaps I should have proofread that more carefully.

Can the new giveaway rules be explained, please?

From what I understand, service clubs are only allowed up to three threads, and giveaways, shops, and services are allowed only two contests threads that offer unhacked items. I will put this in the nicest way possible: I highly disagree with those rules, and I'm sure that many service owners and employees do as well.

Da ninja piggy - You have a fair point. To be completely honest, Modmins haven't had time to review the rules recently. With the various issues with the latest feature updates and prep required for New Leaf (plus many of us being busy offline), the rules haven't been discussed in any depth recently. I can tell you that at least two of the rules that were updated will be amended again so we will look at the suggestion you made at the same time that we update the others.

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Hadger - The board descriptions are just a summary. Please be patient as the time zone difference between myself and Jader means that updates and guidelines can often be hours apart. The Giveaways guidelines will be out later today or early tomorrow. These will follow quickly by Services, Trading, Recruitment and Promotional Contests.

Please don't disagree with rules that you've not actually seen explained. The ''non-hacked'' items you are upset about refer to not offering items such as the light sabre, the guitar axe etc.

I'm also not sure why you disagree with Services having no more than 3 threads. We've monitored the Sevices board for 2-3 years (when we first began to formalise the new rules) and I've personally seen only once where a company had 4 service threads. I will admit that I've not assessed the Services board recently because we'd already decided on 3 threads but that was also to encourage the growth of new companies starting up. A new company with one thread needs a chance to compete and can't compete successfully if a handful of established companies have something like 7 threads that are constantly updated. A new service would find themselves always at the bottom of the service board wouldn't they?

We have strived to strike a balance so that new services can flourish while existing companies aren't too limited. Going back to what I said earlier, when I personally monitored the services board between 2010-2012 there was just one instance of a company having 4 threads. I will also say that when that company had their 4th thread I also received complaints from members about that thread because the members themselves thought it was pushing the rules a bit too far.

Regarding Contest threads, we didn't monitor that board as heavily but in the time we did, there were no more than two contest threads for each company. Most had only one thread though. The problem with a company having even one thread is that Giveaways/Services tend to run quite efficiently and therefore their threads tend to be looked after and remain at the top of the board. This is detrimental to members not involved in Giveaways or Services and who are trying to run a fun thread.

We solved this issue by giving the Giveaways, Shops and Services their own Promotional Contests board. However, the same principle of restricting threads still applies. We can't have established companies each have multiple threads and overwhelming the new companies.

Having said all this, it doesn't mean that rules are set into place permanently. For a long time ACC was stagnant in terms of rules, guidelines and policies changing. Some members are still in that mindset that once a rule, policy or guideline is in place it will be there permanently. I can actually appreciate that those members have reason to believe this but I can assure you that this is not the case.

Just look at all the rule and policy changes that have been brought in over the last year. Also, we brought in rules for the Fan-Fic board but took on board the comments of the members using that board. As a result, the rules were amended. They also wanted a separate board for AC Fan Fics and non AC stories. Again, this has been done.

When we bring in changes now, yes we do bring in limits. However that is simply a logical thought process. Better to bring in limits and then slowly give some more freedom than to do it the other way round. It's harder to take something back than to give something more. Plus, how can anyone know yet what will or won't work? Let's see how the Giveaways, Services, Trading, Recruitment and Promotional Contest boards work out before we start to react, or before people demand changes that may not even be required.

Thank you for your understanding.

I haven't been paying attention to the recent discussion, so my early apologies for kinda barging in. But I noticed one thing on the Site Support board and Site Suggestions board which I think is great: the lightbulb thing. It's really creative and it shows that the people of ACC's suggestions are being taken into consideration. Great job with the updates as always and I'm looking forward for the General AC fiction board's release.

I used to love this site but i stopped coming because of the policing by the mods and i was going to donate to it but i think not.I come here for friends and fun but dont get it. How do you contact someone about issues cause whe i get notifications i cant respond please do tell

Margo- My advice is PT a modmin. I'm not sure who, but I've done it before; and it's worked out. =)

"I used to love this site but i stopped coming because of the policing by the mods and i was going to donate to it but i think not.I come here for friends and fun but dont get it. How do you contact someone about issues cause whe i get notifications i cant respond please do tell"

Yeah, like Liv909 said, it's always a good idea to PT a modmin if you've got an issue. But my suggestion would be to specifically PT Essie, iolite, or VenusKamal. Or even all three together, as they all oversee the site as a whole.

"I used to love this site but i stopped coming because of the policing by the mods and i was going to donate to it but i think not.I come here for friends and fun but dont get it. How do you contact someone about issues cause whe i get notifications i cant respond please do tell"

babyeggo - I don't know when you stopped visiting ACC but a lot has changed in the last couple of years. I'm not sure if you are stating that you have a physical issue with responding to a notification but please PT us and we can guide you through the process and answer your queries in a PT.

I will warn you in advance though that we are currently very busy with getting the site ready for New Leaf and with other changes on some boards. Therefore please be patient if we don't respond to your PT immediately.

Thanks.

While I do find ACC to be a wonderful site with a timeless aesthetic, this post isn't being produced to really concern that matter.

I have a friend who has not visited ACC in years (his oldest account dating back to around 8 years ago), but created multiple accounts, which violate Rule 1.8. Ultimately, he has obviously aged very much since that time and is rather confused over the rule that prevents him from returning. Now, I am uncertain if that was the rule he did break, but he currently does not have access to any account; upon attempt to login, receives an account saying that each is banned. Now, most of his accounts were created years ago when he was much younger and likely unaware of the site rules and such at the time. He also could have forgotten the passwords and such to the account when he made them.

Now, with the release of New Leaf, he's interested in returning to ACC, but there doesn't appear to be a way for him to do so. Is there anything that he can do return to the site and possible regain access to one of the accounts he created? I would just like to state that I am posting on his behalf since he is uncertain of what to do.

Members are probably very tired of hearing this response and I'm sorry I can't say more right now.

With regard any banned member, they shouldn't try and create another account.

With regard rules and policies, including those pertaining to bans, we started looking at those in 2011 but most of our efforts were on overhauling and setting up systems for feature updates. In 2012, we had more time to complete changes on some rules and policies. Since August of last year we've had to work on Feature Updates, rules and policies, and also prepare for New Leaf. With so much work to do,and not enough time or staff to do it, some things are behind in discussions or implementation.

Suffice to say that EVERY rule and policy will be reviewed and more changes will occur. Just please bear with us as we can't do everything in a short time. Sometimes, a Modmin policy or a site rule can be heavily tied to the availability of Devs and this can further slow things down. One such example is the policy on username changes. For years, name changes have not been allowed and discussion by members hasn't been allowed either, but when Modmins began discussing it last year Jader provided us with a solution involving changes to a profile. So Modmins are definitely in favour of allowing name changes but Devs need to implement the system. However, with the release of New Leaf, we needed them to work more on related changes for the new game and also on changes that will make it easier to set up the Bell Shop.

Sorry I can't say more except that everyone should remain patient. Whenever a rule or policy change is agreed upon it will either appear in the Work List on the Site Suggestions board, which is where the name change item is currently listed, or it will appear in an Announcement.

His best option would be to email ACC, because he is the one who knows all of the details and why he got banned.  The rules allow someone who has created 2 accounts without creating the 2nd while the 1st is banned to keep one of the accounts with a minor infraction (I believe 1 point, but the account would not neccesairly get 1 point) and have the other permabanned.  If his first account is not permabanned, he would be able to use that, assuming that he is able to get into the account (he remembers the password or is able to use the password reset tool).  If he was permabanned, he can not come back on any account.

Thanks very much for the timely response, iolite. I'll ultimately wait things out and report back to him over time.

To the best of my knowledge, yankees24cano, he is permabanned as he cannot return on any account. He also seems to have made three accounts over the years if that information provides any benefit to his situation. Besides waiting out for a possible revision to the rule if the staff ever deemed it necessary, do you think he should still go ahead and contact ACC via email, or would it be for naught considering I'm fairly certain he is permabanned.

I'm also assuming that if he wants to know the full details of why the accounts, it would be best to simply be best to have contact ACC be email to know precisely what rules, he violated?

Contacting ACC via email will be the easiest way to get things straightened out, PBK. In my time as a Modmin I've helped lots of people regain their original accounts. It's possible that your friend's account is still available to him - depending on what he did with the original & duplicates. If the original was OK & the duplicates were only banned because they were duplicates, there shouldn't be a problem regaining his original account. If he used any of his accounts to seed or brick others, then the chances of him returning are very slim (and probably nil as seeders & brickers aren't welcome at ACC) - but it won't hurt to ask. Of course, that's a question that only he can ask & only the current Modmins can tell him.

While the policies & the Modmin teams change over time, the Modmins are still here to help. That part of ACC has never changed.

Thanks much for the reply, Dalek. The clarification definitely helps. I will contact my friend and tell him the steps he can take to possibly return to ACC.

I think that the Site Rules should be more clear on what is considered chain mail. A few days ago, I learned that on Animal Crossing Community, anything that says to post it in your profile, pass it on, etc. is considered chain mail, even if it doesn't promise anything. When I think of chain mail, I think of it as being something that says that something will happen to you if you pass it on or don't pass it on. I'm sure that many other people think of chain mail this way as well. I think that the Site Rules should say that chain mail is considered to be anything that says to pass it on on Animal Crossing Community.

Wait, so all of those things that say things like "copy and paste this picture into your profile to help this bunny take over the world" and whatnot are against the rules? If so, I agree that that should be clarified.