ATRL Rules and Guidelines

Last Updated: February 16th, 2023

ATRL's Code of Conduct Policy

 

ATRL values respectful discussion throughout the site. Our members are held to a high standard of respect, tolerance, and good faith discourse. Rules are enforced with penalties including warnings, thread bans, forum bans and revoked posting privileges. All members are expected to read and follow the rules – no exceptions. These are global rules, meaning they cover every section of the forum (including Blogs) unless exceptions are outlined in a particular thread. There are additional rules in each section of the forum (Music, Charts, etc). which should be followed in addition to our global rules. As well, it is your responsibility to read and understand the ATRL FAQ, which clarifies several forum rules and other processes we implement on this forum. 

 

The administrators and moderators of ATRL reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread or any post, including blog posts and comments, and warn, ban, or delete any member, for any reason. The ability to post messages at ATRL is a privilege, not a right. Members who consistently abuse this privilege by ignoring the rules will be warned or banned from posting. 

 

Staff Communication

 

Conduct 
Members must be respectful to the administrators and moderators of ATRL at all times. This includes PMs, help requests and social media channels. Insults, rudeness and other forms of disrespect will result in penalties that may include a ban from the forum.

 

Reporting & Help Requests
Members can report threads, posts and profile content that violate ATRL’s rules and policy. Reports must be sent through the traditional report link found underneath each member’s post. Members can send in help requests to directly contact ATRL staff about an issue, whether it be a dispute over a penalty they’ve received, a technical issue or a request that only staff members can resolve. 

 

The Don’ts
— Reports and help requests via staff walls and PMs are not allowed and may result in penalties against the sender.
— You are not allowed to fish for a report against a member to get them banned (reporting a member’s old posts, baiting them into an argument, etc). Penalties will be given to members caught doing so.
— All reports must be presented respectfully. The user reporting a post or thread may be warned if the report itself is deemed rude or offensive to staff. 

 

General Rules

 

Disruptive Content
All comments must stay on the thread’s topic. Do not post comments with the intent of derailing the thread into off-topic conversation or out of control arguments. Thread titles must not contain misleading descriptions of the thread’s content, capitalized words for the sole purpose of hyping the thread or all caps formatting. Fake news articles must be marked as such in the thread title. ATRL prohibits the use of nicknames when referring to public figures, brands or other users. For more information on this, see the nicknames warning. Intentionally fooling the profanity censor is also prohibited.

Offensive Content

The Zero Tolerance Policy (ZTP) covers all forms of explicit, hateful and discriminatory speech that make other users feel unsafe and uncomfortable. This includes but is not limited to racist, homophobic, or transphobic posts, as well as discrimination or offense comments based on sexuality, gender or an individual's choice to be defined as something else altogether.

Disrespectful Comments
Critical comments are welcome, but you are not allowed to insult or belittle members or staff. This includes indirect means such as your avatar, signature, custom title or in conversations with others. PMs may be investigated in extreme cases. Use your Ignore List to prevent other members from contacting you. 

Illegal Content

Do not threaten, harass or intimidate another member or staff. This is a crime in most jurisdictions that ATRL operates in.

 

Threads and posts containing links to unlicensed downloads or streams of copyrighted material are not allowed because of legal concerns, and will be deleted as soon as possible. It is also prohibited to post offers to trade unlicensed files through other means or make requests for those files. Any attempts to circumvent this rule in any way will not be tolerated, and members who do so will be warned or banned. 

 

In an effort to comply with DMCA requirements and reduce the amount of takedown notices we receive, news articles posted on ATRL must be no more than 50% of the content and must include a link to the source. Users can choose to either post roughly half of the article or the most valid portions that total no more than half the article.

 

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) generated content is not allowed on ATRL. This includes photos and videos. Any AI content that is published will be removed.

Unsolicited Advertising (Spam)
Threads and posts containing unsolicited advertising or spam are not allowed and will result in a ban from the forum. 

Duplicate Accounts
Creating more than one account on ATRL, for any reason (starting fresh, changing your username, evading warning points, etc), will result in an immediate ban of your duplicate and main accounts.

Penalties

 

Reminders are warnings with no points attached. These are issued to new members, for first time offenses and content that isn’t severe enough to receive a full warning.

 

Warnings are points issued to members that break the rules. Points accumulate and expire over a period of time depending on the violation. Accumulated points will result in a ban from the forum after reaching a certain limit. You can view your warnings in your profile.

 

Violating the Zero Tolerance Policy

Violating the ZTP will result in an immediate 3 month ban and 2 points that don’t expire for 1 year. If you accrue three Offensive warnings from the date of June 16, 2020, a permanent ban from the forum will be issued. However, in exceptional circumstances, the ATRL staff reserve the right to issue a permanent ban at their discretion before reaching your third offense.

 

Please note that this policy will not be applied retroactively to previous permanent bans under the original ZTP.

 

60 Day Ban — Occurs when member reaches 10 active warning points, or gets warned when they already have 10 active warning points. (Important Note: This ban may take effect even with expired points; see this thread for clarification)

 

Permanent Ban — In severe cases, members will be permanently banned from the forum (violating the Zero Tolerance Policy, reaching three strikes in our three-strike ban policy, creating duplicate accounts, repeatedly ignoring the rules, insulting staff, spamming, glorifying and/or making light of rape, domestic violence, terrorism, murder, etc). Permabanned members will have an opportunity to appeal their ban by contacting @atrl on Twitter. 

 

Three-Strike Permanent Ban Policy — Here on ATRL, we exercise a 3-Strike Ban Policy to allow members opportunities to improve their conduct on the board. Each time a member accumulates 10 (active, excluding expired warning points) warning points, or is banned for an Offensive comment under our Zero Tolerance Policy (see "Violating the Zero Tolerance Policy" above), a temporary ban from ATRL is issued to their account. The third time a member is banned from our board for any of these two reasons, the account is banned permanently. 

 

This policy was introduced on October 25th, 2021 at noon EST. This means that only bans that were issued on or after this date will be considered under the three-strike policy. Bans that were issued at any point prior to this date will not be counted as a strike. 

 

Thread bans are issued to members that disrupt threads by constantly trolling or going off topic. The standard thread ban is 14 days, but more severe violations may result in a permanent ban from the thread.

 

Section bans are issued when members constantly cause problems in a certain area of the forum (Blogs, Base, The Lounge, etc). These bans are permanent by default, but may be reviewed by our moderators after a certain amount of time has passed.

 

Restricted status
Members may lose some forum privileges if they repeatedly display disruptive or immature behavior. Restricted members are not able to create threads and are not allowed to post in serious discussion threads relating to real world news and issues.

 

Disputes
If you wish to dispute a warning or ban, you can contact our staff. Members who have lost access to the site (due to a temporary or permanent ban) can contact ATRL’s staff via Twitter (@atrl). 

Warning Types

 

Note: The following warning point levels represent the least amount of points associated with the warning. Depending on the severity of the violation, points issued may be increased. See custom warnings for more info.

 

Disruptive — 1 point, expires in 30 days
You did one of the following:

• Thread titles must not contain misleading descriptions of the thread’s content, capitalized words for the sole purpose of hyping the thread or all caps formatting.  
• Do not post a thread listed in the "Banned Topics" section below.
• Do not format your posts in a disruptive or annoying style.
• Do not post in a language other than English when the thread did not call for it.
• Do not post too many times in a row in the one thread.
• Do not "bump" a thread that has had no activity for 60 days or more.
• Do not intentionally promote disinformation.
• Do not post a thread citing an article without including the source (also see Illegal Content)

 

Flamebait — 1 point, expires in 30 days
You started a thread or posted a reply that just seems to be fishing for an argument, or you perpetuated an argument by quoting such posts.

• Do not start a thread or post a reply with the intent of starting a conflict.
• Do not quote flamebait posts to further perpetuate an argument.
• Note: Threads and posts within the Base section are exempt from this rule. 

 

Spoiler — 1 point, expires in 60 days and Restricted from posting for 24 hours.

• Do not post information that gives away major plot details of a movie, TV show, book or video game without using spoiler tags.
• For more information on this, see the Entertainment guidelines.

 

Nicknames — 1 point, expires in 30 days

Do not use nicknames when referring to public figures, brands or other users except:

• celebrity portmanteaux (Brangelina);
• honorary titles (Queen Ariana); 
• shortened names (Riri);
• recognised fan base names (Hive); and
• positive nicknames within the Fan Base thread for the respective celebrity

 

Off Topic — 1 point, expires in 30 days

• All comments must significantly stay on the thread’s topic. Keep in mind that writing "OT" does NOT make your post on-topic. 
• Do not post comments with the obvious intent of derailing the thread into off-topic conversation.
• Do not post about reports, warnings or other moderation activity outside of ATRL HQ.

 

Misgendering — 1 point, expires in 30 days and Restricted from posting for 1 day.

You accidentally misgendered a celebrity or another member of the forum by referring to an individual using incorrect pronouns. Accidental misgendering is evaluated on a case-by-case basis to the discretion of the staff.

• Multiple infractions of this rule category leads to a Zero Tolerance Policy violation.
• Purposeful misgendering leads to a Zero Tolerance Policy violation, and is warned under the Offensive category.

 

Illegal Content — 2 points, never expires and Restricted from posting for 14 days.

• Do not post or request links to unlicensed downloads or streams of copyrighted material.
  • This is not allowed because of legal concerns, and will be deleted as soon as possible. 
• Do not post more than 50% of a news article without proper consent from the author, and do properly link to and credit the source. 
  • This is to comply with DMCA requirements and reduce the amount of take down notices received.
  • Users can choose to either post roughly half of the article or the most valid portions that total no more than half the article. 
• Do not threaten, harass or intimidate another member or staff.
  • This is a crime in most jurisdictions that ATRL operates in.
• You intentionally posted a member’s personal information or picture without their consent. This is not allowed even if the information or picture was originally posted on ATRL by the member themselves. The only exception is the member’s avatar, though misuse can still be warned for other reasons. You will be banned if you do this.
• Do not post A.I. content. 

 

Insensitive — 2 points, expires in 60 days and Restricted from posting for 48 hours.
All of our members deserve to be treated with respect and to feel safe when posting on our forum.

• Do not be rude/hurtful to other members or staff in your posts, avatar, signature, custom title or in private conversations with others.
• Do not post something disturbing or highly polarizing with no concern for other people’s feelings.

 

Trolling — 2 points, expires in 90 days; and Restricted from posting for 48 hours.

• Do not be belligerent or antagonizing in a thread about a celebrity, person or fanbase you don’t like.
• Do not start a thread meant only to attack a certain celebrity, person or fanbase
• Do not harshly "drag" a celebrity, person or fanbase.

 

Offensive — 3 points, expires in 1 year; and 3 month suspension (or permanent ban if accumulated 3 ZTP warnings)

• All content posted on ATRL is captured by the Zero Tolerance Policy (ZTP) which covers all forms of explicit hateful and discriminatory speech that make other users feel unsafe and uncomfortable.
• Do not something racist, homophobic, transphobic or otherwise discriminatory in violation of the ZTP. 
• Purposefully misgendering an individual by using incorrect pronouns is considered a ZTP violation. Determining whether misgendering instances were purposeful or not is evaluated on a case-by-case basis to the discretion of the staff.

 

Explicit — 2 points, expires in 90 days; and Restricted from posting for 14 days

• Do not post, or put in your avatar, signature or profile, sexual or violently graphic content.

 

Duplicate — Permanent Ban

Creating more than one account on ATRL, for any reason (starting fresh, changing your username, evading warning points, etc) is strictly prohibited.

 

Spam — Permanent Ban
If you post obvious spam for another website or business, you’re out of here, period.

 

Custom Warnings: In addition to the standard warning points, it’s also possible for members to receive custom warning points. These are issued when:
— The member has violated multiple rules in the same post
— Posted content that goes beyond what the standard warning covers
— Intentionally breaking the rules as a form of protest or to be malicious
— Has been warned several times for the same violation