There are two sets of rules: those that can get you banned, and those that we describe as "common courtesy".
The latter will not provoke a warning or ban unless broken excessively (which, in fact, is a breach of rule 1d) or broken again after the staff repeatedly asked you to stop (violation of rule 1c).

There is a segment in red, bold, and italics. Please, for the love of all that is pleasant, read it and abide by it if you are a plural system planning on having several members participate through separate accounts.

There is another segment, simply in red. If you fail to abide by it, more than nearly any other rule on this list, you will find the admin more than a mite tetchy about it.

Please also note that the Safety Net and the Frying Pan each have their own specific subsets of rules regarding what types of posts and threads are appropriate in them. We firmly advise reading them before posting, since these rules differ greatly between the two subfora.

RULES THAT CAN GET YOU BANNED

1a. Politeness. All members are expected to treat each other with civility. Please be polite, and respect other members' beliefs. Don't expect other members to convert to your belief systems just because you subscribe firmly to them.

It is acceptable to question those beliefs and particularly the logic of how they are developed, in the Frying Pan, and it is absolutely invited in the Hot Seat, but noplace in the Safety Net should it be considered good form to treat somebody else's belief system as invalid or incorrect.

1b. Language and Appropriateness of Topics. The administration does not require this board to be 100% PG-13, but it does require discretion and consideration. Racial slurs and slurs against gender and orientation, etc., are completely unacceptable. Religion-based cursing is frowned-upon but potentially tolerated in context. Ordinary cussing (things you might say upon hitting your thumb with a hammer accidentally) is completely tolerated, and the administration requests that all members be adult enough to accept that other people cuss.
The administration does not like censorship; we will not edit posts in the Frying Pan as long as they do not explicitly offend a specific group with intent to offend. Erasing language in the Safety Net qualifies as offensive. Threads in the Safety Net will be subject to closer scrutiny than those in the Frying Pan.
R and NC-17 topics REQUIRE A DISCLAIMER IN THE TITLE. In cases such as these, the administration WILL edit retroactively as needed.
If part of your post may be NSFW or triggering through common triggers, it REQUIRES A DISCLAIMER IN THE TITLE. Check with the staff if you need to know if a given topic is likely to be triggering.

1c. Staff. Members of the administrative staff have the final word; we are open to discussion but not to argument. If a staff member is using red font, they are making it clear that they are talking as a mod/admin, they have the final word, and everything else has to be handled via PM with them or an admin, not in the current topic. If you have been given a warning and do not understand the reason, PM the member of staff who issued you the warning.

1d. Drama. This forum is here for support and learning. Content or placement of petty personal issues that serve to detract from these goals is prohibited. Save the drama for your journals please. That being said, there IS a subforum for issues of exclusively personal and mundane nature; feel free to use them to your content.

1e. Introduction. After your account is activated, please have the courtesy to introduce yourself in the appropriate subforum.
We don't mind if after that you prefer to lurk and read more posts than you write, but an introduction gives our members a chance to welcome you properly to the forum and to get acquainted with you. If you have 0 posts after a month of activation, your account will be deleted. You have a choice of two sub-boards for your introductory post:
The Hot Seat: If you post your introduction here, it means that you are willing to have your identity and beliefs questioned and discussed at length, and you are willing to answer questions on those topics. If you want specific topics avoided within your intro thread, please state them in your introductory post. The Hot Seat is a designated 'Skeptic Space,' and logic and in-depth discussion are the byword.
The Worlds Tree: If you post your introduction here, it means that you have total control over what information about yourself is addressed. It will be considered rude to question you about your identity and beliefs, unless you explicitly state that you are open for questioning. Even if you state such, the questions will tend to be milder and less invasive than in the Hots Seat. The Worlds Tree is a designated 'Safe Space,' and identity positivity and acceptance are the byword.

If you start your thread in one forum but later decide you want to test the waters of the other, you may start a new thread there, or you may request that a moderator relocate your original thread to the forum of your choice.


LOOK HERE. This is important.
1f. Number of Accounts. Plural systems are invited to make as many accounts as they have members who wish to participate here, on a single e-mail address, but you MUST create a single primary "master account" for your entire system. This will be the account the admins will use to communicate with you, if necessary. Please list in the profile pages of all individual member accounts a link back to the master account's profile. We understand that this can be tedious, but consider the alternative: if the administration has to send out a mass e-mail to all forum members, your system will receive one PM for every member account, unless the administration has a way of knowing by which single account to contact the system. Our suggestion is that if your system has a single member who fronts most frequently, to treat their account as the master account for purposes of contact.

We are dead serious about this rule; we will get tetchy if you rushed through the rules and miss it.

1g. Follow the Rules. You must abide by the rules and we will assume (however mistakenly) you have read them. Ignorance is no excuse. A lot of this stuff is a total no-brainer and exists in virtually every forum rulebook.


COMMON COURTESY

2a. Readability. Please watch your spelling and grammar. We have members who do not speak English as a first language, so please be mindful of your punctuation and spelling. This isn't about linguistic superiority; it's about understanding and clarity. Discussions are all the more enjoyable when they are easy to read.
The ONLY exception to the Readability clause is any personal, sovereign thread in the Worlds Tree. In your own personal Worlds Tree thread(s), you may use language however you are comfortable using it, provided it is still recognizable as English.
Anywhere else in the forum, including in other people's sovereign threads, you are REQUIRED to write legibly.

2b. Stay on topic. Do not hijack topics or partake in extended off-topic discussion. Open a new thread or ask a moderator to split the existing topic in two.

2c. Personal thread sovereignty. Threads in the Worlds Tree and the Hot Seat belong to the members who started them. If they state a set of personal triggers in the OP, or if they dictate things they distinctly don't want to discuss, and then you post in violation of the rules they set for the thread, the thread owner has the right to request mod action against the violating post. This can include but is not limited to post modification, deletion, and warning to banning of the violating poster depending on the severity and/or repetition of such blatant disregard for personal respect and attention to the rules.

2d. Drama prevention. Assume that everyone here is your friend. In case of ambiguity, expect the other person to have meant their statements in a non-offensive way. Written media do not convey emotions very well. Also, don't forget that you can always ask back if you're unsure about the other member's intentions. This goes especially for questions about your beliefs and identity - they are posted out of curiosity, not malevolence. If the admin appears to be snarking you, please consider that the admin may actually be 100% sincere, and that you're reading condescension into their statements. Believe it or not, the admin desperately hate interpersonal conflict, and initiating it deliberately is just about the last thing they'd ever intentionally do.

2e. Duplicate topics. Browse the section and/or use the search tool before opening a topic - because it may already exist. We like to avoid redundancy, when possible. Please spare the moderators the work of merging topics.

2f. Forum signatures are not to be taller than 125 pixels.


Note: Many of the sub-boards have additional or somewhat modified rules sets; we recommend looking over them before posting in their respective boards. They are linked below:
The Lemniscate proper:
Crossroads and Off-Topic Rules
Safety Net and Worlds Tree Rules
Frying Pan and Hot Seat Rules

The Gallery:
Art and Divination Commission Rules
Visual Arts Rules
Lyric Arts Rules
Artisan Crafts Rules

All of these rules sets exist as threads in their respective subfora; that is where these links navigate.
Why do we have different sets of rules?
The subfora deal with very different types of discussion. The Safety Net and Worlds Tree are intended to be 'total safe zones,' while the Frying Pan and Hot Seat are intended for logical discussions, which do cause some members a measure of discomfort. Separating the two makes it possible for members to avoid spaces that do not appeal to their needs.
The Crossroads exists to support discussion which does not necessarily pertain to transcorporeality, and the Off-Topic supports discussion which might not be deemed "serious enough" for other parts of the forum. The rules in these two sub-boards are more lax regarding topic appropriateness than the Safety Net, but also more lax regarding quality of logic and content than the Frying Pan.
The rules of the different parts of the gallery exist to provide the best possible organization of members' art works, as well as to make it possible for members to avoid unknowingly navigating into threads containing NSFW content.