Language
PlusForward is an English language website. Postings in other languages will be removed.

Moderation
Admins reserve the right to moderate any post to ensure the compliance with the posting guidlines.

Post Categories
Categories provide a helpful way to group related posts together, and to quickly tell readers what a post is about. They also make it easier for other users to find your content. Therefore, you can assign your posts to multiple pre-defined categories (you must choose at least one), most of them being the different games you find on PlusForward. There are, however, also special categories to cover general topics, e.g. general gaming or hardware-related posts.
The categories are displayed on the upper left corner of your post and can also be used as a filter for the current site.

Tags
HTML tags are not supported on this website. You can, however, use bbcode to format your posts and comments. For a list of all available bbcode tags available in posts and comments see Plus Forward - BBCode.

File attachments
  • Files
    There is an option to upload files along with all post types. Depending on your user level, the attached files will need approval by an admin before they become visible. This is necessary to ensure compliance with the posting guidelines and to prevent spam.
  • Images
    After uploading an image to a post or comment you can embed it in the post with the corresponding [img] tag. As with files, depending on your user level images have to be approved by an admin before they become visible. You can also choose the alignment of your images by adjusting the tag, e.g. [img1] will left-align the image, [img1] will center the image, and [img1] will right-align the image.
    There are also images that can be used site wide in posts with the [simg] tag. For a list of site images see Plus Forward - Site Images.
    For easier adding of images after uploading or site images use the editor menu.

News formatting
Make sure to bold important information like names and locations at at least their first occurrence in the post and use hide tags for long lists of information. When contributing a news make sure to add a source if available at the end of the post. In general check out featured posts for formatting tips. If the post type has the option for a preview image or a snippet, make sure to add these as well. Snippets only support unformatted text, meaning no bbcode tags work there to keep the frontpage in a clean look.
There are three ways to set a preview image for a post.
  • Uploading a new image
    Depending on your user level, these will still have to be approved by an admin first.
  • Use event image
    If the post is associated with an event you have the option to use the event image, if the event (or as a further fallback, the event organizer) has one set. You can check if an event image is available by enabling "Use Event Image" and checking the List-Post Preview.
  • Use site image
    You can also choose from a list of images managed by admins called site images. For an overview of all available site images see Plus Forward - Site Images and look for images with the "post preview" option enabled.

Content Guidelines
PlusForward encourages active discussions in our forums, even those about controversial topics, but the forums can only flourish if all members feel welcome and safe. We will not tolerate:
  • Use of offensive racial / gender / sexual preference / religion-bashing terms or other hurtful speech. We know that on the internet, it's impossible to know the difference between a person with hateful views and a person lampooning hateful views to make a point. The admins try to be reasonable, and context often matters. We will try and determine what you meant, but that's not always a pass. If your post can be taken one of two ways, and one of those ways can be interpreted as mentioned above, the admins may delete it and could even set you on probation - even if that wasn't your intent.
  • Spam and links to spam. If you want to advertise, please contact us directly. Links to other websites are, of course, perfectly fine as long as they are of benefit for the PlusForward reader (e.g. interesting articles on other websites) and not simply abusing the space.
  • Posting of any personal information, names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails, etc. If you want to include your e-mail in a post, that's fine. Just don't type someone else's information and then make comments about that person.
  • Trolling/harassing other PlusForward users. Unfortunately, disagreements can and will happen - but there is no need for them to become personal. Don't harass other users with your posts, parody links/threads, or create accounts to harass them with.
    PlusForward accounts come with a handy "Ignore"-Feature. Use it to filter out those posters whose comments you'd prefer not to read.
  • Posting of copyrighted material. You confirm, that any material (like suggestions, ideas, videos or photos) you post belongs to you and does not infringe anyone else's intellectual property rights. If you are commenting on or criticizing an item someone else has posted, you have, of course, a fair use right to quote. Information about "Fair Use" can be found e.g. on the EFF Website.

These rules are basic, common sense stuff. If a particular item isn't explicitly listed in excruciating detail here, it still falls under the general "don't be a dick" rule.

The following types of non-message-posting actions will get you banned from PlusForward immediately:
  • Attempting to hack, flood, DoS, crack passwords, or otherwise compromise the PlusForward system security, or the security of any site mentioned/linked via PlusForward. Logs will be sent to the appropriate ISPs and law enforcement immediately.
  • Child Pornography. Any image or link containing minors or suspected minors in sexual situations will be reported.
  • Stealing or guessing other people's passwords, giving or loaning your password to other users, or otherwise using or sharing accounts that aren't yours. This includes attempting to create extra accounts or using someone else's account to evade bans. That last one bears repeating - if you create another account while your account is suspended, your new account will be locked and you may be subjected to a longer or even permanent posting ban.