Twilightus RPG Community Usage & Guidance Policy

When Twilightus Community Role Playing Games ("CRPGs", "Community RPGs") are started within the respective Twilightus Role Playing Game Community ("Twilightus RPG Community"), activity is a prime objective from day one. All global rulings stipulated in the Acceptable Usage Policy ("AUP") and Acceptable Usage Agreement ("AUA") are ordained absolute and to be followed by all CRPGs. Sole authority of further decisions lies on the commonwealth of the owner and adjoining staff. All decisions made must always come under compliance to the AUP and AUA under risk of penalty. Twilightus holds specific rights in administration and hosting in precedence among all Community RPGs, holding absolute authority to copy, change, edit, modify, remove, review, revise, or create information as deemed necessary.



General Requirements

A. Only new role playing games may be created through this service. Service may be denied to any person(s) at any time, regardless of CRPG project completion.

B. All new Community RPGs must be original ideas set forth though the imaginations and inspirations of their respective creators. Originality is promoted within the Community, expressed by the creation of an RPG. NEW RPGS MUST BE ORIGINAL IDEAS. RPGs may, however, be loosely based or related on other original works by other groups or individuals. Information MAY NOT be directly copied from other original works by other authors unless appropriate permission is given and sources are credited.

C. Previously used RPG names may not be used during registration. Visit the CRPG Creation Succession page for a list of names that have already been used. The original creator may, however, reuse their own previously used RPG name from their own original RPG. Existing names may not be duplicated.

D. Person(s) considering starting and maintaining an RPG must seriously consider whether or not they can be effectively dedicated to the creation of an RPG and whether or not they truly are capable of upholding an RPG through the growth and drought of forum activity.

E. Only one forum per email address at a time. Addresses used for currently Open or Private RPGs may not be used as the owner address for any other forum except Closed forums.

F. All forums must be in ENGLISH.



Allotted Time Periods

A. All Private RPGs must be at least at Level 3, Gamma Stage, within three weeks (21 days) of the RPG having been installed. At the end of three weeks, Community RPGs must have status upgraded to Level 3 and hyperlinks are placed, whereby public activity is allowed. Information on Status Stages may be found in the Status Scale Definitions Page.

B. Renovation periods may last up to three weeks (21 days) by which time a reconstructing RPG must be at least at Level 3, Gamma Stage. Information on Status Stages may be found in the Status Scale Definitions Page.

C. Request for hidden/locked CRPGs lasts for three weeks (21 days) before hidden status/locked status is removed. CRPGs may request to not be placed in circulation for up to a period of three weeks. The Twilightus Website will, however, link at the end of three weeks maximum.

D. On the date prescribed, the Private RPG will open, regardless of total completion. The exception to this rule is whereby an RPG is found to be incomplete and unfit for public viewing according to (A) and as determined by Twilightus Management. RPGs will be reviewed for completion periodically through the developmental phase. Further time periods beyond stated periods are not granted, except where Twilightus Management deems it necessary to terminate this clause.

E. Board Closure publicly accounts for (B) and (C), whereby Board Closure is equivalent to reconstruction and hidden/locked status. Board Closure will be removed after three weeks (21 days).

F. Period instigations must be at least outside of three weeks (21 days) of any and all former periods.

G. Private RPGs not found to comply with prior clauses may be given up to one week (7 days) to be reconciled by their respective owners before being terminated.

H. Immediate termination of a Private RPG may occur based on two criteria. On or after opening date: (1) the forum is neglected and has not been touched or the RPG has not been started and (2) the forum does not show potential to be running at Level 3 - Gamma Stage within a week (7 days).



CRPG Requirements. CRPGs must:

1. Have dedicated staff and personnel who agree to build and update the CRPG. Staff members should help to uphold the RPG with creative ideas and imaginative writings. All staff members must log in at least once every two weeks (14 days) unless otherwise stated.

2. Have at least one post per week (7 days) by at least one staff member and one user. Fewer than this is suffice to penalty and warning.

3. Always give credit to the respective owners of any and all unoriginal content used.

4. Coincide with the AUP and AUA. The AUP and AUA are considered "global rulings" which all Community RPGs must abide by.

 

RPGs will be periodically reviewed by Twilightus Management for activity. Warnings will be issued for lack of activity. Lack of activity may result in RPG closure.



Disallowed Functions. CRPG administrators may not:

1. Alter the primary administrator's account. *

1. Alter the Twilightus Management Services account, which is the second account on the forum memberlist. *

2. Alter cookie information. Cookie settings are set after installation. Cookies must not be tampered with in order to retain the integrity of login sessions.

3. Activate any mail service which is disallowed in the Administration Panel.

4. Activate SMTP mailing.

5. Activate any other form of avatar displays besides off-site avatars.

6. Activate any email service involving watched topic alerts or new PM alerts sent by email.

7. Upload, execute, or display files on the web server that consumes excessive CPU or bandwidth usage.

* Any alteration, including, but not limited to, changing, editing, deleting, modifying, or banning the primary administrator's or Twilightus Management's account may result in administrative lockdown.



Bandwidth and Disk Usage

Owners of Community RPGs agree that bandwidth, disk usage, and database space shall not exceed the number of bytes granted in the stipulated measurements outlined on the Website at the time of sign-up per month for the Services ordered by Customer. Twilightus will monitor Customer's bandwidth, disk usage, and database space. (Database space may be viewed through the forum Administration Panel.) Twilightus has the right to take corrective action if Customer's bandwidth, disk usage, or database space exceeds the granted amount. Such corrective action may include the assessment of additional charges, disconnection or discontinuance of any and all Services, or termination of this Agreement, which actions may be taken in Twilightus' sole and absolute discretion. If Twilightus takes any corrective action under this section, Customer shall not be entitled to a refund of any fees paid in advance prior to such action. Customer must agree to pay up to $10.00 USD per month on top of stipulated monetary dues for additional Service and the continued duration of Customer's Content on the Twilightus server-side by medium identified at the time of sign-up.

Charges as of November 6, 2005.

All RPGs are granted 1 GB (gigabytes) of database space. If an RPG exceeds this amount, the RPG will be charged a monthly fee of $2.00 USD per additional 50 MB on top of any monthly due charges. If payment is not met, and a thirty-day payment period ends, the RPG will be taken off the Twilightus RPG Community cycle (Twilightus.net), whereby the stated RPG then has seven days to issue payment else face closure. Payments may be submitted through the Paypal Service or by mail (not recommended). RPGs must pay $2.00 USD per additional 50 MB per month over allotted database space. Information about payment options available on the Support Twilightus Page.



RPG Forum Changes

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled the ability to request modification to Customer's phpBB forums. Twilightus, however, is not obligated to fulfill a request of any type and may refuse modification under any and all circumstances as determined by Twilightus Management. Twilightus administrators hold the right to refuse modification to phpBB forums hosted by Twilightus to any extent necessary. Twilightus does not hold any obligation to modify any phpBB forum. Twilightus is, however, obligated to fulfill modification to Customer's website once the request has been accepted on behalf of the administrator. These regulations also apply to template changes, in which Twilightus may refuse modification to any Community RPG.

Concerning Modifications

Requests for additional Modifications must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: Additional Modifications),
  2. RPG Name,
  3. Modification Name, and
  4. Website Address of Modification

The following modifications are not supported by Twilightus.net in any fashion and will not be installed:

All forums are automatically updated when new upgrades/modifications are offered. Forums containing non-standard modifications will take an extended period to update.

To view an example of word censors that may be installed for the RPG, visit the Censor List and email Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net to request installation of desired censors.


Concerning Templates/Styles

Requests for additional Templates must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: Additional Modifications),
  2. RPG Name,
  3. Template/Style Name, and
  4. Website Address of Template/Style

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request additional modifications or templates by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for additional modifications or templates must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Software

Twilightus only offers phpBB forums and MySQL databases for use. In using phpBB forums, a system is in place that utilizes a common set of core files that are shared by all forums in the community. The files that are actually in a forum's directory are called shell files, as they are empty besides a few lines that request the file information from a central location. When modifications are requested, instead of changing the root files, the specific files that must be changed or altered according to the modification's instructions are reverted to what are called core files, as they contain actual code that instructs the forum how to operate instead of being a reference file to the files in the central location.

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled the ability to request that all of their forum files be reverted from shell files to core files, and vice versa. This may be done if the owner wishes to edit these files themself for any reason. However, reverting files to core files does result in a significant loss of support from Twilightus.

Several important points should be noted:

File Reversion requests must consist of the following:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: File Reversion)
  2. RPG Name, and
  3. Detailed reason for reversion.

Owners of Community RPGs may freely revert files by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for ownership transfers must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Privilage Grant Requests

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled the ability to grant special privilages to other users. These privilages may consist of any or all of the things which only the owner can request by default, including the ability to request additional templates and modifications, site name changes, directory locks, and more.

RPG Privilage Grant requests must consist of the following:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: Privilage Grant)
  2. RPG Name,
  3. RPG Username of the intended party,
  4. Primary email address of the intended party,
  5. The specific privilage(s) to be granted (section headings), and
  6. Reason for grant.

Owners of Community RPGs may freely grant privilages by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for ownership transfers must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Ownership Transfer Requests

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled to the free transfer of ownership to any individual, group, organization, or party.

Transfer requests must consist of the following:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: Transfer of Ownership)
  2. RPG Name,
  3. Name of the original party,
  4. Name of the new party,
  5. Primary email address of the new party,
  6. RPG Username of the new party, and
  7. Reason for transfer.
The new party will be contacted by the given email address with the following requested:

The currently presiding owner of the RPG remains the owner of the RPG until the ownership transfer request is accepted by the prospective owner.

Ownership Transfer requests expire one month (30 days) after being submitted. Prospective owners must accept before the date of expiration.

Owners of Community RPGs may freely transfer ownership by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for ownership transfers must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Transfer/Upgrade Requests

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled one potential RPG transfer. RPG transfer includes the instigation of a new phpBB board. Upgrading to a new version of the phpBB software is granted freely, as well as creation of a completely new RPG with the cancellation of the first, which follows this as to instigate once. After installation of a new board, Customer has three weeks (21 days) to transfer all information from the original board to the new board and assume a Renovation Period. The end of this term will see the closure of the original board.

Requests to Transfer/Upgrade must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: RPG Transfer/Upgrade),
  2. RPG Name
  3. Reason for Transfer/Upgrade

Requests to Transfer/Upgrade must also include a registration form submission from the Create A World section unless concerned with extended renovation.

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request a board transfer/upgrade by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for transfers/upgrades must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.

All shell-hosted RPG boards are automatically updated to the latest version of the phpBB software. More information at phpBB.com.

All shell-hosted forums are automatically updated with new modifications when they are reviewed, tested, and installed by Twilightus Management. More information at Twilightus Updates.



RPG Renaming Requests

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled to the free renaming of their RPG.

Requests to Rename must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: RPG Rename),
  2. Original RPG Name,
  3. New RPG Name, and
  4. Reason for Renaming

If renaming concerns a major alteration of the RPG, including story or genre, a registration form from the Create A World section must also be submitted.

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request new names by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for forum renaming must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Renovation Requests

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled the ability to request renovation periods. Renovation is a period where the RPG staff of an RPG renovates the RPG. Renovations are taken from time to time to clean out RPGs to restore them and bring a variety of new ideas into play.

For time periods allotted for renovation periods, see clause B of "Allotted Time Periods" in the Twilightus RPG Community Usage & Guidance Policy.

Requests to Renovate must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: RPG Renovation),
  2. Name of RPG,
  3. Directory Lock? (Yes/No)*,
  4. Reason for Renovation

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request renovation periods by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for renovation must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.

* Directory lock is a security method used to disallow public access to a website directory (www.twilightus.net/yoursite). Owners may freely request a Directory Lock. See below for more details.



RPG Directory Lock Requests

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled to request directory lock. Directory Lock locks a forum directory from public access to only allow explicit access to the forum owner and privileged individuals. This gives immediate privacy to the information stored on the web forum. This is especially useful during initial building and renovation periods.

Requests for Directory Lock must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: RPG Directory Lock),
  2. Name of RPG,
  3. Global Username*,
  4. Global Password*, and
  5. Reason for Directory Lock

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request directory lock by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for directory lock must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.

* Global values are used for any other Twilightus Service offered that requires a username and a password. Global Usernames must consist of letters, numbers, and underscores only. Global Passwords must be 6-12 characters long. Recommended that Global Username and Global Password not be the same as any Admin Username or Admin Password.



RPG Closure Requests

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled to the free closure of their RPG at any time. Requests will either be fulfilled by the date of closure specified or immediately after review if none is given.

Requests to Close must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: RPG Closure),
  2. Name of RPG,
  3. Date of Desired Closure, and
  4. Reason for Closure

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request closure by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for forum closure must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Restoration Requests

Hosted forums are automatically removed after an extended period of forum inactivity. Former owners of Community RPGs may, however, have the option of restoring their closed RPGs upon request, as decided by Twilightus Management. Requests may be denied if no database is available in Twilightus archives or if forum violations include violations greater than forum inactivity. After having been closed, restoration requests may not be made before thirty days.

Requests to Revive must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: RPG Restoration),
  2. Name of RPG, and
  3. Detailed reason for Restoration

Former owners of Community RPGs may freely request restoration by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for forum restoration must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Regulation Mitigation Requests

Owners of Community RPGs have the option of requesting mitigation certificates of certain regulations. These certificates are used for the sole purpose of selective concession of forum content-related restrictions. Compromise is given to forum owners whereby owners attain the ability to display restricted content only from Section 4 under title "Prohibited Material" in the Acceptable Usage Policy, insofar that all terms described in the mitigation certificate are upheld to the fullest extent. Failure to abide by described terms will result in consequences administered through the Acceptable Usage Agreement. The certificate will be posted in the primary announcements forum of the RPG as follows:

Mitigation of Mature-Oriented Content

Under the express discretion of viewers of this forum, by request of the owner of this forum, and with the approved consent of Twilightus Management under explicit conditions, the following is approved for public dissemination:

Upon any instance of any damages incurred through this restricted edict, the claim of liability lies in the sole author of the content disseminated through this forum.

Explicit conditions of this restricted edict are:

All parties not abiding by these conditions will be subject to the fullest terms of Twilightus general regulations, whereby this restricted edict becomes effectively null and void in regard to the party in question.

DISCLAIMER: Twilightus.net holds no responsibility whatsoever for damages incurred to any party in any manner anywhere within Twilightus.net outside of general regulation. Twilightus cannot guarantee the safety, nor security of information disseminated to Twilightus.net. Despite our best efforts to keep things safe, clean, and friendly, Twilightus.net is under no obligation to supplement for any objectionable material or loss of information which is/was viewed, submitted, or distributed to Twilightus.net or other locations. THIS SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS, AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. TWILIGHTUS.NET EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY GRANT OF WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED AT ANY TIME. IN NO EVENT SHALL TWILIGHTUS.NET BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THOSE RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS. ALL INFORMATION, RECEIVED AND SUBMITTED, IS AT RISK OF THE USER. Individual discretion is advised.

Requests to attain a Regulation Mitigation must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: Regulation Mitigation),
  2. Name of RPG,
  3. Mitigation Type,
  4. Reason for Request,
  5. and Liability Acceptance (I hereby claim all liability concerning any and all forms of damanges occurred through the use of this mitigation: I accept

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request regulation mitigation certificates by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for certificates must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



RPG Website Creation

Owners of Community RPGs are entitled the ability to create a website for the initial RPG, that is, phpBB board. However, creation of the actual website is for the owner to create. Website creation software may be used in creation of a web page. This process may take place through three methods: FTP Access, File Manager, or client-to-management file transfer.

FTP Access. Through FTP access, individual files may be uploaded directly to the Twilightus Server, whereby the owner is given access to their RPG software directory through the use of a third-party FTP program. Visit the FTP Setup & Usage Guide for more information.

File Manager. The file manager is available through the admin panel under "Admin Links" only for the presiding owner of an RPG forum. The file manager allows owners to quickly access their forum directory to upload, edit, and delete files from their webspace.

NOTICE: Twilightus does not backup added or changed files and is not liable for the loss of information due to anyone granted access other than Twilightus Management that tampers with phpBB software files. File backups may be attained by the owner if they are desired. In the event of accidental alteration or deletion of forum files, please contact Twilightus Management immediately at management@twilightus.net and list all files and/or directories where files were deleted or tampered with.

General Uploading. Through General Uploading, FTP Access is not granted, in which case each file of a desired website, by the owner of stated RPG, must be transferred to Twilighuts Management by some medium. Mediums available include by email at management@twilightus.net, AOL Instant Messenger at Twilightus RPG, or MSN Messenger at JJDSL41@msn.com. A detailed structure of the website must be given if this medium is chosen, in such that the Twilightus Management is able to derive proper placement of specific files and folders throughout the directory.

Structure of the website is done by the owner's hand, though permissions may be granted to anyone the owner disseminates permissions to. Website design, structure, layout, graphics, etc, of the aforesaid RPG are under the jurisdiction of the owner of the RPG.



Subdomain Names
A subdomain may be requested as an add-on to a Twilightus Community RPG. As an example, http://yoursite.twilightus.net would be the same as http://www.twilightus.net/yoursite.

Requests to attain a Subdomain Name must include:

  1. Statement of Intentions (Subject: Subdomain Name),
  2. Name of RPG,
  3. and Reason for Request

Owners of Community RPGs may freely request subdomain names by emailing Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net. Requests for subdomains must be made through the email address used upon RPG registration.



Primary Domain Names
A primary domain name may be acquired and pointed towards a Twilightus Community RPG. An example domain name is where http://www.yourwebsite.net points to http://www.twilightus.net/yourwebsite. Unused primary domain names cost $15 USD per year. If you are interested in a primary domain, please contact Twilightus Management at management@twilightus.net for further details.



Miscellaneous

I. Days, weeks, months, and years accord to the Gregorian calendar. (60 seconds = 1 minute/60 minutes = 1 hour/24 hours = 1 day/7 days = 1 week/~4 weeks = 1 month/12 months = 1 year/10 years = 1 decade/10 decades = 1 century/10 centuries = 1 millennia.)

II. Opening requires in-game RPG activity (battles/quests/events). Out-of-game activity does not count as open.

III. Any and all references to the term "staff" is understood to automatically always include the owner of the RPG. All terms of staff is applied in conjunction with and in relation to the owner of their RPG, whereby owner is understood to be a part of and leader of the membership of staff in their RPG.

 

Revised: January 6, 2007