Forum Guidelines

[Stewart]

The following is a collection of tips and guidance for the usage of World Literature Forum:

• General Rules
• Avatars
• Reporting Posts
• Editing Posts
• Private Messaging
• Member Name Changes
• Cancelling Your Membership
• Currently Reading
• Spoilers
• Tags
• Social Groups
• The Blogosphere

For further explanations, please use the FAQ Page.

[Stewart]

GENERAL RULES

The following are some basic rules about membership on World Literature Forum. These are liable to change with time and members are encouraged to ensure they are always aware of them.

1. One account per member. Anyone found with a secondary account will have it removed and may be banned.
2. No advertising.
3. No images in signatures. Links are fine though.
4. No personal attacks, trolling, or pointless posting. Such posts will be removed and may result in a banning.
5. World Literature Forum reserves the right to edit and/or remove all posts without reason and without notice.
6. No multiple posting of the same topic. Pick the right area and post there. Duplicate threads will be removed.
7. Before posting, do a search on your subject matter to ensure it hasn't been discussed before.
8. Be a good member and help by reporting any suspect posts.
9. Once a message has been posted, members are permitted to edit their message within a period of seven days.
10. Credit others where credit is due.
11. Godwin's Law is in place. Threads may be closed if invoked.

[Stewart]

AVATARS

An avatar is a small icon that appears next to your name on your posts. Members are permitted to upload their own avatar to World Literature Forum or can make use of the selection provided. An avatar can be no bigger than 80 pixels by 80 pixels. To edit your avatar, click here. No pornographic or otherwise offensive avatars are permitted.

[Stewart]

REPORTING POSTS

While its intended that the moderation of World Literature Forum be light, letting members discuss all manner of topics with little recourse to censorship, there are occasions when a post made violates the ethos of the forum. Such incidents include, but are not limited to, flame wars (salvos of insulting posts), trolling (members posting with the intent of causing trouble) and spamming (members trying to sell products). If any such violations appear on the forum we want to know about it as soon as possible, and members are encouraged to report any posts that relate to any of the following:

• Spam, advertising, and links to inappropriate sites;
• Any material that infringes copyright;
• Personal attacks, not disagreements;
• Inappropriate member names;
• Inappopriate avatars; and
• Members identifying themselves as under thirteen years of age.

To report a post, there is an icon () at the top right of each post. Please click on this, filling in a reason why you are reporting it, and all members of the forum team will be notified, review the post, and take the appropriate action.

[Stewart]

EDITING POSTS

To ensure the content of World Literature Forum remains robust, there is a time limit of seven days on editing posts. After this limit has passed you will no longer be able to edit posts. Should you with to edit a post after this period then please report the post, explaining what you would like changed.

[Stewart]

PRIVATE MESSAGING

Should you wish, you can contact other members of World Literature Forum privately by using the Private Message system. You can view your personal inbox here. Members have a storage capacity of 50 private messages, spanning sent and received. If you receive a suspicious Private Message please Forward it to a member of the forum team who will deal with it appropriately. Any members found abusing the Private Messaging system may have their membership cancelled indefinitely.

[Stewart]

MEMBER NAME CHANGES

Should you decide, for whatever reason, that you would like to change your member name on World Literature Forum, please contact the administrator via the Contact Form linked to at the foot of the forum, citing your new desired member name.

[Stewart]

CANCELLING YOUR MEMBERSHIP

While it's hoped that you would never feel the need to cancel your World Literature Forum membership, you can request it via the Contact Form linked to at the foot of the forum, citing your reason for wanting to do so. Please be aware that by doing so your member name will be lost, along with all your private messages, and any details stored in your profile. Cancelling membership will not remove your posts from World Literature Forum.

[Stewart]

CURRENTLY READING

World Literature Forum allows members to keep others up to date with what they are currently reading by displaying book, author, and - where applicable - translator next to their posting details. To edit this, visit your control panel where there are three boxes named:

• Currently Reading (Title)
• Currently Reading (Author)
• Currently Reading (Translator)

If the book you are reading is not in translation, you can leave the latter field blank and the translator field will no appear with your posting details.

[Stewart]

SPOILERS

When discussing a book on World Literature Forum members may wish to discuss an aspect of the book that would, to other readers of the discussion, give away major plot points and therefore spoil the book. To this end you will find that, amongst the forum's posting tools, there is a Spoiler option.

The Spoiler option is signified by this button () and by clicking it the member is given a pair of BB Code tags, looking like this: [SPOILER][/SPOILER]. Alternatively, you can type out the tags.

The spoiler text is placed between these, like so:

[SPOILER]The butler did it.[/SPOILER]

When the post is read by other members, the spoiler text will be hidden within a white box with a black outline, like so:

The butler did it.

To read the spoiler, you can drag the cursor over the white box.

If, in discussing a book, you are unsue of whether it's worth putting text in a spoiler box, err on the side of caution and make it a spoiler.

[Stewart]

TAGS

On each thread there exists the opportunity to 'tag' them with descriptive words and phrases that can help enhance World Literature Forum's search features. How members describe the threads is up to them. Separate each word or phrase with a comma. For example, if you wished to tag Leo Tolstoy's War And Peace you could use such terms as:

leo tolstoy, russian literature, 19th century, epic, classics, realist fiction

There is a limit of twenty-five tags per thread. The creator of a thread can fill this allocation. Other members can add up to five tags to a thread, until the twenty-five limit is complete.

As more tags are added to World Literature Forum to describe its threads, a Tag Cloud is created, showing the hundred most popular terms. The larger the text, the more popular the tag. Members can also search for terms throughout the entire tag collection. Clicking on a tag will provide members with all threads tagged with that description. See, for example, the tag for Russian Literature.

Preferred tags include the authors' names, translators' names, languages, and nations' literature, but that should in no way hamper members efforts to further describe threads in their own way, be it sci-fi, crime, 18th century, epic, epistolary, etc.

When discussing a topic on World Literature Forum members may wish to refer other readers to similar threads on a topic. To this end there is a Tag option availble, signified by this button () and by clicking it the member is given a pair of BB Code tags, loking like this: [TAG][/TAG]. Alternatively, you can type out the tags.

The tag text is placed between these, like so:

[TAG]Russian Literature[/TAG]

When the post is read by other members, the tag text will be be converted into a link to a search of all threads tagged that way on World Literature Forum, like this:

Russian Literature

To view all threads related to that tag, click on the link.

[Stewart]

SOCIAL GROUPS

Away from the main forum there exists the opportunity for users to create their own individual groups for further discussion topics. For example, should members wish to converse in another language (e.g German) then it's possible to view the Groups page and Create a New Group. These social groups will be unmoderated and members use them at their own risk. The creator of each group becomes its administrator and can edit the name of the group, its description, and its permission type. There are three permission type:

• Public, whereby any member that wishes to join can do so;
• Moderated, whereby any member can apply to join and the group's adminstrator can approve and deny applications; and
• Invite Only, whereby members have to be invited by the group's administrator to participate.

Please notify a member of the forum team with any complaints or abuse of the social groups feature.

[Stewart]

THE BLOGOSPHERE

Beyond World Literature Forum there are discussions, reviews, and other activity happening on blogs. Recognising this, The Blogosphere forum is set up to provide links to subject matter related content around the internet. Links are drawn from a growing list of blogs.

To suggest a new blog to add to please send me a private message with the details, including blog name, blog URL, and blog feed.