Forum Constitution

Revision 0.3.0

Preamble

We, the users of this domain, in order to create and maintain an open forum, allow the expression of ideas and opinions, promote the creation of content and preserve our heritage establish this constitution for the Mach Entertainment Forum.

Article One: The Executive Branch

Section 1: The Forum Owner

All power is vested in the Forum Owner and from the Forum Owner all power is granted. Their office is absolute and shall not be elected but transferred from the previous Forum Owner to the next.

The power vested in the Forum Owner to be granted to Administrators and Moderators, for the sake of transparency, are but are not limited to:

• Warnings: User is contacted by staff for their violation and assigned points based on the severity within the limitations set by Section 3
• Like Deletion: User's likes from a certain period of time are removed.
• Thread Banishment: User is prohibited from posting to a specific thread.
• Moderated Probation: Any content created by this user must be approved by any staff member with a rank of at least moderator.
• Temporary Banishment: User's account is prohibited from viewing, posting, making threads or interacting with the forum for a period within the limitations outlined above of set by Section 3
• Permanent Banishment: User's account is prohibited from viewing, posting, making threads or interacting with the forums with no limitation of time. Only to be revoked at the discretion of the staff member who has charged the guilty party and the forum's leader.

Section 2: The Administrators

The power vested in the Administrators is granted from the Forum Owner. With their power, Administrators, are to protect the forum in its entirety enforcing the rules and laws outlined in this constitution.

Administrators are granted by the Forum Owner the power to: banish, deny a user access to the forum, for an indeterminable amount of time (permanent ban); remove a user’s account from the forum’s database; permanently remove a user’s content from the forum’s database and all the powers granted to Moderators.

Section 3: The Moderators

Moderators are granted by the Forum Owner the power to: banish, deny a user access to the forum, for a period not to exceed seven days; to censor and remove user content from public view and the power to warn, to contact a user for content and assign penalty points.

Section 4: Executive Responsibility

Administrators and Moderators, while granted power from the Forum Owner, are still governed by the same rules and laws as other users.

Administrators and Moderators being granted a role of leadership must maintain their titles respectfully. No Administrator or Moderator shall be granted or retain power if the public does not have respect for them.

The forum may request to have an Administrator or Moderator have their title and powers reviewed. The public shall assemble and determine by two thirds vote that an Administrator or Moderator has failed to maintain their title respectfully after which the Forum Owner shall immediately revoke their title pending review. If the Forum Owner deems the Administrator or Moderator unfit to discharge the powers and duties of their their title and power shall be revoked.

Article Three: Punishment and Inalienable Rights

Section 1: Equal User Treatment

No user shall treat any other user in a hateful manner. Words that are used to purposely degrade another user based on their race, ethnicity, sex and/or gender identity are expressly prohibited. Users whoever they may be are to be treated in a respectful manner. Users who have been granted power and the Forum Leader are no exception. While not a user, the forum itself is an entity in the eyes of this constitution and as such should be treated with respect. Disrespect is punishable by moderation of a user's posts and can in extreme cases result in a user's account being removed from the forum.

Users who are found to be in violation of this right:

1. Shall have their offending posts censored or removed.
2. Shall be assigned a warning of one to five points (depending on severity) per count of offense.
3. May have their future posts require moderator approval before being posted publicly.
4. May for continued offenses be banished.

Section 2: The Promotion of Third Parties

No user shall promote the product of a third party unless the product is related to the topic of discussion. However, in absolutely no case, should any user be created for the express purpose of promotion of any product. Links are not to be placed within a user's status. If any post within a user's first 5 posts is composed in such a nature to promote a product or service, the user is to be marked as a spammer, and will be promptly removed. Their account will be deleted, their posts removed, and their IP address banished. If the user has no previous record of spamming and their IP address currently holds no recorded reports of spam within the last 30 days and at the discretion of the assigned staff member the user may be warned instead of directly being banished. A warning for spamming should carry a rating of 3 points.

Users who are found to be in violation of this right:

1. Shall have their offending content censored or removed
2. Shall be assigned a warning of three points per count of offense.
• Creating a thread is considered two counts.
• Creating a thread is considered one count.
3. May have their account marked as spam resulting in having their account removed and their IP banned.
• An account may only be considered for spam if created within the past 30 days.
• The offending account must be deemed, in the eyes of the enforcer, to be created exclusively to promote a third party.

Section 3: Punishment, Warnings and Administrative Powers

Users who fail to follow the rules and laws receive warnings with point values that vary depending on the offense.

Punishments for reaching Point Values:

• 5 Points: User is temporarily placed on moderated probation until their point value drops to below 3.
• 7 Points: User is temporarily banished until their point value drops below 7.
• 8 Points: User is temporarily banished until their point value drops below 5.
• 9 Points: User is permanently placed on moderator probation and temporarily banished until their point value drops below 3.
• 10 Points: User is permanently banned with one chance of lesser punishment to be decided by a court consisting of the forum's leader, the guilty party and the staff member who has charged the guilty party. At the forum leader's discretion, this one chance maybe be denied.
• 11 Points and above: User is permanently banished by both user name and IP address with no chance of trial.

Article Four: Amending the Constitution

Section 1: Amendments and Articles

The forum, being a constantly changing entity whose values will inevitably change, requires a constitution that is capable of changing to better serve its users. While the power to modify, add and remove articles remains vested in the Forum Owner. The users, being the majority and for whose needs the forum must be able to adapt, may propose to amend the constitution. A proposed amendment, in the form of a joint resolution, must be by a public assembly, determined by majority vote. After which it will undergo first executive review in which the Forum Owner will propose changes, assign it a joint resolution number (In the form of J.R X.Y.Z where X is the what amendment it will become, Y is a unique number assigned to the joint resolution and Z is the revision number starting at 1 and increasing every time it is changed. ) and submit it back to the public assembly for second review. The public may accept the changes and vote to ratify the joint resolution or seek a second executive review after changes. If after the third executive review the joint resolution fails to be ratified the joint resolution is dropped. In order to ratify an amendment the final joint resolution must be determined by a two thirds vote where the voting body is the active public and then approved by the Forum Owner who retains the power to veto the Joint Resolution.

Section 2: Executive Privilege

The Forum Owner may not change any amendment without proposing changes as described in Section 1. They may however remove the amendment at any time.