We want to provide a free, fun, and open community for discussions. However we also must protect our members and staff. The following rules have been adopted to keep everyone's experience the most positive it can be. We appreciate your understanding and co-operation in keeping the Coven of Midnight a safe forum for spiritual and related discussions!
The use of correct grammar and punctuation is a requirement for continued use of the site. Language barriers are difficult enough without poor grammar and spelling, or chat speak making it more confusing and could lead to confusion between users. Please always speak English on all areas of the site as we can't moderate what we can't read. Please do not use chat speak (acronyms such as lol, omg, ect are an exception).
Please respect other members and their beliefs, opinions, and views at all times. Members are also advised to be polite to other members at all times. Aggression, disrespect, baiting, flaming, homophobia, racism, name calling (this includes calling people trolls or accusing them of trolling.), belittling, sarcasm, bullying, gossiping, are all unacceptable behavior and will, if persistent despite reminders and warnings, result in disciplinary action. If, however, the breach of the above rule is considered too severe, Staff may at their discretion forego both the reminder and warning and resort immediately to disciplinary action. Adversarial and aggressive posts deter people who would like to contribute to discussions from participation in these boards. Remember the golden rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated! The following will not be tolerated:
Every member of CoM is entitled to harassment free membership, any harassment of any nature, including harassment in chat or via the PM system (this includes unsolicited PM's) should be reported to staff immediately. It will be dealt with quickly and discreetly and may result in disciplinary action or suspension for the perpetrator
Personal affairs, including disputes from other forums, disputes on this forum, private arguments from your personal life and disliking other members, should not be brought into the forum, everyone has an ignore this member function which can be used, this behavior will result in warnings and possible disciplinary action.
Scaremongering is not permitted, what it means is posting information which may cause fear, or even panic amongst members, please remember we have vulnerable members and children here.
Please do not make any predictions of death, be that in readings or dreams or any other area of the forum, no matter how certain you are. Anyone making predictions of death to a member should be reported to staff immediately.
Complaints may be made by PM to any staff member, please do not voice complaints about other members or members of staff on the open forum, ever, as this may result in a warning and possible disciplinary action.
Please do not spam. Spam covers a broad variety of types of posts. Things that are considered spam are:
Posting something off topic, that does not contribute to the current conversation or just plain non-sense in a thread
Copy and pasting massive walls of text. One or two lines at most of relevant text of material from other sites or sources and a link to the relevant text for further reading is allowed on the condition that the author is credited and the source linked is not a commercial site (promoting or selling goods or services). Quotes of religious texts or articles must also be no more than one or two lines
Posting multiple threads for the same purpose
Advertising outside the advertisement forum, or privately messaging advertisements
Excessive posting where a single post would suffice
Excessive letters/symbols
Excessive smilies (one or two per post is fine)
Excessive bumping. Threads should not be bumped more than once every 24 hours unless it is off the first page of the forum. If you feel the need to add more to your original response you should edit your post instead
Double posting, please edit your post instead (user journals are an exception to this rule)
Posts that are considered spam will be removed or edited. Repeatedly breaching this rule will lead to warnings and possible disciplinary action
Please keep everything PG-13. While minor swearing is allowed, there is no need to use it every other word (the rant board and member journals are exceptions to this rule but only when marked with a [M] symbol.) The following topics of discussion are considered mature, while CoM is geared towards a mature audience, we do have many younger users, additionally not all members of the site are comfortable with such topics. They should be marked with an [M] for mature in the title:
Sex (may be discussed but under restrictions, if you're starting to talk about it explicitly i.e you're talking about genitals or describe someone’s body in detail, there will be trouble. On no part of CoM may you graphically discuss sex or share sexual images or texts. This includes via the private messaging feature. If you're unsure if it's appropriate please ask a moderator)
Sexual innuendo
Artistic nudity
Sexuality
Excessive swearing
Suicide (most members of CoM do not have the necessary training to respond to those who are considering suicide and may even with the best of intentions say something that could negatively affect someone in that state of mind. These posts also can negatively affect anyone struggling with depression who reads them. If you are having suicidal thoughts, please contact someone who is properly trained to respond to these matters. There are sites that provide hotlines you can call to talk to someone who can help, such as http://www.befrienders.org/support/helplines.asp and http://www.suicidehotlines.com/national.html for example)
The following topics are forbidden to be discussed in the Coven of Midnight, be it via the forums, PMs, or any other form of chat in the coven:
Pedophilia
Cult creation
The killing of another person (be it another user or a person not associated with CoM)
Drugs
For the safety of our members, the discussion of any practice which may be extremely detrimental to mind, body, or spirit is not permitted. This includes practices such as fasting for long periods of time, sun gazing, taking substances that can harm ones health, etc. Comments that could discourage a member from visiting their doctor or from following their doctor's advice or prescriptions also fall under this. Posts that the staff deem as violations of this rule will be removed or edited and repeating this conduct will result in warnings and possible disciplinary action
All requests for financial assistance from our members will be removed as will all requests for help with studies, research and the like, we have no way of knowing whether any of these requests are genuine and have decided to completely prohibit all such requests to protect the membership from scammers
Discussing any disciplinary action, along with some forms of moderation carried out by our staff is done after thorough discussion, and is a matter between staff and the member concerned, anyone found to be publicly launching attacks against staff following disciplinary action or a fixed term suspension, or found to be discussing disciplinary action or a suspension in the forum or chat will themselves receive a suspension, the length of the suspension depending on the gravity of the attack. It should be noted that no ban is implemented lightly and other members may not be fully aware of the circumstances
You are allowed up to three links in your signature, as long as they are not commercial (ie sell something) and of a reasonable size. If you are unsure about a link please ask a member of staff before you post it.
Please be mindful that this is a family site, images must not depict violence of any kind, any form of abuse or pornography. Remember that what is funny to one member may be disturbing to another, a good rule of thumb is would you allow a child to see it. Breaches of this rule depending on the nature of the image may result in disciplinary action.
One account is allowed per person at the Coven of Midnight. Unauthorized second and subsequent accounts are not allowed and will result in a suspension of the unauthorized multiple account(s). We do however accept that in some instances another member of the same household may wish to join CoM and that they will use the same computer or device to access these forums. In this case please advise a member of staff that another member of your household wishes to join, so that we are aware that more than one person is using your computer or device to access the coven. Please do not use links, or full names, as usernames, as you will be asked to change it. Please do not post identifying information about other people anywhere in the forum or chat room.
Please do not moderate other members, do not create your own rules in posts (outside of game threads), tell other member's where they can post and where they cannot, or correct anyone on their spelling or grammar or presentation (English is not everyone's first language and some people have dyslexia or may have learning difficulties.) If a post is difficult to read please pm a staff member so we can discreetly suggest an edit to the member concerned, or if it's a solid block of text we can insert breaks. If you feel threads are in the wrong section please simply contact a member of staff. Mini-modding can be defined as:
Deliberately looking for rule-breakers and constantly giving reminders.
Publicly or privately calling someone out on breaking rules; gentle reminders are okay, confrontations are not. For example: Gentle reminder: "Hey, could you please remember to use punctuation? It's hard to read your posts without it." Confrontation: "Remember to use correct grammar and punctuation, as per the rules. This is a rule you agreed to when you first joined the coven."
Telling a user what to do to correct their behavior.
Question it as the difference between "Is this user being helpful?" and "Is this user acting as a moderator would?" Answering a question is okay, deliberately posting just to give a rule reminder is not.
Grave digging is posting on threads that have been inactive for 30 days or greater, after this time only the original poster may comment on the thread. Certain forums allow grave digging, these are listed below:
Journals
Book of Light discussions
Bug reports
Suggestions
Forum games
Threads stickied by staff
In instances where a rule is in question, it should be handled by staff to ensure the rule is properly enforced or the question is answered correctly. It can also confuse members on who is and is not a staff member, and it can come off as threatening when a user corrects another user.
When contacting staff your comfort is important, so if you feel comfortable with a certain staff member you should feel free to message them first, however as a rule of thumb you should message moderators first. If they cannot help you they will direct you to an administrator, and if they can't help you the admin will send you on to the head admin. Please only message one member of staff at a time with your issue, even if it says we are online we're often busy with many things, if you don't get an immediate response don't panic. You should wait 48 hours (unless the issue is time sensitive) before contacting another member of staff, it would be polite to let the first staff member you contacted know you have done so to avoid confusion.
Staff are members too! Please note that our staff are members first and foremost, just like you, (they work here for free giving up their own valuable time for the love of the forum,) and as such are entitled to the same consideration, any member harassing, threatening or abusing our staff will risk having their membership suspended as a result.
On some occasions staff may need to use their own judgment about an issue which is not covered in these rules, it is impossible to cover every possible scenario in such a brief list as we come across new issues regularly.
Changes, alterations and amendments may be made to these rules to reflect new issues that effect these forums sometimes so please review this page from time to time in order to remain appraised of our forum practice's and policies. Thank you for your co-operation in keeping these forums clean, safe and useable
By joining this forum you agree to abide by all of the rules and stickies of the Council. Failure to do so can result in the loss of membership without warning.
The Coven of Midnight reserves the right to revoke the membership of any member that is in breach of these rules at any time. The Coven of Midnight also reserves the right to remove any thread from the forums that is not conducive to the coven at any given time.
The use of correct grammar and punctuation is a requirement for continued use of the site. Language barriers are difficult enough without poor grammar and spelling, or chat speak making it more confusing and could lead to confusion between users. Please always speak English on all areas of the site as we can't moderate what we can't read. Please do not use chat speak (acronyms such as lol, omg, ect are an exception).
Please respect other members and their beliefs, opinions, and views at all times. Members are also advised to be polite to other members at all times. Aggression, disrespect, baiting, flaming, homophobia, racism, name calling (this includes calling people trolls or accusing them of trolling.), belittling, sarcasm, bullying, gossiping, are all unacceptable behavior and will, if persistent despite reminders and warnings, result in disciplinary action. If, however, the breach of the above rule is considered too severe, Staff may at their discretion forego both the reminder and warning and resort immediately to disciplinary action. Adversarial and aggressive posts deter people who would like to contribute to discussions from participation in these boards. Remember the golden rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated! The following will not be tolerated:
Every member of CoM is entitled to harassment free membership, any harassment of any nature, including harassment in chat or via the PM system (this includes unsolicited PM's) should be reported to staff immediately. It will be dealt with quickly and discreetly and may result in disciplinary action or suspension for the perpetratorPersonal affairs, including disputes from other forums, disputes on this forum, private arguments from your personal life and disliking other members, should not be brought into the forum, everyone has an ignore this member function which can be used, this behavior will result in warnings and possible disciplinary action.Scaremongering is not permitted, what it means is posting information which may cause fear, or even panic amongst members, please remember we have vulnerable members and children here.Please do not make any predictions of death, be that in readings or dreams or any other area of the forum, no matter how certain you are. Anyone making predictions of death to a member should be reported to staff immediately.Complaints may be made by PM to any staff member, please do not voice complaints about other members or members of staff on the open forum, ever, as this may result in a warning and possible disciplinary action.Please do not spam. Spam covers a broad variety of types of posts. Things that are considered spam are:
Posting something off topic, that does not contribute to the current conversation or just plain non-sense in a threadCopy and pasting massive walls of text. One or two lines at most of relevant text of material from other sites or sources and a link to the relevant text for further reading is allowed on the condition that the author is credited and the source linked is not a commercial site (promoting or selling goods or services). Quotes of religious texts or articles must also be no more than one or two linesPosting multiple threads for the same purposeAdvertising outside the advertisement forum, or privately messaging advertisementsExcessive posting where a single post would sufficeExcessive letters/symbolsExcessive smilies (one or two per post is fine)Excessive bumping. Threads should not be bumped more than once every 24 hours unless it is off the first page of the forum. If you feel the need to add more to your original response you should edit your post insteadDouble posting, please edit your post instead (user journals are an exception to this rule)Posts that are considered spam will be removed or edited. Repeatedly breaching this rule will lead to warnings and possible disciplinary actionPlease keep everything PG-13. While minor swearing is allowed, there is no need to use it every other word (the rant board and member journals are exceptions to this rule but only when marked with a [M] symbol.) The following topics of discussion are considered mature, while CoM is geared towards a mature audience, we do have many younger users, additionally not all members of the site are comfortable with such topics. They should be marked with an [M] for mature in the title:
Sex (may be discussed but under restrictions, if you're starting to talk about it explicitly i.e you're talking about genitals or describe someone’s body in detail, there will be trouble. On no part of CoM may you graphically discuss sex or share sexual images or texts. This includes via the private messaging feature. If you're unsure if it's appropriate please ask a moderator)Sexual innuendoArtistic nuditySexualityExcessive swearingSuicide (most members of CoM do not have the necessary training to respond to those who are considering suicide and may even with the best of intentions say something that could negatively affect someone in that state of mind. These posts also can negatively affect anyone struggling with depression who reads them. If you are having suicidal thoughts, please contact someone who is properly trained to respond to these matters. There are sites that provide hotlines you can call to talk to someone who can help, such as http://www.befrienders.org/support/helplines.asp and http://www.suicidehotlines.com/national.html for example)The following topics are forbidden to be discussed in the Coven of Midnight, be it via the forums, PMs, or any other form of chat in the coven:
PedophiliaCult creationThe killing of another person (be it another user or a person not associated with CoM)DrugsFor the safety of our members, the discussion of any practice which may be extremely detrimental to mind, body, or spirit is not permitted. This includes practices such as fasting for long periods of time, sun gazing, taking substances that can harm ones health, etc. Comments that could discourage a member from visiting their doctor or from following their doctor's advice or prescriptions also fall under this. Posts that the staff deem as violations of this rule will be removed or edited and repeating this conduct will result in warnings and possible disciplinary actionAll requests for financial assistance from our members will be removed as will all requests for help with studies, research and the like, we have no way of knowing whether any of these requests are genuine and have decided to completely prohibit all such requests to protect the membership from scammersDiscussing any disciplinary action, along with some forms of moderation carried out by our staff is done after thorough discussion, and is a matter between staff and the member concerned, anyone found to be publicly launching attacks against staff following disciplinary action or a fixed term suspension, or found to be discussing disciplinary action or a suspension in the forum or chat will themselves receive a suspension, the length of the suspension depending on the gravity of the attack. It should be noted that no ban is implemented lightly and other members may not be fully aware of the circumstancesYou are allowed up to three links in your signature, as long as they are not commercial (ie sell something) and of a reasonable size. If you are unsure about a link please ask a member of staff before you post it.
Please be mindful that this is a family site, images must not depict violence of any kind, any form of abuse or pornography. Remember that what is funny to one member may be disturbing to another, a good rule of thumb is would you allow a child to see it. Breaches of this rule depending on the nature of the image may result in disciplinary action.
One account is allowed per person at the Coven of Midnight. Unauthorized second and subsequent accounts are not allowed and will result in a suspension of the unauthorized multiple account(s). We do however accept that in some instances another member of the same household may wish to join CoM and that they will use the same computer or device to access these forums. In this case please advise a member of staff that another member of your household wishes to join, so that we are aware that more than one person is using your computer or device to access the coven. Please do not use links, or full names, as usernames, as you will be asked to change it. Please do not post identifying information about other people anywhere in the forum or chat room.
Please do not moderate other members, do not create your own rules in posts (outside of game threads), tell other member's where they can post and where they cannot, or correct anyone on their spelling or grammar or presentation (English is not everyone's first language and some people have dyslexia or may have learning difficulties.) If a post is difficult to read please pm a staff member so we can discreetly suggest an edit to the member concerned, or if it's a solid block of text we can insert breaks. If you feel threads are in the wrong section please simply contact a member of staff. Mini-modding can be defined as:
Deliberately looking for rule-breakers and constantly giving reminders.Publicly or privately calling someone out on breaking rules; gentle reminders are okay, confrontations are not. For example: Gentle reminder: "Hey, could you please remember to use punctuation? It's hard to read your posts without it." Confrontation: "Remember to use correct grammar and punctuation, as per the rules. This is a rule you agreed to when you first joined the coven."Telling a user what to do to correct their behavior.Question it as the difference between "Is this user being helpful?" and "Is this user acting as a moderator would?" Answering a question is okay, deliberately posting just to give a rule reminder is not.
Grave digging is posting on threads that have been inactive for 30 days or greater, after this time only the original poster may comment on the thread. Certain forums allow grave digging, these are listed below:
JournalsBook of Light discussionsBug reportsSuggestionsForum gamesThreads stickied by staffIn instances where a rule is in question, it should be handled by staff to ensure the rule is properly enforced or the question is answered correctly. It can also confuse members on who is and is not a staff member, and it can come off as threatening when a user corrects another user.
When contacting staff your comfort is important, so if you feel comfortable with a certain staff member you should feel free to message them first, however as a rule of thumb you should message moderators first. If they cannot help you they will direct you to an administrator, and if they can't help you the admin will send you on to the head admin. Please only message one member of staff at a time with your issue, even if it says we are online we're often busy with many things, if you don't get an immediate response don't panic. You should wait 48 hours (unless the issue is time sensitive) before contacting another member of staff, it would be polite to let the first staff member you contacted know you have done so to avoid confusion.
Staff are members too! Please note that our staff are members first and foremost, just like you, (they work here for free giving up their own valuable time for the love of the forum,) and as such are entitled to the same consideration, any member harassing, threatening or abusing our staff will risk having their membership suspended as a result.
On some occasions staff may need to use their own judgment about an issue which is not covered in these rules, it is impossible to cover every possible scenario in such a brief list as we come across new issues regularly.
Changes, alterations and amendments may be made to these rules to reflect new issues that effect these forums sometimes so please review this page from time to time in order to remain appraised of our forum practice's and policies. Thank you for your co-operation in keeping these forums clean, safe and useable
By joining this forum you agree to abide by all of the rules and stickies of the Council. Failure to do so can result in the loss of membership without warning.
The Coven of Midnight reserves the right to revoke the membership of any member that is in breach of these rules at any time. The Coven of Midnight also reserves the right to remove any thread from the forums that is not conducive to the coven at any given time.