Sky Poker Community - Guidelines and Rules ** Please read before posting **

Sky_Dave

To ensure that the Sky Poker Community remains as open and welcoming as possible, we have drafted an informal set of guidelines to hopefully explain our decision making a little better.  A result of that should hopefully be fewer posts for our Moderators to deal with and the Community becomes a fun place to post, etc.

The Obvious Stuff

The following are examples of posts that would undoubtedly be subject to some form of moderation:

* Pornographic, vulgar or obviously offensive material, this includes swear words or inserts that attempt to get round the forum filter.

* Defamatory, hateful, potentially libellous posts or those that seek to promote illegal activity.
* Posts which seek to discriminate on the grounds of sex, race, ethnicity or religion.
* Unsolicited spam, including using the Sky Poker PM service for commercial spamming purposes.

Depending on the severity of the offence, posters committing any of the above are subject to a ban from posting on the forum, either on a fixed-term or permanent, as well as possible banning from Sky Poker’s other services.

Another point which we cannot stress enough, even with bold underlining and central font alignment…

The Sky Poker Community is not a replacement for Customer Care. If you have any issues regarding your account, (i.e., Cash for Points, bonus offer or tournament token queries) direct these to Customer Care, not on the forum or PMs to Moderators. Details for Customer Care can be found at the bottom of the page.

We don’t like the idea of customer’s thinking they’re getting terrible service from the Community when the truth is Customer Care are the people they should be speaking to in the first place.

Subjective Areas

Flaming

Put simply, ‘flaming’ is hostile and insulting interaction between users. We’ve got Wiki to thank for that explanation. Our policy at Sky Poker is simple: do not personally abuse or insult other members in your posts. Debate and disagreement is fine, insulting is not. It’s really that simple.

Flaming is subjective in that some posts are meant to be good-natured but have a sarcastic, competitive or even mildly insulting angle to them. Look at how we treat Richard Orford, for example. However, these posts are clearly intended to be humourous and non-confrontational. We acknowledge that views differ on this, and if a post does offend please do raise it. However, as a guideline, our Moderators will make judgement calls on what is ‘over the mark’. 

On a similar note, if you want to post hand histories and leave the players’ names in, please do. However, please don’t call them idiots, donkeys, morons, etc. It’s just plain rude. They might not have played the hand that well, but there’s no need to chuck in an insult or two along the way. Criticise the poker, not the people.

Trolling

Trolling is where we consider a post to be inflammatory, rude, offensive or generally trying to antagonise or disrupt the general flow of discussion. Contrary to what some might think, troll posts do not necessarily come from 'troll members' – even well-established and respected posters are able to ‘troll’ a thread inadvertently.

To ensure threads are kept on topic and of interest, anyone deemed to be posting troll messages will be informed either by PM or on the thread itself. Continual posts of a similar nature will lead to the administration of temporary Community suspensions or possible banning from the forum.

Links

Links to sites which seek to gain commercially from the link being there will be removed and users are asked to refrain from posting them. For example, posting to a competitor’s website would very much be a no-go.

Posting of links to external sites will be permitted if doing so adds something to the quality of the discussion. Posting YouTube links is fine as long as the videos are not deemed to be in favour of competitors – so again, posting a link to a poker show which is heavily branded by another online poker room will soon find itself removed. Please use some judgment when posting links.

Which board to post on?

Knowing which board a particular post belongs on should be simple enough. General Poker Chat is general chat about poker. I know, it’s really that simple. If something is general chat but with no poker, it will find itself moved to another, more relevant part of the Community. That’s not to say it’s ‘relegated’, it’s just moved to a section where e you’ll probably get more engagement anyway.

If you’re unsure of what lives where, take a look at the forum overview page which you can find here:

https://www.skypoker.com/secure/poker/sky_lobby?action=show_static&page=poker_community_forums&sid=community.skypoker.com

Each sub-board has a little preview of what you’d expect to find there. Please try and keep to those guidelines and everyone is a winner!

Duplicate Accounts

Duplicate accounts are serious offences which go against Sky Poker’s terms and conditions. Any posts which are suspected to come from a duplicate account with be dealt with by the Moderators, with steps to close down any accounts concerned more than likely.

Thread Deletion / Editing

Generally we try to avoid deleting or editing posts unless considered absolutely necessary.  The method of moderation used in any particular circumstance can vary according to a number of issues, the most obvious being the time taken to spot the offending post and the subsequent reaction to it.  The trickiest circumstances occur where an offending post occurs on a 'hot topic' and is quoted and/or responded to at length prior to action being taken.  This is part of the reason why Moderator decisions may appear to be inconsistent.  Simply put, no two circumstances are quite the same.

Private Messages

PMs should not be posted on the public boards and if they are will be deleted by moderators.

Moderators do not intend to be involved in PM disputes unless in exceptional circumstances such as severe flaming. If such PMs are reported to moderators they will use their discretion how to handle them and action may be taken as if it was a public post.

The Moderators And Their Decisions

The Moderators are here to do the same thing you ought to be – to cultivate a friendly, constructive Community. That’s why you came here in the first place, right? The most obvious rule we try to apply to our decisions is 'common sense' and the simplest request we can make to our members when posting is to use the same.

The options available to us to deal with issues of moderation range from a simple PM request, to temporary suspensions to permanent bans.  We don't make any decision lightly and we would ask that our decisions are respected and not endlessly debated.  Ultimately, we make decisions which we believe are in the best interests of the forum and its members. In many cases decisions are made with information that might not be evident to the Community. No one decision is made lightly and we ask you to respect our final decision on Moderation issues.

Moderators treat all complaints seriously and we seek to respond to them as quickly as possible.  Many of them are volunteers who do it out of sheer love for Sky Poker. Those of us who are paid try our very best to be on site and casting eyes over the Community as often as we can, but it is tiny fraction of our overall workload. Ultimately, all Moderators have the same aim as you - to make the Sky Poker Community a place members old and new choose to be a part of.  Please be respectful of other users and the service which is paid for by Sky – it is a great addition to the poker site in my opinion and something we as poker players would hate to lose due to issues such as those above.

Enjoy Sky Poker and enjoy the Community.

Best wishes,

Dave