• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
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Castellon

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User Agreement & Rules

PREAMBLE
This Board is designed to be a place where a community can gather and hold discussion on various subjects (Primarily Paradox games) in a friendly and non aggressive environment. We want every person to have an enjoyable experience and the Rules have been written in accordance with this goal. In order that everyone may receive the maximum benefits from their participation these Rules must be obeyed at all times. By voluntarily participating in these forums you agree to follow the Board Rules and the User Agreement or forfeit your rights to participate.

Paradox 10 Commandments
Rule Summary: -See below User Agreement for more details
1. Don’t Mess with the forum
2. Talk to staff by PM
3. Respect, not Harassment
4. No Trolling
5. Post On Topic
6. No Spamming
7. No External Links
8. No Nazis, Pirates, or Porn
9. No Illegal stuff
10. Have a good Signature


USER AGREEMENT

1. OPINIONS -We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the content of any message/post. The posts express the views of the author, not necessarily the views of the Board or any entity associated with the Board.

2. OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL -Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately. Send a private message to a moderator of the forum with a link to the post/thread in question. We have the ability to remove objectionable posts and we will make every effort to do so if we determine that a removal is needed. This is a manual process however and will take time.

3. RESPONSIBILITY -Although this Board is not able to review all posts as they are uploaded we reserve the right to delete any Post and/or disable any users account for any reason and without posted explanation. You remain solely responsible for the content of your Posts and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Paradox and their agents with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your Post.

4. PRIVACY -Paradox reserves the right to reveal your identity (or whatever information we know about you) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any post authored by you.

5. E-MAILS -You agree that the board can send you e-mails. You have the option to turn these e-mails off under your user settings.

6. COPYRIGHT NOTICE - All content posted on the message boards of Paradox is the exclusive intellectual property of Paradox. Copyright ownership of that content resides with Paradox and the Company is free to use any of the content as they wish. Anyone other than Paradox seeking to reprint, republish, or reproduce content posted on the Paradox message boards must receive the express written permission from Paradox Interactive. By posting on the Paradox message boards you are agreeing to the above and relinquishing all copyright to the contents of the post(s) to Paradox.

7. BLOGS & USER GROUPS – All board rules apply, If you want to post in a language other than English you must ask for and be granted the Sponsorship of a Staff Member (Demi mod and above) who is fluent in that language and agrees to monitor it. The name of the sponsor must appear in the description or where it can be seen by members reading it.

8. ACCOUNT SECURITY -You are responsible for the security of your account. Any post from your account will be attributable to the account holder. It is the account holder’s responsibility to keep the account secure. It is no defense to say that a sister, brother, friend, etc. posted any offending post. Keep your password secret!!

9. AGE -By posting on this forum you are certifying that you are over 16 years of age, or if between 13 and 16 you have your parents permission to do so. Children under 13 should not be using this board.

10. FORUM RULES - Obey All Forum Rules, including any sub forum rules that are stickied at the top of the sub forum.


Forum Rules

PARADOX 10 COMMANDMENTS

1. {Don’t Mess with the forum} You will not create offensive usernames as determined by Paradox staff. You will not register more than one Member account without prior approval of an Administrator. You will not impersonate Paradox staff or any other user. You will not attempt to or aid others to bypass Board security measures. These measures include, but are not limited to; reregistering new user names to bypass bans, starting a new thread to bypass thread closures, hacking into any part of the Board, Posting messages for Banned members, bypassing moderator’s decisions about content, attempts to obtain privileges only available to Paradox staff or beta members.

2. {Talk to staff by PM} You will not argue with, comment on or question the actions/authority/ or comments of the Paradox staff (Administrators, Moderators, etc.) in a public forum. Should you wish to do so you are directed to contact the Paradox staff via PM (the private messaging system - see “How to Contact Staff” below).

3. {Respect, not Harassment} You will at all times respect and refrain from harassing and/or personally attacking other users or Paradox staff. You will respect the rights of other users to have their own opinions. You will not use expressions that are considered foul, vulgar, sexually harassing, racially offensive or in any way discriminatory. These expressions include, but are not limited to, Sexist language, ethnic slurs, hate speech and religious epithets. Whether an expression fits under this definition will be determined by Paradox staff at the time.

4. {No Trolling} You will not make posts that are inflammatory with the perceived intent to rile people up (i.e. "trolling" and "flaming" are prohibited).

5. {Post On Topic} You will only post messages that are within the particular forum’s scope or topic. You will use descriptive subject titles when posting new threads. You will not hijack threads for your own purpose but, rather, will begin a new thread with the new subject. Except for the specially designated "other language" forums all posts are to be in English as that is the common language of the Moderators.

6. {No Spamming} You will not flood or post on the forums redundant, empty, or nonsensical posts or advertisements as determined by Paradox staff (i.e. no "spamming"), or necromancy (posting in old threads). Chain letters, pyramid schemes and solicitations of any kind are not allowed on this Board.

7. {No External Links} You will not post a link to an external website or forum without prior approval of an Administrator. (Sites with no user interaction (that only host media are okay, as long as that media meets and obeys all other rules) You will not link to images on other websites unless you have authorization to do so (or the site is designed for that purpose). This kind of "hot linking" is stealing the bandwidth of the server you link from, and is not appreciated. You will not post material (including text, images, graphics or other artwork) unless the copyright is owned by you, and/or Paradox, and/or the material is not in violation of any NDA (non-disclosure agreement) that you may have signed, and/or you have the expressed permission of the copyright holder to do so, and/or you fully attribute the holder of the copyrighted material.

8. {No Nazis, Pirates, or Porn} NAZIS -It IS illegal to show Nazi flags in Germany and various other countries. The same is true for other Nazi symbols (e.g. related to the SS) or Nazi propaganda material, including songs etc. Any links posted to a scenario or mod which includes a Swastika or other illegal Nazi symbols will be deleted. This also applies to any talk of concentration camps, as these are not and will not be in the game. Any threads that complain about this issue will be closed, and posters will be subject to disciplinary action for having done so. PIRATES -You will not post messages that request, condone, support, offer or discuss pirated software/media or links to other such sites that condone, offer it or discuss p2p sites/methods. PORN - You will not post pornographic, sexually offensive material or images of a type unsuitable for a family/office environment or post links to such material or images.

9. {No Illegal stuff} You will not start or participate in any debates or discussions that discuss the distribution/growing/cutting/manufacture of drugs that are used in a situation where they are not prescribed by a hospital. You will not make posts of illegal nature or posts that detail ways to perform acts of an illegal nature.

10. {Have a good Signature} Signature Rules
A) Your signature should be composed of the default font size or smaller and should be 10 lines maximum (including lines of spaces) when viewed at 1200 x 1080, and with the "User post bit set left". That means the option to display user information on the left of the post rather than the top of the post. We strongly encourage much shorter signatures.
B) Your signature should conform to the normal Forum Rules regarding content.
C) Your signature should not include ASCII made images.
D) Your signature should not include vBB code quotes.
E) Colours, links (in accordance with Forum Rules) and other vBB codes may be used. Note, however that bad nesting of vBB tags may cause problems and these signatures may be removed without notice.
F) Any signature seen as being overly long or of an offensive nature etc is liable to be removed without notice.
G) Inflammatory Political Statements or Quotes (as Perceived by the Paradox Staff) are not permitted in signatures and will be removed.
H) Paradox forum staff have the final say over what is deemed appropriate.


Violations and Penalties
If, for any reason, you are in violation of any of the rules of the Board or the User Agreement then your privileges to post to this Board will be reviewed by a Paradox Moderator/Administrator. The penalties range from a friendly warning or an Infraction with a value of 1 or more points, a ban from a particular thread, subject, or forum, a timed ban from the Board (for a specified time), a total posting ban (you may still read the forums) or in extreme cases a total IP ban (you will not be able to read the forums). If the matter warrants it then you might also be reported to your IP/appropriate authorities.
If you are give "Probation" Status you will be restricted from posting in specialty sub forums and the "Fun" forums such as AAR and OT.


Whilst the "Report this post to a Moderator" button is not working then please forward any such reports by PM to a Moderator of the Forum concerned.

Paradox forum staff (Moderators and Administrators) have the final say over what constitutes a violation of the User Agreement and the Board Rules. In addition we reserve the right to terminate your account without warning(s) and move/delete/close posts/threads without further explanation.

Please note that a Paradox Moderator is to be taken notice of no matter which Forum he happens to post in. Just because his/her name does not appear in a particular Forum does not mean he should be ignored. The Moderators cover for each other as they cannot all be here 24 hours a day.

If a warning or infraction is sent by a Staff Member it will be sent by PM. It is your responsibility to ensure that your PM box is clear to receive such PMs. Ignorance of a warning is no excuse - you have a PM box, use it.

If your offence requires a temporary or permanent Ban (other than an automatic one for point accumulation) a notice will be sent by an Administrator (as these are the only Staff able to authorize this level of penalty) to your registered e-mail address. It is your responsibility to ensure that your e-mail address is a valid one and able to receive such e-mails. If for any reason an e-mail to your account is bounced back then your account will be banned until you contact us - we will not attempt to re-contact you!

This is a games Board and was never intended to facilitate the needs of everyone who wants to talk about anything at any time. It is not intended to be community television or a public park. The Board is privately owned and operated. Moderators and Administrators are used to keep the content in-line with the vision and purpose of Paradox as a whole.


HOW TO CONTACT STAFF:
All administrative actions taken by the Forum Staff should be considered a settled matter. These actions include, but are not limited to: delete/close/move thread/post, banning, warnings and Infractions. Public posts against administrative/Moderator actions are against rule 2 and will be deleted and penalties liable by the user. Users that wish to contest these actions with a good explanation should first PM the Moderator. If the situation cannot be resolved to mutual satisfaction, then you can escalate the matter by sending an e-mail to: forum_admin@paradoxplaza.com A decision given from there is final and not subject to debate.

Notice
The User Agreement and the Board Rules are subject to change without notice. Further, some sub-forums have additional restrictions and/or guidelines for posting that are stickied at the top of the subforum. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are aware of the current rules and forum guidelines for posting.
 
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6. COPYRIGHT NOTICE - All content posted on the message boards of Paradox is the exclusive intellectual property of Paradox. Copyright ownership of that content resides with Paradox and the Company is free to use any of the content as they wish. Anyone other than Paradox seeking to reprint, republish, or reproduce content posted on the Paradox message boards must receive the express written permission from Paradox Interactive. By posting on the Paradox message boards you are agreeing to the above and relinquishing all copyright to the contents of the post(s) to Paradox.

This is against law in some countries and as such dont apply for users living in countries with such laws. :)

8. {No Nazis, Pirates, or Porn} NAZIS -It IS illegal to show Nazi flags in Germany and various other countries. The same is true for other Nazi symbols (e.g. related to the SS) or Nazi propaganda material, including songs etc. Any links posted to a scenario or mod which includes a Swastika or other illegal Nazi symbols will be deleted.

And what about soviet flag, which is also illegal in several countries? :)
 
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It is pretty simple if you want to post here you agree to these rules, if not then you don't get to post.
 
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Would you mind highlighting the changes from the previous version of the User Agreement? In other words, what is new?
 
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This replaces the old so you only need this as a reference.
 
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This is against law in some countries and as such dont apply for users living in countries with such laws. :)

Hm, I believe in a forum the laws of the host's country are the only laws which are really important, not the laws of the user's country.
 
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Could a moderator or administrator elaborate on the copyright issue please (rule #6)? My understanding is that ideas expressed on the forum can be used freely by Paradox staff for producing their products, etc., but to what degree does this hold for members who post original ideas for debate. For example, some of the more detailed AARs here could conceivably be turned into literary works (not mine of course, but some others are very good). Would anything bar the author from doing so? Of course, it would be a great courtesy if Paradox and forum users were thanked for contributing to the final product. And some of us here of a more academic bent do share our knowledge on a variety of subjects, some of which I am rather impressed by. Finally, a loaded question: who owns the mods? Ideas contained in mods have been in the past integrated into patches and expansions, and rightly so, but it makes me a bit nervous to share some of my ideas here, because (not the exact words I use here--that I admit is properly Paradox's property) but the ideas could find their way eventually into print. So please do clarify what Paradox Interactive actually means in as much detail as you find proper. Thank you.
 
So basically the same rules that were already in place, but better structured and with the addenda included in the main text. Thanks for posting them here.
 
8. ACCOUNT SECURITY -You are responsible for the security of your account.
On the off-change that PI forum gets hacked and all user data stolen (which recently has been a commonality), will the users be held responsible?
Of course I don't believe Paradox would act like this, but this point seems to warrant a bit more elaboration
 
On the off-change that PI forum gets hacked and all user data stolen (which recently has been a commonality), will the users be held responsible?
Of course I don't believe Paradox would act like this, but this point seems to warrant a bit more elaboration

I think it means if you give away your password and name and someone hijacks your account don't blame paradox. I don't think it has anything to do with hacking.
 
I think it means if you give away your password and name and someone hijacks your account don't blame paradox. I don't think it has anything to do with hacking.

I agree. It probably means that.
But just to avoid guessing games like this, it'd be better if it was further elaborated.
More than the example provided.
 
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I think it means if you give away your password and name and someone hijacks your account don't blame paradox. I don't think it has anything to do with hacking.

Considering that is illegal in the host country of these forums, Sweden, Paradox will still be liable to cooperate with the Swedish police in finding out who was reponsible for the theft of information through their forums, should it be reported to the police that is.
 
Could someone point out the differences between the new and old versions? I've read this new version, but there could be something I missed that has changed.

What does it matter, as long as you have read these rules, they are the only ones that matter.
The old ones we had were just added to overtime in an adhoc way. For example there were about two and a half times as many rules, so when people say "basically the same rules" I take it as a complement.
 
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While I agree it would be nice to know what actually changed, it's not really relevant is it? What matters now is these rules, not how they used to be.

Other than that, I think, as someone else mentioned, it's more a matter of structuring? I read the old user agreement thoroughly, and there's nothing in this that strikes me as a big change.

EDIT: Ninja'ed by the admin :p But yeah, what he said :)
 
I agree. It probably means that.
But just to avoid guessing games like this, it'd be better if it was further elaborated.
More than the example provided.

I will not respond to what ifs, we only make rulings in specific situations.
But lets not explore every nightmare situation, if someone hacks the board, I hardly think we are going to ban every member because their account was compromised. Despite what some of you may think we are reasonable people on the other end of the keyboard and we make rulings accordingly.

When society separates the law makers from the law enforcers, you need to spell things out very clearly so that the enforcers know what the law makers intention was. When the law maker and the law enforcers are the same, that margin of error does not exist.

I can tell you what our intention is, a Board where the vast vast majority of people can engage and talk about our games, in a friendly non hostile environment. The rules above are what our decade long experience running the forum tells us that we need to make it so.

Basically if you come to the board with good intent, are a reasonably good person, you will never even need to look at the rules because you would never break any.
 
Well the thing is that with the old rules, we knew a lot more about how exactly they worked because in addition to the text, we could see the rules in action (though mods and admins), which essentially allowed plenty of clarifications on what was and wasn't allowed. But if it's essentially the same as before but shorter and clearer, then I guess there isn't much point to a detailed comparison.
 
Could a moderator or administrator elaborate on the copyright issue please (rule #6)? My understanding is that ideas expressed on the forum can be used freely by Paradox staff for producing their products, etc., but to what degree does this hold for members who post original ideas for debate. For example, some of the more detailed AARs here could conceivably be turned into literary works (not mine of course, but some others are very good). Would anything bar the author from doing so? Of course, it would be a great courtesy if Paradox and forum users were thanked for contributing to the final product. And some of us here of a more academic bent do share our knowledge on a variety of subjects, some of which I am rather impressed by. Finally, a loaded question: who owns the mods? Ideas contained in mods have been in the past integrated into patches and expansions, and rightly so, but it makes me a bit nervous to share some of my ideas here, because (not the exact words I use here--that I admit is properly Paradox's property) but the ideas could find their way eventually into print. So please do clarify what Paradox Interactive actually means in as much detail as you find proper. Thank you.

I also would like to see some official statement about this. I wonder, if I make let's say a wallpaper with any game's theme (not using any Paradox materials) and post it here on forums, it becomes automatically a property of Paradox despite it is my work? What if I only link to that wallpaper hosted on another (media hosting) server? Will it remain mine in that case? I really don't know what to think about that paragraph...

PS: About the fact, who actually owns game modifications, I think this is regulated more by EULA of the respective games, not forum rules (this virtually makes all mods illegal).
 
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In the signature rule clarification I don´t see that posting an ordinary picture in your signature is forbidden (even if that it´s hinted that there only should be text).
Maybe there could be a good idea to make that more clear?
Maybe something like:
I) Your signature should not include any kind of pictures or other non text material?
 
Code:
2. {Talk to staff by PM} You will not argue with, comment on or question the actions/authority/ or comments of the Paradox staff (Administrators, Moderators, etc.) in a public forum. Should you wish to do so you are directed to contact the Paradox staff via PM (the private messaging system - see “How to Contact Staff” below).

Respectful Question - please.

Most of the above is clear. Its the rule against us commenting on the comments of a Paradox staff that I would like clarified.

I understand if they are saying stop or that something is not permitted etc we should not comment on this.

But what happens when they are not in the disciplinary mode but in the discussion / announcement mode such as there is now a new feature, or the feature works as follows, or the following bug is fixed and we see it is not fixed. It would seem strange that we have to avoid referring to their post. Also we can't always send PMs in response as at least for me I can't PM Johan ( and I understand why he would not want to get 1000's of PMs) so are we allowed in the discussion / announcement context to comment on Paradox staff comments?

My intent is to comply to the rules and I don't want to be banned.
 
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