Emergency Planet Terms of Service

1)Definition
2)Hotlinking and framing
3)Registration
4)Trolls and Defamation
5)Forbidden Content
6)Legibility of Posts
7)Advertisement
8)Posting in the Correct Forum
9)Searching
10)Cross- and multi-postings - Including double posting and Bumping
11)Avatars and Personal Photos
12)Signatures
13)Warnings
14)Exceptions and Discretion
15)Multiplayer Associations and/or Clans
16.Permissions/Credit Requirements for use of other author's content
17)Restrictions
18)Responsibility clause
19)Legal Clause
20)Additional guidelines

1. Definition
This terms of use apply to all visitors and members of www.emergency-planet.com, www.911firstresponders.com, www.losangelesmod.com and all its sub domains or affiliated sites.

2. Hotlinking and Framing
Hotlinking or framing our site, pictures, files or any other locally hosted content is strictly forbidden without prior written and dated authorization.

3. Registration
The creation of an account is authorized one time per visitor. This means that if you are banned or already own an account, you are not allowed to create a new account. If you are found owning two accounts your accounts will be suspended.

4. Trolls, Defamation and Overall Behaviour

This board is meant to house a community, and for this reason, defamation and trolling of other members is strictly forbidden. If this occurs, you will be removed from the community. You are expected to conduct yourself respectably within the community. This includes adhering the the rules and not creating fights among members or disrespecting them. Failure to comply will result in a punishment up to and including termination of account. 

5. Forbidden Content

The following content is forbidden from being posted on this site, and upon discovery, all offending content will be removed, and the posting user disciplined as necessary:

• Posting or requesting links to warez is strictly forbidden!
• Posting or requesting links to piracy-related internet based sites or services.
• Posting or requesting links to web services that violate copyrighted materials protection under law.
• Racism and discrimination on this forum is not tolerated and will result in exclusion of the community and may result in legal prosecution.
• Abusing copyright or posting copyrighted materials as yours is strictly forbidden and can result in a permanent exclusion of the community.
• Double posting, miss-usage of the font sizes and caps-lock writing is not tolerated and will result in a warning.
• Asking release dates is forbidden and will result in an automatic 48 hr suspension and warning.
• Work in Progress mods, or Private mods are responsible for contacting people they wish to test their mod. Unsolicited contact for such use will be considered the same as asking a release date, and punished with the same.

6. Legibility of Posts
Posts should be written in a way, that everyone can understand easily. This is including a legible style with punctuation marks and so on. Codes, unusual abbreviations, dialects and board-foreign languages should be avoided to the extent possible. While honest mistakes and foreign languages may not result in a warning, if an issue develops from it, action can be taken. You should read each of your Posts again carefully, before you make it public, to ensure its legible and understandable quality!

7. Advertisement and Re-Direction to External Sites or Services
A.Advertisement - Any kind of commercial or non-commercial advertising as well as advertisements not related to the themes of this board are not allowed without a prior, written, dated authorization. Board related content, such as mods, or non commercial development may be approved without prior authorization. Board related content that a user stands to make profit from (gofundme pages, kickstarters, or similar services) are considered prohibited content without prior authorization as are external services which generate advertising revenues for parties other than Emergency-Planet. Unauthorized advertisers will be punished. If you are unsure about whether content violates this section, please contact the staff. 

B.Redirection to External Sites or Platforms - Emergency-Planet maintains sole discretion over acceptable Redirection to external sites platforms on the internet published within our domain and request anyone desiring to do such practices please contact a moderator or administrator prior to conducting such activities. Due to the fact that we are not responsible for activities and behavior outside of our domain we reserve the right to revoke authorization to redirect at any time due to potential violation of any of our standing Terms Of Services. Redirection in general can be construed as a form of advertising for external reasons and as such will require written dates authorization before being deemed acceptable under our terms of services.

8. Posting in the correct forum
This community features a number of different forums. Each forum has a purpose and we expect you to post the topics in the right forums. If you happen to place a post in a wrong forum, a moderator or administrator will move the post to the correct place. If this becomes a chronic issue, action may be taken by staff, at their discretion. 


9. Searching
This message board has an excellent search function. Please use this tool to look for topics and posts that might answer your question before you start a new thread on your own. The chances are high that a person had a similar question before. The advantages are a) you might get a faster answer and b) this will also avoid that the same questions are asked over and over again. 

10. Cross- and Mutli-Posting. Topic Bumping
The creation of multiple topics or posts with the same Question/request/comment in one or several forums is not tolerated on our message board. Only the quality of the post determines if you get attention or not. Besides, if there is no one who knows an answer to your problem, there is no reason to bump or post your topic over and over. Bumping your topic is also considered to be the same offense.

11. Avatars and Personal Photos
All custom avatars must comply to these specifications:

Your custom avatar may not exceed 120x120 Pixels (height& width), with a maximum size of 150kB (filesize) and with one of following file extensions: .gif / .jpg / .jpeg / .png. The use of animated avatars is tolerated in a limited manner, this means that if your avatar distracts too much from the posts and disturbs members or visitors, we are authorized to remove your avatar without prior notice.

All personal photos must comply to these specifications:

Your personal photo may not exceed 150x150 Pixels (height& width) , with a maximum size of 150kB (filesize) and with one of following file extensions: .gif / .jpg / .jpeg / .png. The use of animated personal photos is tolerated in a limited manner, this means that if your avatar distracts too much from the posts and disturbs members or visitors, we are authorized to remove your avatar without prior notice.

12. Signatures
All signatures must comply to these specifications: Signatures might be composed of userbars, banners or text. Videos are strictly forbidden and will be removed without prior notice!

The whole signature may not exceed 140x640 Pixels (height&width) as well as 350kB (filesize). The use of animated signatures is tolerated in a limited manner, this means that if your avatar distracts too much from the posts and disturbs members or visitors, we are authorized to remove your avatar without prior notice. The staff reserve the right to deem any signatures that do not necessarily violate one of the other terms as in violation and will deal with these on a case to case basis. 

13. Warnings
On Emergency-Planet, we make use of a warning system. In this system you can get up to 4 warnings until your account is temporary or permanently suspended. Depending on the severity of your offense you will be awarded between one and three warnings or a temporary or permanent ban. The warning, as well as punishment attached, if any, to the warning will be decided on a case to case basis, unless otherwise specified, and assigned as such.

A warning can be contested if you feel you where wrongly warned. In the event that you wish to contest a warning, please contact the staff member who issued that warning first to receive an explanation. If you still feel that the warning was unjustly issued, please contact a separate member of the staff with your issue, and it will be investigated, with any pertinent information directed to you following the resolution. 

14. Exceptions and Discretion
Staff on Emergency-Planet on its affiliate sites governed under these terms reserve the right to interpret the terms and apply them on a case to case basis. Staff members may use their discretion, and apply certain rules more or less frequently when required. Staff members, in certain cases, may be considered to be operating exempt from all, or part thereof, some sections of these terms. 

15. Multiplayer Associations and/or Clans
Emergency-Planet forum support permits associations and clans to maintain a single topic within the multiplayer sections of our forum if the following terms and conditions are adhered to by the organization administrators and any subsequent user within their organization.
A.Topic Updates - Organization members and/or administrators are permitted to update their topic within reason. Meaning that if a post is created advertising the clan and approximately 2 weeks time has passed, they may re-promote their site at that time. Unnecessary "bumping" of the topic will lead to penalties including warnings for the administrator as well as the offending member of their organization that offended, up to permanent removal of the privileges to advertise their clan on Emergency-Planet.
B.Responsibility for members of the guest organization - The "Administrator" (chair, chief, leader, etc) of the guest organization that wishes to promote on Emergency-Planet is responsible for ALL staff, members, deputies (all persons underneath their organization) conduct on the Emergency-Planet sites and it's forums. Any infractions on Emergency-Planet committed by any member of the guest organization may result in the person in charge of the guest organization being held liable for their member's actions. Any punishment issued to one of the members of the guest organization may be applied to the leader of said guest organization as well. You as the leader of your organization are accountable for your actions, as well as any taken by any of your organization. Bear this in mind when permitting your members to make statements representing your organization.
C.Emergency-Planet Responsibility for outside content related to outside organizations - Emergency-Planet and its sites and forums are not liable for the content published by any outside organization, we are not liable for any organization's websites/teamspeak servers/or any other form of communication device they opt to use. Any issues pertaining to any outside organization should be pursued within that organization or with their hosts. We at Emergency-Planet DO NOT have any obligations in addressing matters related to outside organizations that have not taken place on our site. Do not expect us to deal with any issues that occur outside of our services, doing so will result in punishments including warnings, suspensions, and potentially revoked privileges for your organization within our site.
D.External issues brought to Emergency Planet between other organizations - If an issue should occur between outside organizations they will NOT be tolerated on Emergency-Planet sites or forums. Any issues brought to our services pertaining to outside issues from persons who do not have anything to do with our sites or services will result in immediate revoked privileges to use our services to advertise your organization, along with punishments for the leader of the organization and any members that are involved in offenses.

16.Permissions/Credit Requirements for use of other author's content
A. General requirements:

Emergency-Planet reserves the right to act on the behalf of the original creators of content regarding issues such as copyright protections, compliance with terms of usage of their content, compliance with credit requirements under the terms of usage specified by the authors, and any other pertaining issues that may arise related to original content within our site. Should issues be brought to our attention of non-compliance with the creator's terms of usage we will act accordingly to attempt to resolve the situation as the author requests, we reserve the right to remove any content that is non-compliant with protections or terms of usage and subsequently discipline any violators of the terms at our discretion. 

If you use someone else's content, realize they have taken the time to create the content which you are allowed to use under specific conditions set forth by those authors, you must be compliant with any terms of usage and/or conditions which they set forth for the usage of their content by other authors. This includes giving proper credits for anyone who created content used within your mod, including the actual author(s) of the content, not just another mod name but the actual author of the content that you've used. You would like to be recognized and credited for your efforts, realize so do the authors who've been kind enough to permit you to use their content under their terms of usage. 

NOTE: The exception to terms of usage compliance is in the instance of private mods that will never be distributed to anyone. We state this specifically so that it is clear that private authorization means for personal-use only, it may not be distributed to other users, clans, groups or organizations in order to be classified as private usage and be permitted to be exempt from the terms of usage requirements.

DEFINITION
Private Mod: A private mod is a venture that a single member is undertaking to modify content, original game or otherwise which he or she has no intention of releasing or distributing. If multiple parties work on this modification, or it is shared by any means to anyone it is no longer considered private, and must adhere to the rules in place for public modifications

B. Special Circumstances Involving Inactive Members: In the event that a content author has not been active for a prolonged duration and/or have requested removal of their membership account from Emergency-Planet.com we (Emergency-Planet.com) reserve the right to act on behalf of those members whom fall under such conditions as described above in so far as to handle their subsequent permission requirements for them until such a time as they return or request otherwise.  In acting upon their behalf we simply act as a "temporary" steward of their content, with all such original author's Intellectual Property rights reserved by the Author in question.  Should the Author upon request, or upon return lay claim to their content or revoke permissions to use the item(s) in question the individual whom received permission from Emergency-Planet.com must still comply with the actual Author's conditions/desires.  In this instance we are acting as a "temporary" authorization agent and in no way lay claim to the original author's assets but merely act as an Agent for them until such a time as they wish to exercise their rights.

Furthermore, it is at the discretion of Emergency-Planet.com and it's agents (Staff) to make decisions upon such matters as to when someone is inactive to the point to require such actions to be taken, along with any such actions to be taken:  Just because one scenario results in such an action taken does not equate to any similar situation resulting in the same end result.  Each instance of such requests will be handled individually with the intent being to permit usage of content while within our power attempting to respect the usage intentions of the original author of the content.  

This sub-set of conditions in no way overrides or revokes any of the existing permission or usage requirements of the site or the Author(s) themselves but is a supplemental addition designed to assist with regards to content which Author(s) have created but are no longer available to address themselves. This particular term/condition only applies to content which the Author(s) in question have created, any further content created by other users which are still active would require going through the processes as normal of attaining permission to use their assets as you would for any other active individual.  

We will only act upon cases which meet the following requirements:

A.) The requesting member has taken it upon themselves all available avenues of contact for the Author(s) which are inactive prior to requesting the staff to intervene.

B). The Author in question is deemed to be no longer inactive/no longer a member of the site, thereby enacting this particular term until such a time they return.

C). The requested usage falls within what is "reasonable" usage of the author's wishes:  When possible, previous permissions/conditions set forth for the author's content will be used as a guide by the staff to decide if the Author(s) intended the content to be used, distributed, or altered in the ways which the requesting member wishes them to be used.  This is done to ensure that the original Author's wishes are respected as much as possible, whenever possible.

If the above conditional requirements have been met contact an active staff member via PM regarding such a situation and we will, upon review decide how to proceed with your particular issue respecting the original Author's  rights while trying to accommodate the request (if reasonable) to the best of our abilities.

17.Restrictions
Emergency-Planet reserves the right to temporarily or permanently terminate its services without prior notice. Also, Emergency- does not guarantee all time use of its services or uptime of the community.

Emergency-Planet reserves the right to perform maintenance, updates and (emergency) repairs on the board or on our servers with or without prior notice.

18. Responsibility clause
Emergency-Planet, sub domains of Emergency-Planet and affiliated sites do not accept any responsibility in case copyrighted texts, photos, videos, music or other copyrighted materials are posted on the site by a member or visitor from this community. We will do our very best to avoid the
placing of copyrighted materials but we cannot be held accountable for materials provided or placed by guests, users or other third parties.

If you feel your copyright is violated please contact a board administrator. We will cooperate to make sure the violation is ended.

Emergency-Planet, sub domains of Emergency-Planet and affiliated sites do not take any responsibility for advertisements, personal profiles, statements, pictures, videos, (links to) websites, or other content posted on this community by members, visitors or other third parties. All users and guests are solely responsible for the contents of their posts, messages, personal profile and other contents they place on this community.

Emergency-Planet, sub domains of Emergency-Planet and affiliated sites do not take any responsibility for advertisements, personal profiles, statements, pictures, videos, (links to) websites, or other content posted on this community by members, visitors or other third parties. All users and guests are solely responsible for the contents of their posts, messages, personal profile and other contents they place on this community

19. Legal Clause
If differences between a member of visitor of this community occur, and mediation efforts fail, these differences will be settled in a Dutch court chosen by Emergency-Planet.

20. Applicability 
By registering on, posting on, downloading from or using other services provided on or by this community you agree to have read, understood and accepted these terms of use You agree to abide the rules mentioned in these terms of use and accept all liability for your own actions, posts and your other contributions.

Emergency-Planet has the right to change these terms of use at any given time. We agree to notify each user of a change in the terms of use via our forum and via an e-mail. If a user submitted an invalid or inactive e-mail address he or she is responsible for the consequences of not receiving the changed terms of use.

Any user that does not agree with the change of the terms of use can request an account deletion by contacting a board administrator. Any user that did not an account deletion two days after the changed terms of use automatically agree to the new version of those terms!

Additional guidelines and suggested reading:
Internet Netiquette
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

Last revision: 21 September 2015