Welcome to the On-Line Gamers Anonymous Message Boards!
On-Line Gamers Anonymous is a fellowship of people sharing their experience, strengths and hope to help each other recover and heal from the problems caused by excessive and/or obsessive game playing.
It's our hope that you find our boards an informative and supportive place to visit. Please take the time to look around and navigate into the various threads of discussions. Should you have any questions regarding policy, functionality, navigation, settings, or any other concern, please feel free to send a PM (Personal Message) to one of our Moderators (Mods) or Administrators (Admins) for the answers you require. Our Mods are here to help assist you and enforce our rules and regulations, and in most cases, they can offer you a response to your concerns in real time. Don't be afraid to ask them questions or jump right into one of their threads or posts.
While OLGA is a larger organization than a mere webpage and message board, we acknowledge that at this time these forums are the primary means by which we directly work with people. So although this message board was initially specifically designed and intended for helping the addicted gamer, we are proud to also help the friends and families who suffer, directly or indirectly, at the hands of a gamer. We're deeply honored to have so many visitors & regular members representing our organization. Our Mod staff is committed to insuring that every person here is treated fairly and equitably.
We have established certain rules, as we have members of all ages & a wide variety of diverse backgrounds visiting our MB from all over the world, most of whom are in need of support and help with gaming addiction. Our rules are based on being considerate of others' opinions as well as the use of good judgment when posting your comments.
In the event you witness other members or visitors posting remarks or any action that you feel may be in violation of our posted MB rules, we urge you to report the specific post by simply clicking on the: "Report abuse" link at the bottom right corner of every posting. That report is kept completely confidential. We depend on our members for their valuable assistance in helping us be our eyes and ears in keeping this MB running smoothly.
We only ask that you respect our rules and that you please respect the other members & visitors of this board.
Below is an explanation of our primary rules in no particular order of relevance:
All of the rules below apply to the chat rooms, though more specific content rules for the chat rooms will be placed in a separate thread.
Spamming and Flaming: Posters posting identical thread titles or nearly identical concept threads, or continuous irrelevant threads within a short amount of time will be viewed as Flaming the board. Members promoting information or advertising from, or linked to, any form of commercial entities, will be viewed as Spamming.
The Color, Blue: Blue text is used when moderators are giving explanations or directions in an official capacity. Use of blue text is prohibited by non-moderators. Posters are required to comply with directives in blue, from moderators, immediately.
Personal Insults & Harassment: Posters are prohibited from posting deeply personal insults directed at anyone, members or otherwise. This includes public figures. Members are also forbidden to divulge personal information or images of other members without their consent, or any other deeply malicious attacks including harassment of other members from thread to thread.
Offensive Content: Posters are prohibited from posting or linking content containing racial & religious slurs, ethnic slurs & jokes, sexual content, illegal content, hate groups, graphic or disturbing content, profanity, discussions about illegal drugs, joking about or making light of peoples' suffering or injuries, or any other offensive content whatsoever, whether used as an example to make a point or in a more direct and malicious manner. Libelous or potentially libelous statements are also forbidden and will be removed immediately.
Plagiarism: Posters are required to properly attribute anything they post which is not their own thoughts and words. Previously-published material that you feel contains information that may be useful to our members is welcome, as long as you give proper credit to the original author. It is the responsibility of the quoting poster to ensure that the original author doesn't reserve all rights to reproduce his/her material.
Solicitation of Funds: Posters are prohibited from soliciting for donations for foundations, charities, or any other organization.
Attempted Scamming: While we realize that people quitting games are not going to use their accounts any more, we are not going to be a front for people to "take the accounts off their hands." If you have an idea on what people can do with their accounts and you don't publicly post it, just ask them to contact you through aim or email, the moderators can and will assume this is your intention. Failure to correct for this impression when challenged will be a bannable offense.
Promoting games: Posters are not permitted to advertise games or game-related materials or websites, either in posts or in their profiles. If you post a link to a legitimate news story about video game addiction that contains screenshots from a game, please add a warning to your post for those here who might be susceptible to triggers.
Font size: Under normal circumstances font sizes larger than 14 point bold should not be used as they constitute a distraction. Exceptions can be made for single words, etc. and will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If directed, the poster must change these back to normal default size, ten point.
Conduct: Posters are prohibited from intentionally & consistently posting comments that either result in, or are designed to, inflame, provoke and incite continuous arguments and mean spirited debates. All content in the public forums must be suitable for all ages. If you repost or quote content that is against the rules, you are similarly as guilty, and face the identical consequences as the poster who originated it.
Posting in the wrong forum: Some leeway is allowed and the moderators reserve the right to move threads between forums. A pattern of posting in the wrong forums, such as religious material in the section for agnostics/atheists, will be considered an intentional violation of the rules. This will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Bypassing The Censor: Posters are prohibited from attempting to bypass the built-in sensor mechanism that automatically replaces profanity and other banned words & phrases with a series of asterisks. Bypassing is any action to thwart the intended function of the sensor, such as attempting to divulge the actual censored word or words by means of using other spellings, symbols, rhymes, or any facsimiles thereof.
Sig Image & Sig Line Restrictions: Content must not conflict with the above restrictions, e.g., no gaming-promoting sigs. EXACT pixel size limitations have not been set, but if it is too large you will be warned and it may be modified or removed. Animated sigs are not allowed, as they are distracting. Other public information from your profile must follow these general guidelines, e.g. your personal statement cannot promote a game.
Images & Text: Posters are prohibited from posting any images, links, email addresses, or posts that either promote gaming or contain sexual content, graphic or disturbing content, racial hatred, profanity or any content that should not be viewed by children..
Hacking: If you attempt to log into the administrator section, or otherwise change your status to moderator or administrator status without permission of the existing administrators, this is considered hacking. It is a criminal offense and in addition to banning, we reserve the right to press charges against you.
Bi-Posting: Posters are prohibited from using or registering more than one username. Multiple user names (Bi-Posting-ghosting-cloning) is not permitted. Posters who continue to Bi-Post do so fully at their own risk, as we periodically sweep our registered user lists with software designed to delete such multiple accounts, and this software does not differentiate between primary and secondary usernames. Once a username is deleted/banned by our sweep software, it is absolutely unrecoverable. If you are going to change your username you are required to let us know, and never use the old one again.
Thread Titles: Posters are prohibited from "calling out" or naming any other specific visitors or members in the thread title for the purposes of embarrassing or attempting to humiliate that person or persons. Posters posting in the Forums are prohibited from the practice of "selling a thread" which is the act of intentionally titling a thread with false or misleading information or fake "news headlines" simply to garner attention or member responses within the thread. If the thread is intended to be satirical, please place that within the thread, and not the thread title. Posters are prohibited from the use of only abbreviations, symbols or numbers to title a thread. The use of the "&" symbol in the front of the thread is reserved for sticky posts and will be added by moderators and administrators at the time of being made sticky. Posters are prohibited from using this "&" symbol as the opening character in their titles.
Debating: We decided long ago that our mission is one of support and education. We do not debate the existence of gaming addiction here. We are leaving that to the experts. Posts that challenge whether gaming addiction exists do not support our mission.
Disciplinary Actions: Posters who are deemed by the Admin or Mods to have broken the rules may be subject to a variety of disciplinary actions, as the Admin or Mods see fit depending upon the severity of the offense and the perceived intent of the offense, without advanced notice given, including but not limited to: Warnings, Temporary Suspensions, Deletions of Post Count, or Bannings, or any combination thereof. Members who are Suspended and attempt to access the MB under a new username or account will be banned permanently.
In all cases above, the Admin & Mods will exclusively determine if any infractions were made, and to what degree. Modifications, changes & substitutions may be made without notice. The above primary rules are posted in addition to the MB rules mentioned during the sign-up process, yet other rules may apply. It is incumbent upon on all visitors and members to precisely follow all Mod directives in a timely fashion to avoid banning. Your registered presence here constitutes your full acceptance of all posted rules.
Challenging moderator decisions: This must be done by private mail. Publicly disputing moderator decisions is strictly prohibited and will be dealt with swiftly. If you feel that a moderator decision is incorrect, please contact an Administrator by private mail. All such complaints will be fully and fairly investigated.