Vision

Our aim with VGJournal is to provide a all-in-one platform for all the gaming of every kind of gamer; one that is neutral and independent, as well as foster a wholesome, helpful community free of toxicity and trolling where anyone can feel welcome to participate.

While we still have a long way to go, we hope that, with the support of the community, we'll get closer to our goal with each new day.

To try to ensure that the community grows in a healthy way, we have created the following rules and tips:

Rules

These rules are site-wide and must be respected by every single user in the website, including staff members.
Failure to comply will result in punishment and a thorough ass-kicking.

  1. Be nice
  2. Don't be an asshole
  3. No illegal content, no real world gore or violence
  4. All spoilers should be marked or omitted, regardless of age or type of media
  5. No promotion of self or others unless authorized or explicitly allowed
  6. No intentional spreading of any kind of misinformation
  7. Do not add bad information the database (false, humorous, nonsensical or degrading content, hoaxes, etc)
  8. Do not feed trolls (i.e., don't engage users violating the rules)
  9. Content generated by AI is strictly forbidden, except in personal pages.

Etiquette

We're aiming to build a nice, wholesome community here, so please follow these tips to ensure maximum wholesomeness (they'll also help you follow rules 1 and 2 better):

Sometimes it's better to remain quiet
If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything. It will be less of a headache for you, for the other person, for the staff and everyone else.
Be helpful to people asking for help
Don't tell people to google it or criticize them for asking for help. Either properly help them with useful information or just don't help at all. No one likes half-assed actions. Also, don't be an ass if someone is wrong and you're correcting them. Everyone makes mistakes once in a while, and not making a mistake does not make you better than others. And don't forget to link to a reliable source.
Provide a source
Especially during arguments, without a source, anything you write is merely an opinion. Good arguments are properly backed by a reliable source and are delivered in a calm, collected and amicable manner.
Avoid using abbreviations
Abbreviations are ambiguous and can be tough to understand without proper context, so avoid them. Don't be a lazy bum and write the proper name of things. If you absolutely need to use an abbreviation, make sure you've written what it means before.
Report people violating the rules and don't engage
If you find someone violating any rule, don't engage them, just use the report button and let the staff take care of the issue. If you find staff members violating the rules, use the contact form to report the problem and the admins will handle the issue.

Punishment

Users that purposefully and repeatedly disrespect the rules will be punished with 3 possible levels of punishment:

  1. Warnings are just notifications that the user has done something wrong - it does not carry any penalty. Warnings have a numeric value indicating how grave of a violation it was (a higher number meaning a more severe violation). The numbers are subjective according to the staff member and only serve as reference to how much trouble a use is perceived to be causing, and do not trigger any kind of automatic punishment.
  2. A Suspension is applied to an user if their behavior does not improve after multiple warnings, or commits a sufficiently grave infraction. A suspended user is effectively invisible to the rest of the community, and can't edit website contents, write reviews, have their profile seen by others, etc. They can still use some website features, like the wishlist, the gamelist and write to their journal. A suspension will expire after a set amount of time, chosen by the staff member according to how severe the violation was. If a user is suspended multiple times, each one will last longer than the last.
  3. Bans are applied to users who commit the gravest infractions. Banned users will have their information and files erased (such as wishlist, game list, etc) and will no longer be able to login. If a banned user has an active subscription, it will be immediatelly cancelled - no refunds will be issued. Bans are a last-resort measure against users who grossly violate the rules and hopefully be used a very limited amount of times. Bans are irreversible and can only be applied by admin-level staff members.

Although all rules are important, intentionally violating Rule 07 will result in an immediate ban.

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