Our Terms of Service is simple: Be excellent to each other.
Have you ever heard one of us say STFUAJPG? It’s the Destructoid motto; our guiding philosophy and rallying cry. In one respect, to “shut the fuck up and just play games” is our way of getting past the petty console warring and PC elitist mentality to focus on what really matters — the games themselves. More broadly, though, it’s about its about discussing and celebrating games. It is about having a good time, enjoying each others’ company and being excellent.
We’re also all about community. Destructoid and the rest of the Gamurs family pride ourselves of uniting gamers from all around the world. Here’s a simple guide to finding your way around our sites and also how to keep your account in good standing. It’s pretty simple: Don’t astroturf drama, don’t spam or solicit, and generally speaking, just don’t be a dick.
Here’s how to make the most of our community:
– The Front Page – This is where the news, previews, reviews, staff editorials and promoted community blogs appear. It is also a place where we may also try to shove beer cans in our mouths and rate amiibo as buttplugs if you’re into that sort of thing. Games blogging is indeed serious business 24/7 here at Dtoid.
– Quickposts – Quickposts are like Dtoid’s own personal community Twitter, but with 115 more characters and fewer randos. It is for posting status updates, insights, jokes or waifus/husbandos and whatever.
– The Community Blogs – Beyond mere comments, we also provide a space where our community can post blogs of their own. This could be used to write reviews of games, commentary, developer blogs*, counterpoints, funny listicles and more. If our community managers find your blog to be awesome, you could find your blog whisked away to the front page where we make your ass famous!
(*Note – To separate the wheat from the chaff, developer blogs that are posted with the genuine intent of interacting regularly with the Dtoid community are the only kind we’ll accept. Anything that reads like an ad will deleted at the discretion of our community team. Similarly, promoting your own YouTube channels without any investment in our community will be treated as unauthorized advertisement.)
– Discord – We have two Discord channels, a wholly community-run Communitoid Discord
Moderation — Or what happens when you forget how to STFUAJPG
Naturally, internet debates will happen and that’s cool. Opinions are fine and criticism is more than welcome. That’s communication at work, but to keep everyone sane here is how to avoid incurring the wrath of our dutiful moderators and community management ninjas, fairies and catbearded men:
It’s actually quite simple — be excellent to each other.
Our moderators and community managers use that one simple line as a guiding philosophy to what is okay and what isn’t on our sites whether it is comments, quickposts or blogs.
If you need deeper clarification for what this means, you can find further details below, but know these guidelines are not to be interpreted verbatim by the user and our mods will use these guidelines as they see applicable to a given situation. If you’re unsure if something might get you in trouble, feel free to contact us at community@destructoid.com.
Here’s how to be excellent and avoid comment deletions or getting banned:
– No hate speech or flaming. This includes racist, sexist, gendered, ableist, ageist, homophobic and transphobic slurs and language of any sort. Death threats and telling people to die is also a no-no.
Think you can dump on someone of a particular faith? Bzzzzt, wrong. Want to dispense medical advice without a license? Not happening here.
We also think rape jokes and the people who tell them suck. Don’t go there. In fact, it’s best to avoid punching down altogether.
Harassment, dogpiling and gaslighting will not be tolerated toward our community members or staff. Additionally, Destructoid will not be a forum for doxxing or obsessive, gossipy types that sift through the private lives of others be it staff, community members or even people off-site in the name of Internet “justice.”
Basically, if you think the internet is your personal playground in which you can push the least of us out because you can’t share a hobby, we will show you the door. Using the Internet to vent is one thing, but if you’re here to be perpetually miserable to others or neg on every game discussed, you won’t be here long.
Remember: That handle and avatar on the internet is a real human being like you with a life, problems, favorite game genres, foods and opinions that are more varied than a pack of Skittles. If you’re not willing to taste the rainbow and get along with it, the mighty banhammer of Thor will fall upon ye for She is righteous and just.
– Keep on-topic in site reviews. Look, we get it, you’re excited about a new release or curious to know more about it. That’s fine, but being pedantic about the score a game is given or insinuating a reviewer didn’t review the game properly isn’t.
A lot goes into doing a review, publishers may place embargoes and give limited windows within which to review games and these days games can launch before we’re even allowed to review them. Sometimes releases can even come out of nowhere or personal schedules may change in response to a release. Reviews are a process that take lots of time and energy. The Destructoid staff endeavors to get reviews out in as timely a fashion as possible.
So respect the writer of the review and the Destructoid community by keeping things focused and allowing people to ask their questions so the reviewer can respond to them without getting dragged off-topic.
Having a good time, making jokes and sharing fair criticisms is fine, but taking a lower score as a personal slight against you and a cherished aggregate or demanding a game be dragged over the coals because you don’t like it just makes you look like a miserable child and won’t be seen as acceptable behavior.
– Do not impersonate staff members or portray yourself as one when you are not and don’t make “official” Destructoid events without approval from staff first.
Our community has unofficial play groups, chat rooms, podcasts and more, but making them official without approval from staff means we can get connected to problems and drama we don’t cause. That’s no fun for anybody. We appreciate your enthusiasm and welcome increased participation, but be sensible and label unofficial joints as such.
– Every interpretation of spamming is prohibited. This means unauthorized advertisements, links to any kind of online gambling, game currency sellers, follower sellers, promotion of cryptocurrency/NFTs, self-promotion of mobile games, YouTube channels, or unsanctioned crowdfunding, Steam Greenlight campaigns and charity efforts** are not to be posted in comments, blogs or quickposts. If they are found they will be deleted without notice. We don’t care if you’re a prince promising us a life of wealth, comfort and marriage if we help you get a plane ticket to New York.
Accounts posting spam will be cast into the nearest Oblivion gate where the Daedra can feast on your flesh and soul. Additionally, repeat offenders will get blacklisted.
(** Note: If you have a fundraiser for a legitimately good cause, please email community@destructoid.com to get it whitelisted ahead of time. Posting it without notice will result in an account deletion otherwise.)
– We may play host to NSFW or spoiler-ish content at times, but only with proper advance warning and context. We report on games and content or merchandise related to them, after all, and this site is meant for adults
That said, we suggest you maintain similar warnings and context in your quickposts and blogs if you are going to post such content. Keep in mind we have users that may be browsing from work or college and not every users settings are the same as your own
Do not post pornographic images or gory JPEGs, GIFs or YouTube links in front page Disqus comments, ever, though. That’s instaban stuff. Maliciously posting pornographic, gory content or story spoilers when other users have told you to stop will be grounds for a ban.
– Don’t post about or link to ways to pirate games or jailbreak consoles or devices. Also, don’t brag about stealing from content creators. Additionally, do not use other people’s work (written, video, drawn or a game – copyrighted or otherwise) and present it as your own. So tacky. Much plagiarism. Wow.
– Don’t post scans from magazines and if you’re in a closed beta and have signed a non-disclosure agreement, be awesome and smart by honoring it. Users posting details and images under NDA could get our nuts/ovaries totally roasted, so please don’t post content under NDA.
– And finally, once again, harassment of users and staff will not be tolerated. Whether it is the comment section, quickposts, the forums, Discord or Twitch our terms of service are consistent across the board. Your tenure as a user and your possible contributions to the community may very well be great and appreciated, but don’t mistake that for brownie points you can spend harassing others.
We know the difference between the people who just had one bad moment and those here to consistently act in bad faith. Bad faith users will see bans.
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TL; DR version – STUFUAJPG! If you’re doing STFUAJPG right, you’ll have no problems.
We have an awesome community bursting with personality, humor and we come from all walks of life. We come here to talk about games, related news, joke around and have a good time.
Do you have technical issues with the site? Shoot us an email at support@destructoid.com and specify what kind of device, operating system and OS version you are using.
Is a user being a problem or do you see spam we haven’t swatted? Flag the comment or report the offending post at community@destructoid.com. If ads are blocking your screen, tell us the region you are browsing from in the email.
That said, if you are afraid to express something or are going through a tough time, there are those on the community management team you can reach out to. Our community bloggers are also generally a friendly bunch who love it when people share of themselves and we try to help each other when there is trouble or trying times as we can. We can only do so much from the other side of the internet, though, so if you’re really in need of help, seek it locally.
Now, STFUAJPG!
