Welcome to the forums for the Orion's Arm Universe Project!

Here at the forums we want to maintain a friendly, safe place for members to contribute to the OAUP as well as discuss the setting, transhumanism, science and technology, and any other topic they care to. With that in mind we encourage all members to bear in mind the following guidelines and rules for the forum.

General Rules

Insults, racism, homophobia, or other types of hateful attacks directed at other members, the group in general, or the wider population will not be tolerated.

Discussion of religious belief as it pertains to the project is encouraged, but argument about the validity of real world religions and the beliefs of OAUP members is not.

Do not troll, flame, or otherwise act in a disruptive manner.

No spam.

Staff communications take the form of posts using the prefix header. Posts bearing this header should never be ignored. These may be used for administrative announcements, warnings to disruptive individuals, and the closing of disruptive / inappropriate threads.

Forum Etiquette

One account per person, second accounts will be deleted and may result in warnings / bans.

Once you have started a thread do not substantially edit your first post, this breaks the narrative of the thread and makes it confusing for new readers. If your thread is regarding the first draft of an article and you have a second draft ready, make a new post in the same thread to preserve the history of the idea.

Thread titles should be descriptive; please try to avoid one-word or vague titles. An exception may be EG article titles, which are a somewhat different type of communication.

Bear in mind that sarcasm and tone do not come across well in text. When typing, keep in mind how your message may be read by others. Similarly, if you read a post that you think is aggressive, insulting etc., pause to consider if this was intended or if it is a failure of relaying tone. If you conclude it to be the latter then please do mention this in your reply, in a friendly way. No all caps SHOUTING.

Off-topic discussions or detailed discussions of subjects in direct conflict with OA Canon (Faster Than Light (FTL) travel being an example) should be limited to the General Off-Topic Discussion sub-forum.

Please respect the staff. Their dedication to the project has earned them their positions. One day you may be counted among their ranks.

Posting Guidelines

We ask that you introduce yourself in the Arrivals Lounge prior to posting new material or ideas. We would especially be interested in what brought you to OA. Ultimately how much you share is up to you.

We ask that you do not join if, having familiarized yourself with what the OAUP is about, you find yourself in disagreement with our approach, and your only intention in joining is simply to criticize the project.

Be sure to post in the relevant sub-forum when starting a new thread.

When posting regarding an external source be sure to link to the source rather than simply pasting the contents. Be sure to explain why you think other members would be interested.

When posting, please aim to use proper spelling and grammar. This includes capitalization, spaces between paragraphs, and avoiding text speak. Acronyms such as IIRC (if I remember correctly), IRL (in real life), IMO (in my opinion) etc. are acceptable but sentences along the lines of "i wana c wot u 2 thnk of dis," are not appropriate. We have an international membership and effort should be taken to aid communication where possible.

Read through the thread before responding to it. Someone may already have raised the same point, or your concern may be addressed further down in the thread.

When quoting use the quote function and be sure to retain the heading identifying the origin of the quote.

You may edit a quote to remove non-relevant sections but do not change the wording of a quote. You may highlight quoted text where appropriate using bold or alternate colours so long as the original text is not changed. If you are deleting text within a quote be sure to replace it with [snip] to indicate that a section has been removed.

Keep your replies concise and to the point. This does not mean you cannot submit a long post if a concept requires it. If a wall of text is needed to properly explain something, that's fine. It is also unnecessary to apologize when making a long post.

Do take notice of any questions or critiques others raise regarding material you have posted. Try to either answer their question, or else admit you do not have an answer and ask for help. We have all had to do it at one time or another.

Rules and Warnings

At times it may become necessary for the staff to step in to address a variety of issues. Occasionally, individuals will ignore the standards of conduct outlined by OAUP policy (Forum Rules, How To Contribute, and the Terms, Copyright, and Submissions agreement). At best this is just noise, at worst these are hateful attacks that reduce the enjoyment of other members, perhaps even making some members feel unwelcome.

The Moderators/Administrators are responsible for dispensing warnings for rule infractions. Warnings come in the form of points, accumulating 6 points results in a temporary ban. 10 points will result in a permanent ban.

Minor/first time rule breaking is likely to result in 0-2 points. More serious offences will be awarded greater numbers of points. Very serious offenses may result in an immediate ban.