Effective date: January 1st, 2021

These community guidelines describe the expectations for behavior for every user of this site. By using this site, you are agreeing to abide by these rules.

BGDL Core Values

1. Kindness is expected here.

The goal of this group is to have a place where we can help each other get better as designers and encourage one another down the design path. Please be kind to each other. And please take criticism gracefully.

2. Helpfulness is expected here.

Be helpful. Provide genuine and helpful feedback and suggestions to others. If you want feedback on your designs, make sure you’re providing support for other people’s designs too.

3. We celebrate each other here.

Share your thoughts and experiences because they are valuable to others. Share what you’re learning. Show us pictures of the games you’re working on. Tell us about wins that you experience. We want to celebrate with you.

4. We don’t bully each other here.

Name calling and degrading comments about things like race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender, identity, or worldview will not be tolerated. Anything that breaks this rule will be removed, and posters are subject to being suspended or banned.

Community Rules

TL;DR

• Be kind and helpful
• Treat others the way you would like to be treated
• Give more than you take

The following are prohibited: 

• Anything that violates the BGDL+ Terms of Service
• Pornographic material 
• Depictions of violence
• Spam
• Requesting or providing information or files that allows others to create, purchase, or download unofficial replications of a game or other works protected by copyright without the permission of the rights holder.
• Personal attacks, including but not limited to:
  • Name calling
  • Disparaging remarks based on a person’s religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, etc.
  • Statements that abuse, harass, mock, insult, stalk, demean, threaten, or otherwise belittle another user, directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly, even if the other user started it, and even if you think the other user deserves it.
  • Posting personal information about any person for malevolent purposes (aka “doxxing”), including libel, slander, defamation, or harassment.

Contests and Giveaways

Anytime information such as your name, email address, game design, etc is made available to people outside this group through a contest, giveaway, etc, you will be notified beforehand who is involved, and you’ll have the ability to opt out.

Marketing, Advertising, and Self Promotion

• Do not post a link to a crowdfunding project more than twice.
• Do not post a link to an online store item more than twice.
• Post more than a link. Please give some context to why the community would be interested.

Private Messages

All of these rules and community guidelines also apply to private messages.

If you are the recipient of an inappropriate private message, please send an email to boardgamedesignlab@gmail.com with a screenshot. 

Moderation Consequences

If you do not follow these rules and guidelines, you can expect these consequences:

• Your posts will be flagged for rules violations by other users in the community.
• Your posts and/or comments will be deleted. 
• An account that commits frequent or severe violations of site rules will have its posting privileges suspended to prevent further incidents.
• Bypassing a suspension with another account will get you indefinitely suspended from the site.

We reserve the right to immediately terminate or suspend anyone who fails to abide by our rules and guidelines. The decision to suspend or terminate accounts will be made at the sole discretion of the site administrators. All account terminations (bannings) are to be considered final. 

Banned members who have a premium account will NOT receive a refund.