STAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ RULES OF CONDUCT

Last Update: October 21st, 2008

The Rules of Conduct are guidelines to the user on expected conduct and behavior upon the Star Wars: The Old Republic website. These guidelines can change at the sole discretion of the Community Team as necessary to best benefit the Star Wars: The Old Republic Forums community and cultivate an atmosphere appropriate to a gaming forum. Despite our best efforts to detail the different sections with specific examples, there will always be areas that will be ultimately handled on a per incident basis by the Community Team. Even when not specified, the Community Team has the sole right and final judgment of how to interpret and apply these rules and guidelines to any specific circumstance and situation, including proper punishment or exception. All capitalized terms used in these Rules of Conduct are defined in the Star Wars: The Old Republic Terms of Service at http://www.swtor.com/legalnotices/termsofservice.

It violates BioWare's Terms of Service if you (or others using your Account) engage in any of the following behavior:

• Post, transmit, promote, or distribute Content that is illegal.
• Harass, threaten, embarrass, or do anything else to another Member or guest that is unwanted. This includes: saying bad things about Members or guests, repeatedly sending them unwanted messages, attacking their race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Remember: if you disagree with someone, keep your response targeted at the subject, not the person.
• Transmit or facilitate distribution of Content that is harmful, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar, sexually explicit, defamatory, infringing, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights, or in a reasonable person's view, objectionable. Hate speech is not tolerated.
• Disrupt the flow of chat in chat rooms with vulgar language, abusiveness, hitting the return key repeatedly or inputting large images so the screen goes by too fast to read, use of excessive shouting [all caps] in an attempt to disturb other users, “spamming” or flooding [posting repetitive text].
• Trolling, which we define as posts or threads, which knowingly lead to overly strong negative and emotional responses for mere shock value, are not allowed on the Star Wars: The Old Republic forums. Accounts made with the sole intent to “troll” will be immediately and permanently suspended. Constant personal attacks are also considered trolling.
• Posts deemed inappropriate to a particular forum will be moved to a more appropriate forum or even removed completely depending on the nature of the post. Examples of such posts would be off-topic posts posted in a political forum or a technical help question posted in off-topic. This is done to facilitate proper communication on the forums and allow for the flow of conversation. Posts that have been removed are not to be reposted. Reposting removed posts or making posts questioning said removal, will be cause for account suspension.
• Impersonate another person (including celebrities), indicate falsely that you are an BioWare employee or a representative of BioWare Online, or attempt to mislead users by indicating that you represent BioWare or any of BioWare's partners or affiliates.
• Attempt to get a password, other account information, or other private information from a Member or any other user on BioWare Online. Remember: BioWare Online employees will NEVER ask for your password. Do not give your password, reminder words, or billing information out to anyone.
• Upload any software or Content that you do not own or have permission to freely distribute.
• Buy, sell, or auction (or host or facilitate the ability to allow others to buy, sell or auction) and Account or game characters, items, credits or copyrighted material or any other intellectual property owned or controlled by BioWare or our licensors without first obtaining our express written permission.
• Promote or encourage any illegal activity including hacking, cracking or distribution of counterfeit software.
• Upload files that contain a virus or corrupted data.
• Post messages for any purpose other than personal communication, including without limitation advertising or promotional messaging, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or other commercial activities.
• Improperly use in-game support or complaint buttons or make false reports to BioWare Online staff members.
• Use or distribute “auto” software programs, “macro” software programs or other “cheat utility” software program or applications.
• Modify any part of the Service or any Service website (a “Site”) that BioWare does not specifically authorize you to modify.
• Post or communicate any player’s real-world personal information within the Service or through any Site or any Service bulletin board.
• Attempt to interfere with, hack into or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Service.
• Exploit any bug in the Service or in any BioWare product to gain unfair advantage in the game and/or communicate the existence of any such bug (either directly or through the public posting) to any other user of the Service.
• Attempt to play your BioWare game on or through any service that is not controlled or authorized by BioWare.
• Participate in any online service that provides online features or game play for your BioWare game that is not authorized by BioWare.
• Do anything that interferes with the ability of other Service users to enjoy playing an BioWare game and using the Service in accordance with its rules, or that materially increases the expense or difficulty of BioWare in maintaining the Service for the enjoyment of all its users.
• You may not give false information or intentionally hide any information when registering for your Star Wars: The Old Republic account. Posting profanity or otherwise objectionable content in your profile is also prohibited. You are responsible to make sure your account information, especially your email address, is up-to-date.
• You will not upload or transmit in Star Wars: The Old Republic, or on the official Forums or any and all official websites, any copyrighted content that you do not own all rights to, unless you have the express written permission of the author or copyright holder. Failure to abide by this rule is grounds for immediate and permanent account closure and legal action.
• Forum accounts are non-transferable. Registered users are responsible for any actions that take place on their accounts or private messaging systems.
• Do not repost copyright and/or press material in its entirety from other sources. Quotations from things such as news articles are fine, provided it is cited and (if possible) linked to. We ask others to respect our content and ask our readers do the same for other people's content.
• If you are suspended, it is not proper to get back to the forums on an alternate account. If your account is suspended, and you use an alternate account to post, the alternate account will be permanently suspended, and not only will you receive another official warning, but your suspension will be lengthened. Usually, suspensions will step from 24 hours, to 3 days, to 7 days and then Permanent. All suspensions are documented by the Community Team. You do not need to contact us to review a suspension, as they are all reviewed by the rest of the Community Team. If we feel there is an issue with your suspension, we will gladly reverse it, or shorten its length and you will be notified with a Private Message.

Guidelines
The following guidelines will help promote a user-friendly environment:

• Do not post in all capital letters, use excessive punctuation, etc. This practice is used to draw attention to ones post. While everyone wants their posts read, we ask that you refrain from using sensational tactics in order to bring more people to your thread. Let your post stand on its own merit.
• Using the words BioWare or any community team member’s name in a thread topic is frowned on. Everyone would like BioWare to read and acknowledge his or her post, and we understand that. However, use of such words in the topic does not help that come to pass. Please make sure your thread title is relevant to the post subject.
• Posting IBL, IBTL, or variants of “In Before The Lock” constitutes spamming. We appreciate that our posters understand the Rules of Conduct to the point where they can call whether or not a thread is in violation; however, saying in before the lock does not contribute to a constructive community and it does fall under spamming. If you wish to acknowledge a post that violates policy, please report it instead.
• Do not bump posts. The act of bumping ones post is considered spamming and contributes nothing constructive to the discussion. Your thread will be seen; there is no need to continually bump it to the top of the list.
• Do not hijack topics. Posting comments within a thread which severely disrupts the original conversation is prohibited.
• Petition posts are frowned on. This is a discussion forum. Petition threads do not contain much discussion; instead, a petition is usually page after page of /signed. This is not constructive. If you have an issue with the game, please discuss it in a civil and informed fashion. There are other places on the Internet to form online petitions.
• Do not post about locked or deleted threads. Posts that are moderated have a reason behind the moderation. We lock before we post on a locked thread to stop the violation in question as soon as possible, so if you have yet to see a comment by a member of the community team on a locked thread, please wait for it and do not post on the subject. If you have questions regarding forum moderation, please use the contact list below in the Community Team Procedures section.
• If you have a post to report, use the Notify the Community Team button located on the post in question. Please, do not post linking to threads you feel should be moderated.

Lastly, please have fun. Although it looks like there are a lot of procedures and rules in place, most of these are common sense, and are meant as a safeguard to keep these forums active and relevant for the community of a game we all love. Abusing these forums affects everyone who enjoys this game, so we ask for your cooperation and your support in achieving and maintaining this goal. Suggestions to make this an even better place for our community are always welcome! You can PM any of the Community Team members with your input and we will gladly review it for implementation.

Thank you for being part of this community!