The Sims 4 Discussion Rules

[SimGuruFrost]

Sul sul Steam Simmers!

We want everyone to feel at home on the Steam forums for The Sims 4. Anyone should feel comfortable asking for help, sharing their tips and tricks, and having fun with other players. We have a community of global perspectives and different passions all united on one thing: playing fun games. That’s why it’s important that everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves.

To keep our games and communities safe and fair we have to put a few rules in place. Our guidelines show you the type of behavior we need to create a fun, safe community for everyone. That includes things like:
Stopping any toxic behavior.
Keeping things fair.
Creating clean content.

These guidelines don't include all behaviors, and our moderators can decide if something is toxic or unfair based on the context.

Below is a breakdown of what is acceptable, what isn't acceptable, and what we have zero tolerance for here on The Sims 4 Discussion forums.

Dos

• Use the search feature to see if there's already a thread for your question. If there is, use it instead of making a new one. Try to include all your points in a single place.
  
• Be descriptive. Give us as much information as you can. Name your thread "The Sims 4 Gallery - I need help with feature X" instead of just "Help!" That way everyone can be ready to help you, faster. Likewise, for discussions something like “Fame perks and quirks thread” will drive the conversation more than naming your topic “Fame” or "Get Famous".”
  
• Be accurate. Make sure the title of your thread matches what your post is about.
  
• Link to first party sites when you're helping with tech issues. If someone needs help with their nVidia driver, link to the nVidia website. That way we know we can trust the source of the info.
  
• Please only post in English. This ensures we keep this a safe and friendly place for everyone!
  
• Keep it on-topic. If someone created a thread, it's because they're looking for an answer to their question or want to discuss a specific topic. Changing the topic of the thread isn't helpful. This would include derailing a discussion about a game/game feature by turning it into a comparison of different games.
  
• Keep it game-related. We're not here to debate politics or religion or lobby for anything, so keep the conversation about our games.
  
• Keep content clean and appropriate.
  
• Be patient. Keep track of your thread using bookmarks or by subscribing to the thread. Other players will post in your thread when they are interested or have an answer for you.
  
• Report toxic behavior. Our games are a place for you to express yourself and your individuality. But it’s not just your space, it’s everyone’s, so respect others even if they have a different opinion. If you see any toxic behavior such as harassing, bullying, or threatening, always report it through the dedicated report tool.

Don'ts
Doing something on this list often can get you a warning or banned.

• Don't bully or use toxic behavior. It’s against the rules and is a one-stop-shop to getting banned from the forums. We count on you to keep toxicity out of our community. Personal defamation, harassing, bullying, threatening, offending, or any harmful behavior towards others is not acceptable—ever.
  
• Don't abuse the formatting options. Nobody likes being YELLED AT!!?!? This means, don't overuse: ALL CAPS, extra-large fonts, or repeated symbols
  
• Don't call out moderators in thread titles. Be cool, folks. We know you want to grab our attention, but good thread titles will help you get our attention much easier.
  
• Don't call for boycotts or misuse petitions. Inappropriate petitions and boycott discussions do not contribute to a useful and productive forum.
  
• Don't post personal information. Forum posts are visible to everyone and can show up in search engine results. Protect the privacy of yourself and others.
  
• Don't be inappropriate. That means no obscenity or other explicit posts i.e. sexting. This includes role play threads.
  
• Don't be rude. No matter what your feelings are about other people, The Sims 4 forums aren't the place to attack another person. That includes public figures, EA employees, or other forum users.
  
• Don't chat about moderation. Our moderators are here to keep this place happy and helpful for everyone. Discussing the way they do things on the forum is not okay, if you have any questions about your own moderation history feel free to reach out to a moderator.
  
• Don't impersonate anybody. This includes EA employees, other community members, celebrities and anyone else. It also includes simulating privileges of forum accounts with a higher level rank, like signatures.
  
• Don't spam or flood boards. That means don't post disruptive numbers of messages, meme, gifs and images e.g.:posting the same message in multiple forums, or sending the same DM multiple times. Spamming can include:
  
• Bumping threads or messages: Doing this once or twice is fine. Multiple bumps in a short period of time is considered spamming. Use your bumps wisely.
  
• Post blank or 'no text' messages: You won't receive an answer if your question is unclear.
  
• Mass tags: It's very rare that more than one tag is needed. Don't tag multiple forum members or moderators to get attention.
  
• Don't curse or swear. Don't try to get away with it by using symbols in place of letters, too. We all k*** what you're trying to s**.
  
• Don't "name and shame". If you see a suspected cheater, please report them by using the appropriate tools. We can’t take any action against such accounts on the forums, and such posts can lead to harassment.
  
• Don't make false claims to moderators.
  
• Don't advertise. For anything: pay-to-play gaming sites, products or items for sale, referral links or advert links/images in forum signatures, avatar posts, blogs, profiles, you name it! You can still link free gaming fan sites and free-to-enter league sites.
  
• Don’t link to “shady” sites. Links to other sites should be appropriate and not contain content like cheat promotion, adult material or unsafe software.
  
• Don't "necropost". Reviving, updating or bumping old, outdated and irrelevant threads is not helpful for our community. It's best to check when the thread was created before you hit post, just to make sure it's not 2 years old for example.
  
• Don't make legal threats. The forums aren't the ideal place for legal discussions and posts including legal chat will be removed.

Zero-tolerance
These are more serious don'ts. That means if you do something from this list, we might ban you right away.

• Discrimination. That means no sexism, racism etc.
  
• Link to or discuss pirated and/or harmful content: Such as Trojan horses. That's not allowed and will result in account action.
  
• Be a troll, bait or flame. This includes deliberately trying to cause an argument by making sarcastic, off-topic, rude or disruptive posts, and discussions.
  
• Do anything illegal. To ensure everyone feels safe, it’s important that you follow the local laws when playing our games. This not only includes keeping things legal, but reporting anything you see that breaks the law or promotes doing so. This means no: Identity theft, identity fraud, "Swatting," doxxing, stalking, making personal threats, blackmail and extortion.
  
• Promote or discuss activities such as software piracy, "hacks", "torrents", game "cracks", and more.
  
• Posting anything that references adult materials. This includes linking to or naming adult-themed mods for games. We've got young gamers on here, too.
  
• Asking for or giving out CD-Keys/Product Codes. Missing the code for your game? Head to help.ea.com to contact us. Exception: If you’d like to host a giveaway, please be sure to write a disclaimer that this is not affiliated with EA.
  
• Sharing accounts. Sharing accounts will get you banned.
  
• Posting copyrighted material. This includes images as well as text from game guides. If you don't own it, don't post it.
  
• Creating more than one forum account. Accounts created for inappropriate or unauthorized reasons will be banned.
  
• Coin Buying / Selling / Promoting / Gambling.
  
• Any form of threats or self-harm regardless of if it's intentional or not.