[ Sotw ] The Official Rule Book

[Ethereal]

The Official SOTW Rule Book!

Welcome to the official Signature of the Week Rulebook. In here, you will be reading about the rules, punishments and other material that you will need to know about the SOTW. You will be expected to follow these guidelines, and breaking a few of them may lead to punishments.

» Section A : General

¤ Each week, a brand new SOTW will be starting.

¬

Monday to Friday

will be the days where artists are permitted to submit their entries.

¬

Late

entries will not be accepted.

¬

Saturday and Sunday

are the days where people are permitted to vote. Information on voting can be seen later in the rules.

¤ There will most likely be no SOTWs that have the same theme as themes in the past.

¬ The only exception will be

Freestyle

.

¤ Flaming and spamming will not be tolerated; thus, they are not allowed.

¬ Comments are to be kept to a minimal.

¬ Constructive criticism, comments and questions are permitted.

¬

Punishments

: for flaming or spamming :

Spam: (to do short/incoherent/irrelevant posts)

Seriously, I believe your vocabulary extends to more than "LOL". You have all the time to post; write something insightful.

First offense:

-10% warn.

-Post deletion

Second offense:

--If repeated constantly--

-20% warn per spam post.

-24 post restriction.

-Post deletion.

---

Flame: (to insult other player's behaviors/looks/tastes)

Flame wars are fun to watch, but also ruin the look of our community. You can have as many fights with players as you may want, and for the reasons you may want to pick, but keep it off of the community's view.

First offense:

-10% warn per flame post

-All flame posts deleted

Second offense:

--if repeated constantly--

-20% warn per flame post.

-24 hour post restriction.

-All flame posts deleted.

» Section B : Artists' Rules

¤ Contestants are only permitted to post one entry only.

¬ Artists may

not

change their entry at all. This includes editing their entry in any way.

¬ The only occasion of where editing is permitted is if they forgot to add in their name in the entry. But, they must show the previous version and the new version (where the name is added) so we are able to see if you made any other changes.

¬

Punishment :

Instant disqualification from the week's theme.

¤ Contestants must make their entries in the within the week the SOTW is opened.

¬ We will not be accepting any work from the past.

¬

Punishment :

Instant disqualification from the week's theme.

¤ The entry must be made by the contestant, and the contestant alone.

¬ Plagiarism is

not

permitted. (Meaning you may not take another person's work and claim it as your own.)

¬ Using another person's .PSD file that they have offered for free or sold is not permitted.

¬

Punishment :

Instant disqualification for 2 weeks: the week the contestant participated in and the next.

¤ The contestant must post their resources used for their entry.

¬ They

must

post their main resource used in their entry, and this includes: renders, stocks, brushes or textures.

¬ The resources can be posted through links to images or websites, or offered through downloads.

¬ Reason for rule: we want to know for sure that the contestant has made their entry and not lead to any suspicions that they have stolen their entry.

¬ We don't care if it looks like the contestant's past work or looks like something they would make. Well known contestants do

not

get special treatment.

¬

Punishment :

Instant disqualification for the week's SOTW.

¤ The contestant must use image tags when posting their entries.

¬ This is just to make life a little easier, so please use:

[IMG=InsertLinkHere]

¬

Punishment :

None.

¤ The contestant must list at least one in-game character that they have in-game in their post.

¬ The reason for this rule is so that the GMs will know who to contact in-game for the winners' prizes.

¬ You are permitted to use the "in-game" characters feature on your posting profile, but they must have your active in-game characters.

¬

Punishment :

Possibility of not receiving the prize.

¤ Entries may not exceed the size of: 550x550 (Length x Width).

¬ We do not want extremely large images that take a long time to load.

¬ The forums will automatically re-size your entry into a smaller size in a preview.

¬

Punishment :

The contestant's entry will not count for the week; thus, the contestant will be disqualified for the week.

» Section C : Voters' Rules

¤ Voters must have at least a post count of 10 in order to vote.

¬ Reason for this rule is so that people do not make 10,000 forum accounts in order to support themselves or another person.

¬ If suspicion arises for this situation, then an I.P. check will be done.

¬

Punishment :

The vote will not count until the voter has at least a post count of 10.

¤ Voters must give at least 2 or more valid sentences to vote.

¬ The main reason for this rule is because we simply do not want friends voting for friends. We want perfectly valid reasons as to why the voter are voting for a specific contestant.

¬ Another reason for this rule is not only to compliment the voter, but may also help them in the future if suggestion or certain comments are made.

¬ Voting reasons may not include reasons such as :

1. OMG!!! IT HAS KATY PERRY IN IT!!! SHE'S SO HOT!!! Q#O%*&Q#RQW*(D&Y

2. My friend paid me.

3. It has my favourite colour, blue, so I decided to vote for it.

¬

Punishment :

The vote will not count until valid reasons are given.

¤ Contestants may not vote for themselves in any way, shape or form.

¬ It will be considered unfair and the voter's vote will not count at all.

» Section D : Judges' Laws

¤ The judges of the SOTW are:

1. Ethereal
2. »Pat
3. Terroryst
4. The GM Team (if necessary)

¤ Judges are not permitted to enter the competition.

¬ Judges are not permitted to participate. If they do participate, they will have to have a Game Master to sub in for their position for the week.

¬ When judges participate, they are the same as any other contestant. They will have to follow the same rules and do not receive

any

special treatment at all.

¤ Judges are expected to vote fairly and may not show any form of favouritism towards contestants.

¬ The reason is for this rule is to maintain fair voting. This is not guaranteed 100% to work all the time, but we can try.

¬

Punishment :

Possible removal from the judging panel.

» Section E : Voting System

¤ A judge's vote will count as 1 point.

¬ The reason for is that they are specifically chosen because they are most likely to vote fairly.

¤ 2 non-judges' votes for a specific entry will be considered 1 point.

¬ Non-judges includes anyone who are not GM's, judges, or moderators.

¬ The reason for this rule is this may be a way to reduce "paid voting."

¤ Votes will be counted at the end of Sunday.

¬ Winners will be posted up in the "Hall of Fame" section along with their entries.

¬ In the "Hall of Fame" there will be 2 parts that are updated every week. One part is there's a topic that includes every winner that has won SOTW in the past and will continued to be updated. Another part is just simply topics for the week's winners.

» Section F : Prize System

¤ Reminder to all contestants that you must post your in-game name character in your post or list active in-game character names in your posting profile.

¬ Again, this is to allow the contestants to receive their prize. We do not want false people claiming prizes that they did not win.

¤ There will be first, second and third place prizes.

1. 1st Place Winners will receive 100 Event Coupons.
2. 2nd Place Winners will receive 50 Event Coupons.
3. 3rd Place Winners will receive 25 Event Coupons.

¬ Please remember to contact a GM in-game in order to receive your prize.

» Section G : Other

¤ Good luck and have fun!

---

- The SOTW Staff.

Edited January 27, 2010 by Ethereal

[Wish]

Three of the rules for this event will be changed henceforth:

1) Signature sizes should not exceed 300x300px. (length by width).

Reason: The forum rules state that signatures should not exceed 300x400px. Therefore, it makes sense that this event should not exceed that size as well!

Punishment: Warning to change the size of the signature and repost by the time the topic for that week closes. If it is not resized, the entry will be disqualified for that week.

2) Contestants may not use hand-drawn works done by themselves.

Reason: We do not want this to turn into an art contest. Signatures should show off editing skills, not drawing skills.

Punishment: Instant disqualification of the contestant for that week.

3) Signatures should have a ratio that is not 1:1. I.e. NO SQUARE SIGNATURES. We will be flexible in this area, but will inform you if your signature is not acceptable.

Reason: Square signatures are not common, and we do want to make this more of a "signature" event.

Punishment: Warning to fix. If it is not fixed by the end of the week, the entry will be disqualified.

Keep in mind that this event will happen every other week rather than every week starting from now on. Also keep in mind that buying signatures from other players and presenting them as your own is not ok!