At our core, the team here at Crit–Rate was inspired by those nostalgic lunch table discussions from when we were kids where you sit down with your best friends and talk about the latest amazing game you’re playing. The energy and excitement in that conversation was palpable, and all you wanted to do was share your experiences with your like–minded friends and, in turn, hear their experiences with their favorite games as well. Even all these years later, we still found ourselves loving that feeling and it gave us the idea to bring back that middle–school lunch table but make it bigger… way bigger. Enter Crit–Rate. Where the lunch–table has become our community–specific ratings and discussion boards, and your like–minded friends are the members of your Gamer House.
It’s a new, yet familiar way to look at gaming conversation as a whole and we want to foster the best possible experience for everyone joining us. It’s hard to have that nice lunch table discussion about your favorite games when Amanda laughs at your picks and Jimmy is throwing yogurt. Crit–Rate is built on a foundation of like–minded individuals and, perhaps more importantly, of differing viewpoints and opinions. Wizarding school wouldn’t be much fun if everyone was Hufflepuff right? So would you kindly limit negative interactions and offer constructive feedback, positivity, and understanding instead. The discussion boards are meant for respectful and engaging conversations about the things we all love about games; and those things are different for every person. And no spoilers! Come on.
“I think we can put our differences behind us, for science. You monster.” —GLaDOS
Here are a few of the things you should be aware of before posting on Crit–Rate.
Important: In addition to moderators who scan for and delete offending comments, we also employ user flags and automated systems designed to detect spam or posts that are against our TOS. You may receive messages that warn that your comments are worded in a way that may require moderator approval. If you don’t want to change your comment (for example, you believe it’s an erroneous flag—no automated system is perfect), you can submit it and a moderator will either approve or reject the post based on the actual content.
Your post will be deleted for:
You will be banned for:
All comment moderation is left to the discretion of Crit–Rate moderators and staff.
To appeal a moderation–related issue, send an email to bans@critrate.com with the following details:
We encourage open discussions and sharing of personal opinions and viewpoints. While it’s okay to have disagreements in discussions, name calling or other personal attacks against other users or those that create or appear in Crit–Rate’s programming will not be tolerated and will be deleted. Hate speech and derogatory comments about any user’s origin, appearance, age, sex, sexual orientation, or religion are never allowed and will result in a ban.
Just because something’s a meme, a popular quote, or other users have made the same comment before does not grant a commenter the right to repeat an insult against another person.
Trolling is anything specifically designed to attract a negative reaction from an individual or group. Not all negative opinions are automatically considered trolling, but constructive and positive discussions are encouraged. Repeated, blatant trolling devoid of opinion or real discourse ("CoD sucks" on a CoD page, "Battlefield sucks" on a Battlefield page, and so on) is not acceptable. Active contributions to discussion will always be welcomed; however, our moderators and staff will make the final decision on what posts are flaming, trolling, and spam.
This rule goes for Crit–Rate’s Gamer Houses as well. Being proud of your House and community is encouraged, but trolling, insulting, or harassing members of another House is not acceptable and will result in a ban. This includes creating an account to join in their House discussions in a negative way. In this case both your new account and primary account will be suspended and ultimately banned for repeat offenders.
Advertising or excessive spamming of posts is not permitted, and will result in a warning followed by a ban for repeat offenders. We welcome someone posting a helpful link or highlighting a counterpoint on another website, but users who post repeat links, commerce, or constantly talk up another site should be warned. Note that including links may trigger automated spam filters—but if the link is found to be helpful/benign, it will be approved by a moderator.
You can disagree, you can argue, you can be a fan of something—but don’t turn it into a war and make it personal. Crit–Rate will not tolerate console wars that turn into insultfests in comments sections. Comments made against a piece of hardware that aren’t constructive and exist solely to troll will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be banned.
Use of profanity as personal expression, in pictures, or in text, is allowed on the Crit–Rate message boards. However, any profanity used is subject to guidelines and moderator discretion. Stricter guidelines apply to article, wiki, and video comments used throughout the site as these pages are accessible to a much broader audience and our commenting tools will automatically block certain terms. So keep it clean if you don’t want your posts to get flagged or deleted. Moderators will take action against those who try to circumvent profanity filters.
Racial slurs or hate speech are not allowed anywhere on the site and any person caught using them will be immediately banned. Explicitly sexual or profane descriptions and writing will also result in a ban.
Profanity directed in an attack against another user is subject to the same considerations as flaming and trolling (see above). Usernames with profanity are prohibited.
Excessively posting off–topic content or hijacking and driving a discussion off topic may result in a temporary ban. Please be considerate of the other users who may not have seen a movie or played a game that you’re talking about.
When a game, movie or book is released, please wait six months before openly discussing spoiler content in article comments. You can post spoilers in spoiler–threads on the message boards or use visible spoiler warnings in comments and avoid openly posting major plot points that could ruin the experience for those who aren’t yet in the know. Posting information with the intent to spoil the experience for others will result in a deletion on your first offense. Continue to post spoilers and you will not be allowed to comment on Crit–Rate.
Absolutely no form of pornography is allowed in Crit–Rate discussions. Images that contain sexual acts, pubic hair, female nipples, bare bottoms, bodily fluids or genitals that are in any way visible, even through clothing, are not permitted. We allow discussions of sexuality, but these discussions must remain mature at all times and never contain sexually explicit or profane wording or imagery. Any posts, pictures, jokes, or discussions with a clear intent to sexualize children, including sexually suggestive photos of anyone seemingly under the age of 18 will incur a permanent ban from Crit–Rate.
Crit–Rate has a very strict policy against piracy and the illegal use of copyrighted material. Encouraging software or media piracy, including linking to or giving information about any site that seeks to distribute illegal software or media, or any site seeking help to circumvent any copyright laws is grounds for an immediate ban. This goes for all copyrighted material, including but not limited to games, movies, music, magazines, and videos. General discussions about customizing hardware, emulators, custom firmware, etc. are fine.
Since we can’t have a rule to cover everything, this is the rule to, well, cover everything. These are public discussions, so act like you would if you were in a public place (a nice place). These issues are left to the discretion of individual moderators and staff, but may include any material that is knowingly false and/or defamatory, misleading, spammy, inaccurate, abusive, conspiratory, vulgar, hateful, harassing, sexist, obscene, racist, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person’s privacy, incitement to "go after" a person or group, or that otherwise violates any law or encourages conduct constituting a criminal offense. Asking for or offering any of the material listed above is also not permitted.
