As you will all undoubtedly notice shortly, there are some major changes taking place on the Horseland Member Forums. Admins were recently approached by Horseland Officials who were concerned that HMF associates itself with Horseland, but allows content that wouldn’t be appropriate on Horseland. As a result, they insisted HMF must make some changes, or face legal action.
After serious consideration, we have determined it is in our best interest to continue our relationship with Horseland. The only other alternative was to fully affiliate ourselves with Horse Phenomena, which, due to a recent falling out between the staff and the creator calling herself "Sam" was simply unthinkable. In order to encourage new members from Horseland’s Junior game and comply with their demands, we’ve decided to morph into the Horseland Junior Member Forums. While there will be significant changes in content and rules in order to allow our younger members to feel more comfortable, we will still welcome our older members as well.
We realize some of the new rules will take time to adapt to, and we appreciate your willingness to comply. In effort to make this transition as smooth as possible, we won’t be handing out warnings until the 4th, and after that date we will be strictly enforcing the new rules. This gives you four days, beginning on the first of a new month for a fresh start, to adjust to the rules before we will start warning for infractions.
A complete list of rules can be found on the rules and information forum. However, some of the more important new rules are outlined below.
- The list of inappropriate words has increased. To see a complete list of banned words, feel free to pm an admin or mod. In general, any word that wouldn’t be allowed in a PG rated movie isn’t allowed here. All words which were voted to be removed from the banned list in the last few years are now back on it.
- The Books, Music, Movies and TV Shows board will still be present, but the content discussed must have a G or PG rating. Books or music that contains inappropriate words should not be discussed. Also, anything on the banned books list, including the Harry Potter series, The Kite Runner, The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, ect, should not be discussed.
- All pictures that are posted need to have the face completely blacked out, or be taken from such a distance the person clearly isn’t identifiable. Over the next week, mods will be going through old picture threads and removing the inappropriate photos. To simplify this process, we will be removing the "post pictures of yourself" thread.
- Some members will need to change their name. Using your first name as your HJMF name won’t be allowed (for example, the mods Cori and Emily will need to create new usernames for themselves). First names should not be shared with other members.
- The mature board is going to be removed. Discussion of dating activities in the Relationship board is prohibited; instead the board should be used to discuss relationships between friends, family members, etc. No discussion of sexual relationships or reproductive organs will be allowed.
- No mention of your location will be allowed. You can reveal which country you are from, but no personal details such as your state or city. Threads sharing information on accounts from facebook, myspace, twitter, etc will be deleted.
Although this has no bearing on the rules, unfortunately, the new skin we have chosen did not come with buttons and so the admins will be creating new buttons before the weekend is over.
We really appreciate the wonderful members that are present on the boards and we hope these changes will encourage further growth and ensure a strong future for the HJMF. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to pm one of the mods or admins.
