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The Elfwood Rules in Detail

 
 

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 General Rules...
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Welcome to the general rules page for Elfwood. The rules below pertain to all sections of Elfwood, whether SF/F art, FanQuarter or Wyverns Library where applicable. Please note that, by this writing, all sections of Elfwood also have their own particular rule area that you can access by clicking the tabs on the left-hand side of the page. Rule clarifications were done by a combined effort of all moderators and compiled by Matt Summers and Monica Christensen.

* Name Rules

Elfwood has a real name policy and requires that you display, at minimum, your full last name and your first initial. Any nicknames or pseudonyms may also be displayed, as long as your real name is also visible. Some examples of acceptable ways to write your name:

  • J. The Sweed Parkinson
  • J. Parkinson aka The Sweed

    Any variation on the above is, of course, fine. Name regulations will also need to follow all other guidelines below, like no swearing in your name, etc... When you log onto the Extranet, its highly recommended that you ensure that your full name is logged on the Secret Information area of the extranet. Only the higher level moderators can see that, so you do not have to worry about anyone else seeing this. Additionally, please understand that some rare extenuating circumstances may require that you do not display your real name online. These situations will be considered on a case-by-case basis only.

    *  Your Elfwood Account

    Membership to Elfwood is free of charge.You are responsible for maintaining and updating your gallery/library page and ensuring that all Elfwood Rules & Regulations are followed. Member must provide all required information, plus a current and working email address (accounts without working address will be automatically suspended) to obtain a unique Elfwood user ID and password. You have the option to hide your email address from visitors and only display it to Elfwood staff. Elfwood does not discriminate on the basis of gender, age, or ethnicity. Each Member is allowed to have ONE (1) Membership in each area, and the privileges associated with Membership. Membership is intended for personal use only and non-transferable.

    You must be at least 13 years of age to join. This is to protect your own privacy if you're too young to be putting personal information online. Please go here for more information on The Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA).

    Artists and writers must be alive when signed up for Elfwood. If needed, please read our section about departed members.

    There are a few things youll need to do to ensure that your Elfwood page is up to par and within guidelines. First and foremost, make sure that you at least have something in your short and long biographies within the Extranet. Remember that the short biography is supposed to be short no more than a line or two.

    HTML usage within your long biography should be within reason. Links and the like are allowed, but having thousands upon thousands of links is generally frowned upon. Use of tables, embedding pictures into your bio (apart from your me.jpg below), outside images, forms, buttons and other active HTML is highly frowned upon and could end in the removal of your account from Elfwood. Tables are allowed, but you must be sure the HTML is not breaking the entire page.

    Your biography picture must be uploaded via the "Submit photo" function in the "Tools & Utilities" section of the Extranet OR via the "Picture" function in the "Profile" section at the top of the Elfwood main page, and should be called me.jpg. The picture can be a photo, drawing, painting, etc and can be of any part of your body thats not normally covered by your unmentionables. My own personal favorite example of this was when someone drew a smiley face on their big toe and took a picture of it that is perfectly fine, and gave me a good chuckle. The picture can also be a picture of your anthro self, for example you as a dragon. Your biography picture may not be obscene, racist, sexual, not a picture of someone else and not someone else's drawing unless you have permission - which you must state in your long bio.

    Depending on which area of Elfwood you are in, there are certain minimum and maximum guidelines that youll be required to follow as detailed below:

      A: In the Library, youre required to have a minimum of two (2) acceptable items on your shelf, and are limited to a maximum of fifty (50) total submissions, including some of the optional items (dictionary, thesaurus, character bios, etc see Library Rules for more info).

      B: In the SF/F area, youre required to have a minimum of four (4) acceptable items and are limited to a maximum of one hundred (100) total submissions.

      C: In FanQuarter, youre required to have four (4) acceptable items and no more than fifty (50) total submissions.

      D: Tours must have a minimum of ten (10) and a maximum of fifty (50) items within it.

    Also remember that your Elfwood account is your Elfwood account. You may only submit work that you yourself have done in some fashion. You may not post work that was done by a friend that doesnt have an Elfwood account, just because you like how he/she creates his/her art. Collaborative pieces are allowed, but collaborative shelves are not. See the SF/F or Wyverns Library rules for rulings on collaborative works.

    Submissions to Elfwood also must follow size restrictions. Artwork must be no larger than 2000x2000 pixels in size and no larger than 1Mb in file size. Any image wider than 640 pixels will be scaled down to 600 pixels wide JPEG, with the option to click a little zoom icon to see it in its original size. Animated gifs follow the same guidelines as artwork, 2000x2000 and 1Mb. Stories must be no larger than 200,000 bytes (not quite 200Kb), which will be displayed when you upload the actual story within the Extranet. Illustrations for your stories must be no larger than 450x450 pixels in size and no larger than 250Kb in file size. Your biography picture must be no larger than 100x100 pixels. If your biography picture is larger, then we will automatically scale it down to these dimensions.

    Tours, however, are a bit different as far as their guidelines go. First of all, all items on a tour must be in genre and follow all current rules of Elfwood. Tour descriptions, though not required, are highly encouraged. Do not use any of the big three within the description hate/racial remarks, anything disparaging about the artist/writer in question, flaming and rude remarks in general, and sexual remarks are also discouraged. Copyrighted lyrics and other quotations are also not allowed to be used in your tour descriptions if they are the only description to your tour. You must have some other text accompanying the quoted text. You must have a minimum of ten (10) items and a maximum of fifty (50) items within your tour.

    There are also ticket limits that you must follow when publishing a ticket. You are allowed a maximum of twenty (20) images per ticket on any ticket in the SF/F and FQ areas, and you are allowed a maximum of five (5) stories per ticket in the Library. For clarification, "items" refers to any new item or updated item submitted since the last ticket was processed. If the change you do requires you to upload the picture/story again, then a ticket will be generated.

    Please also note that you can change your biography and every single description you have on your page without generating an actual ticket, entering the queue, or being bound to ticket submission guidelines about number of items and so forth. You can change your biography every hour if you so wished, until you uploaded an item. You may also change your personal information, secret information, and an item's keywords without generating a ticket. The moment you've uploaded anything different than what's on your page already, a ticket will be generated and you'll have to wait your turn.

    Also note that uploading a new me.jpg does generate a ticket, but does not count toward the maximum items per ticket in any section. Additionally, Library tickets may have up to twenty (20) illustrations per ticket above and beyond the five (5) item maximum.

    *  Conduct Within Elfwood...

    A good rule of thumb is the golden rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In other words, treat people as you would want to be treated. Elfwood is a large and free site, so as such you may encounter some people that disagree with your views on life and the like; thats just a fact of life. Also remember that though you have to be thirteen (13) or older to get a page within Elfwood, all ages surf through our site.

    First of all, remember the rule of the Big Three. There are three (3) words that will get you in trouble if you use them anywhere within Elfwood. Shit, fuck and cunt are those words, and I apologize for having to spell them out as bluntly as that. Any recognizable form of those 3 words will not be allowed. That goes for partially censored words like F*** or abbreviations such as WTF. You must either completely censor the word as ****, #&%$ or use another swearword. Using these words in your biography or in comments is bound to bring a quick visit from the ERB, and repeated abuse of it will result in the removal of your entire Elfwood presence. Using these words in picture descriptions or in stories will result in immediate decline of the items, period.

    The comment field allows your visitors to express opinions and viewpoints on your particular artwork or story. Allow people to have opinions of your work. Never change a comment, even if its from an anonymous poster. You may freely delete any comment you wish, which is the better option. If you are having an infestation of anonymous trolls (people who leave nasty comments without any return address, etc), change your comments to Elfwood Members Only within the Extranet, which will solve the problem for the most part. However, you may edit a comment to fix formatting errors (such as a broken tag, etc) freely.

    DO NOT ENGAGE IN FLAME WARS. There is no gray area here.

    Hate and racial statements have no place within Elfwood whatsoever. Again, this is not a gray area. This applies to your biography, your comments, your stories, your artwork, and anything else you submit to Elfwood.

    Responsibility for the gallery content and views expressed in the comment area resides on the posting Member/User. Elfwood is not responsible for the content of any Member gallery or the views expressed in the comment areas of the Site. Elfwood is not responsible for any damage caused by loss of access to, or deletion or alteration of Member gallery space. Finally, Please read the Elfwood Legal Agreement as well.

    * Forbidden Content...

    The following is a non-exclusive list of actions and content that are not permitted on the Site:

    • Any use of copyrighted material without the express permission of the author or owner.
    • Any material that encroaches the rights of others, including clear expressions of bigotry, racism, or hatred.
    • Any material that is perceived by Elfwood as abusive, deceptive, profane, slanderous, offensive, or inappropriate, including explicit pornography in visual or written form.
    • Any use of material that contains viruses, corrupt files or other content which may compromise the Elfwood Project or any user there of.
    • Any material that violates any laws or regulations of any governing body with jurisdiction over The Elfwood Project, its affiliates and users.
    • Any materials inconsistent with the values of the spirit of the Elfwood Project community.
    • Adding links to your gallery that promotes any of the above.

    * Submission Guidelines...

    • Each section will have its own unique submission guidelines. As follows will be generalized guidelines that apply to all areas; for more specific guidelines, be sure to visit the specific page for your area.

    • Photography is perfectly fine within Elfwood as long as it follows genre rulings. You must state who took the picture, even if you took the picture yourself; state that you have permission to use the photo; state that you have permission from any and all people within the photograph to use their image; and provide links to all involved if any links exist. If it's a photo of you, it's of course fine, just remember to state in the description that it's you in the photo. You need to state that information in every description. It's not sufficient enough to write it in your biography.

    • A special note on Pern artwork. Anne McCaffrey requires that EVERY picture that is from her series must have the Pern trademark in the picture description. If the information is not there, the picture will be declined. Additionally, Ms. McCaffrey has said that no slash pictures what-so-ever are allowed. All Pern artwork should go into your SF/F gallery. http://www.annemccaffrey.net/fan-fiction-rules.html

    • Quoting from already-established works of art or text is allowable, within reason. You may quote from poems, songs, text and the like, but you may not quote the entire poem, song or text, unless it is in the public domain. A good rule of thumb is to only use a few stanzas or so. If the quote is not in English, a translation must be provided in the description (or footnoted if in a Library submission).

    • Submissions that are too violent and/or sexual in nature will be declined. Pictures showing internal organs that are spewing blood and gore everywhere will be declined. Stories describing in graphic detail the disemboweling of someone or excessively graphic torture will also be rejected. Pictures of an erect penis are too sexual in the male fashion... and for females showing more of the genitalia than the outer line of the labia is considered too much. All such pictures will be judges on a case to case basis.

    • Submissions suggesting sexual situations involving minors, whether it's minors vs. adults or minors vs. other minors, are NOT allowed in Elfwood, and will be judged more harshly than pictures involving only adults. This includes common slash submissions, such as Harry Potter sleeping with Snape.

    • Model and/or kit sets that you assemble and paint are not acceptable by Elfwood standards. This includes preformed sculptures, miniatures, molds, etc.

    • Product logos (Nikes swash, Coca-Colas trademarked bottle, etc) are not allowed in any artwork submission.

    • Celebrities, by themselves, are not allowed anywhere within Elfwood. Celebrities drawn in the roles they play are allowed in FanQuarter as long as they abide by all other restrictions for genre and copy/reference regulations. Just sticking fairy wings or similar to a celebrity is also not allowed, since it's still celebrity art, just with a twist. Example: Sarah Michelle Gellar as herself is not ok, SMG as Buffy the Vampire Slayer is fine for FQ, SMG depicted in any role she did not play is not ok.

    • Censoring pictures is allowed to an extent, but when it comes to censoring things that are inappropriate in Elfwood, such as rude gestures, sexual situations and the like where you can still clearly tell what's going on, it will not be accepted. This will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

    • Anime and goth styles of artwork are not considered in genre by themselves. Other elements must be present to show genre beyond just the style of artwork.

    • Rude gestures (flipping the bird, the inverted victory sign, etc) are not allowed within Elfwood and will be declined.

    • Abstract and surreal pictures must still have extremely obvious fantasy elements to it to get approved. Even if an abstract picture has a good, solid fantasy or sci-fi description to it, the picture will likely still be declined. A black smear of paint across a brown and orange canvas might represent the battle at the gates of Heaven during the apocalypse to you, but if we cant tell what it is, its going to get declined.

    • Art trades are allowable within Elfwood as long as all artists in question have given permission for their work to be shown on your page. You must state that you have permission and give appropriate credit to the artist(s) in question, preferable with a link to the artists gallery. Additionally, the picture still must follow all genre guidelines and all other applicable guidelines to be accepted. This also applies to a recolor if someone else gives you permission to color their black and white submission, all of the above rules apply.

    • All non-English language requires an English translation to accompany it. In the art sections the translation should be in the description, for Library see the Library rules page. This includes any made-up languages and 1337-speak, and also any words or symbols on the clothing or bodies of characters or on buildings or any other part of the picture. If the runes or text in your picture are just for decoration and have no meaning, you can simply write “All runes in this picture are for decorative use only” or something to that effect in the description.

    • In SF/F and FanQuarter, no drug usage is allowed at all. Underage drinking and/or smoking are also automatic declines. For Library restrictions on the same, visit the Library rulings.

    • Historical figures (ie dead people, not current celebrities or anyone whos been dead less than fifty years) are allowed within Elfwood, as long as the final submission is in genre and follows all other Elfwood guidelines. In other words, Jeanne dArc standing with a sword by herself would be declined, Jeanne dArc receiving words of advice from the light of God would be acceptable or having a description that indicates why it's fantasy or sci-fi.

    • Religious figures will be judged based on their content. For example, Jesus standing on a rock by himself, with no other fantasy reference, will likely be declined. Jesus, standing on a rock with angels in the background and the waters parted before him will be approved with no problems at all. In simple terms other genre elements must be present or it will be declined.

    • You are allowed to state in your bio and/or descriptions that you do paid commissions, but you're not allowed to put price tags on your art or state how much a paid commission will cost. Please refer to your homepage or other web page from where you're selling it. You're allowed to link to the site you're selling it from.

    • Copied pictures (in other words, reproductions of someone else's work, whether traced or drawn freehand) is NOT acceptable in Elfwood. They are copies and do not belong anywhere on Elfwood! Partially copied art will most likely also be rejected. A rule of thumb is that if it's obvious where it's from, then it's most likely a copy and as such will be declined.

    * About Elfwood staff and Elfwood's creator...

    There are three (3) types of staff that work behind the scenes of Elfwood. All three have specific things that they are responsible for, and the vast majority of them are actually nice people as well. A good portion of them have their own pages within Elfwood.

    You have the moderators, who help keep the account queues running. Moderators are entitled to making sure that all submissions fit within the rules and regulations of Elfwood. When you hit Submit Ticket through the Extranet, it is a moderator who will eventually be reviewing your ticket for processing.

    The ERB (Elfwood Review Board) are the people who take care of things after publication. If a submission slips through that goes against the rules, or if someones swearing profusely in their biography, or a flame war has erupted on your Elfwood comment page, it will be the ERB that contacts you about this matter.

    Thomas Abrahamsson is the creator and owner of Elfwood itself. He is unto a god er, no, wait. Thats his cat, Klimpen Thomas is actually a very normal guy who created Elfwood as a hobby. It is hosted through Linkping university's computer club Lysator and is fully nonprofit. Donations are, of course, happily accepted whenever Thomas has time to process them, but are never required.

    * Moderator Dictionary...

    The Elfwood moderators use a dictionary posted at an external site as a help in their work.

    The Dictionary contains the results of group discussions by the Elfwood moderators, and rule clarifications provided by members of the ERB and senior Elfwood staff. Do not consider them official rules, but guidelines the moderators use when faced with difficult decisions or unusual material in the tickets they process. All information in the dictionary is subject to change without notice, and is updated regularly. In cases where the moderators dictionary and the actual rules pages seem to disagree, the rules pages are always more correct.

    Go to the Mod Dictionary


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     Quality Guidelines
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    Please take some time and make your image presentable. Elfwood is a place to display your artwork; given this, make it presentable to be displayed. Spend an hour or two playing with the following basic functions of your graphics program: cropping, brightness/contrast/gamma or level adjustment, saving in a suitable format and compression. Not only will this make your image much less likely to be declined for quality issues, youll be learning how to give your artwork the full effect of viewing that it deserves.

    One requirement for all artwork submitted to the SF&F areas are that they follow some clear quality guidelines. The picture below is formatted exactly correct, and was used by permission from Sarah "Gealflings" Trumpp.


      (A) Image quality issues.
      1. Cropping issues. If a large amount of white space remains on any side of your work, the picture needs to be cropped to remove a majority of this white space. This also is an issue if the edge of the paper can be seen, or if the back of the scanner can be seen. All of these issues must be corrected before you upload your picture, or it will be declined.



        The only exception to the edging rule is when its required as part of your picture. For example, an ancient map that has burned and torn edges and shows a bit of the background color behind it would be allowable, or in cases where the edges have been cut to match the shapes of the figure in the drawing.
      2. Color issues. If your image is too dark or too light to make out the details of the work, it becomes a color issue. Colored bars along any side of the work also need to be removed, unless the picture is being presented in a matte finish (framed).
      3. Quality irregularities. Holes in your work, creases, and things of this nature will get your work declined. If you assemble two (2) large images together (say, if your work was too large to scan on one try) and it left an extremely visible line down the center of your work, this is considered an irregularity and will get declined.

      4. Background issues. Homework notes in the side of your picture, being able to see images and writing in the background that got scanned along with your image, and lined work that hasnt been edited will fall under this category.
      5. Timestamps on photos are NOT a quality issue. If you want to edit them out, that's fine, but you don't have to.
      6. Finally, please make sure that your pictures are all saved in RGB mode, not in CMYK mode. CMYK mode images are not allowed, as most browsers are not capable of displaying them at all.

      Lined paper will take some work to remove the lines, usually. A few good programs for this are Gimp and Irfanview as of this writing. Gimp is located at http://www.gimp.org/ and Irfanview is located at http://www.irfanview.com/

      Of course, there will always be exceptions to all of these rules. One example of this is when page irregularities, background effects, lines and/or schoolwork notations are used to enhance the actual picture or used specifically for the picture. One good example of this is below. Drawn by Fox Matthew Bruner and used with permission.


      (B) Picture size rules and minimums.

      1. You are required to have a minimum of four (4) pictures on your Elfwood page at all times. Please make sure that you have at least four (4) unique pictures if youre publishing for the first time. Different versions or colorings of the same picture are okay, but they wont count toward the minimum of four (4).

        Example
        1. 1 black/white drawing + 1 colored version of the B/W drawing = counts as 2 pictures in a 1st publish.
        2. 1 B/W drawing + 2 colored versions of the B/W drawing = counts as 2 pictures in a 1st publish
        3. 1 B/W drawing + 3 colored versions of the B/W drawing = counts as 2 pictures in a 1st publish.
        4. 1 drawing + 1 detailed version of the drawing = counts as 1 picture in a 1st publish.


      (C) Picture size.

      Your picture resolution can be no larger than 2000x2000 pixels in size. Anything larger than this will be automatically declined.
      1. File types. Your pictures must be saved as either a .gif or a .jpg file and NOTHING else. Animated .gifs are allowable as long as they do not exceed the maximum file size.
      2. File size. Your picture files must be 1Mb or less in size. The Extranet will not allow you to create a ticket if any of your uploaded pictures are larger than this.


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     What to do if you get declined...
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    The vast majority of us end up having something get declined for one reason or another. Though this is a fact of life, understand this: the moderators of Elfwood do NOT have something against you as a person, or against your artwork/writing, or against any other aspect of your life.

    If you have something declined, there is a short process you should follow.

    1. Read the decline carefully. All moderators place their decline reasons in the declining email, so if you don't read this email, you'll never know the exact reasoning behind why your story/picture got declined. Match up what the decline reason was against the appropriate part of your story/picture. If you can see what the moderator is talking about, fix this problem and resubmit.
    2. If you don't necessarily see what the moderator was talking about, review the rules above. Find the appropriate rule that covers the reason why your item got declined, and compare it to what the moderator said was wrong with your work. If you can now see what the moderator was talking about, fix the problem and resubmit.
    3. If you still disagree with the moderator on the rejection, understand this. People DO make mistakes. Go back to the email you received your decline in, and hit "Reply. " Describe in this email what your concerns are, and be SURE to attach the picture in question to the email before you send it.


    Moderators do make mistakes, after all. Once you've completed these steps and emailed us, be patient. One of our support moderators will get to your email in time, though it might be a few days. Remember to be nice. A nice email, asking why something was declined and a request for an explanation will get much, much faster response than the email that 's shouting in all caps, calling the moderators every name under the sun and using those words you 're just not supposed to say in front of your mother.

    Incidentally, writing nasty emails and calling the volunteer moderators all sorts of neat names not only is a good way to ensure that your email itself is just flat out ignored, but it does have the potential of having your Elfwood account suspended or outright deleted entirely. We're all adults or near-adults here, people. A little bit of nice goes a very, very long way.





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