By popular request, our Live Chat Room is now OPEN once again. Our apologies for the time it has taken us to open the Chat Room on a permanent basis. We have had to amend our Terms of Service and other documents to cover it, and have also introduced some <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... forum=10">General Posting Guidelines</a>. Full details of the changes made can be found <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... 3">here</a>. Please read these documents, especially the <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... forum=10">General Posting Guidelines</a>. To make it easier to use we have also added a date and time stamp to each post.

We hope you will enjoy this new feature of the site. Other new features are in the pipeline, and will be announced at the appropriate time.

Simon

We have made a number of revisions to our <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... ?pagenum=2">Terms of Service</a>, <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... agenum=3">Privacy Notice</a> and <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... rum=10">Copyright Posting Policy</a>. We have also added some <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... forum=10">General Posting and Live Chat Room Use Guidelines</a>.

These changes and the new <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... ;>Guidelines</a> were made partly to facilitate the re-opening of the Live Chat Room. Please read these documents, especially the <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... ;>Guidelines</a>, before using the Live Chat Room.

Provisions have also been added to the <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... ?pagenum=2">Terms of Service</a> to cover the translating of Site Content by volunteers. If you have already volunteered to help translate this site, or are considering volunteering, please read the updated <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... ?pagenum=2">Terms of Service</a>, especially section 4.6.

The affected sections of the <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... ?pagenum=2">Terms of Service</a> are sections 2.1, 4.1, 4.3, 4.5 and 4.6.

The affected sections of the <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... agenum=3">Privacy Notice</a> are the <i>Member Generated Content</i> part of the <i>Here Are the Types of Information We Gather</i> section, and the <i>Does Chronicles of Gor Share the Information It Receives?</i> section.

The affected sections of the <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... rum=10">Copyright Posting Policy</a> are section 3 and the final paragraphs from the NB onwards.

In addition to complying with the Terms of Service and the Copyright Posting Policy, we ask members to observe the following when posting in the Forums or using the Live Chat Room:

1. Be courteous. Don't threaten, harass, stalk or verbally abuse other Members, use defamatory language, or deliberately disrupt discussions with repetitive, excessively numerous, meaningless or repeatedly off-topic messages or "spam."

2. Debate, but don't attack. In a community characterized by strong opinions and preferences, people inevitably disagree. We encourage active discussions and welcome heated debate in our Forums and Chat Room, but personal attacks on other Members, our Staff, the Gor series or on John Norman are grounds for immediate and permanent suspension of access to the Forums, the Chat Room, or any other part of the Site or Services.

3. Please remember that this Site is for the <i>fans</i> of John Norman's <i>Chronicles of Gor</i> series and Members do not need to consider themselves to be "Gorean" in order to participate. Consequently, we do not enforce a fixed style of address or mode of speech nor the use of titles.

4. The Chat Room is intended for discussion, not for role playing or cybersex. Those Members who participate in Gorean role-playing elsewhere are asked to please remember that the Chronicles of Gor Chat Room is a venue for the player, not the character.

5. Please avoid writing your messages using all capital letters. It looks like you are SHOUTING!

6. Please be careful not to disclose real life personal or personally identifying information about another person without their prior permission. Don't continue disputes from other venues in the Chronicles of Gor Forums and Chat Room, please!

7. When the Chronicles of Gor Staff conduct a scheduled discussion in the Chat Room, please keep your communications to the point and related to the designated topic. In chat rooms it's sometimes difficult to follow the thread of discussion. Shorter posts usually read better and will help keep the chat flowing.

8. Please try to keep your Forum posts on topic. If a particular thread sparks an entirely new idea that differs substantially from the current line of discussion, consider beginning a new thread (use the <i>New Topic</i> button at the top right of the page), and please try to begin new threads in the appropriate Forums. In most cases, for example, questions for the Staff about administrative matters belong in the Users Issue Forum, and purely personal discussions between two or three members that are not likely to interest others are better conducted off-list.

9. Please don't post sexually explicit photographs as attachments or avatars. Considerations of taste and morals aside, we simply don't have the ability to ensure compliance with applicable legal regulations concerning their display on the internet, such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Pr ... Enforcement_Act">§2257 regulations</a>.

10. Emotion is hard to convey in the written word and the membership is drawn from around the world; not all speak English fluently. During Chats, especially, it may be helpful to use smilies to help convey your feelings, which you can do by clicking the <i>Options</i> link to the right of the <i>Send</i> button. Not all of us are naturally good spellers, either, but especially in posts, if spelling is not one of your talents, please consider composing your posts first in word processing and using spell check in order to be considerate of those who don't read English fluently.

11. Because emotion is so much harder to convey in writing even despite people's best efforts, we can sometimes misread others' intent and become offended by someone's comments, often unnecessarily. Please try to keep cool. It is often better to offer no response than to offer a heated one and thereby touch off a flame war.

12. Any and all complaints directed to a Staff Member actively moderating the Chat Room or who is the designated Moderator of a Forum should first be addressed to them via a PM or an off-list email. If the problem cannot be resolved promptly between yourself and that Staff Member, or a problem occurs with another Member in the Chat Room at a time when no Staff Member is present, please contact us at moderators@gorchronicles.com. The use of the <i>Report</i> button for offensive, violating or inappropriate posts is explained further in this <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/smar ... quot;>F.A.Q.</a>

13. Please remember that all our Staff Members are volunteer workers, so we ask you to remain as calm as possible while we try to help you through any problems you may encounter.

14. The Live Chat Room has been opened to the Members at their request for general discussions, but the Staff Members cannot provide 24 hour supervision, which you acknowledge by choosing to participate nevertheless. If the privilege is abused, we reserve the right to shut the Live Chat Room down.

These General Posting and Live Chat Room Use Guidelines do not supersede any applicable provisions of the Site's <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... ?pagenum=2">Terms and Conditions of Use</a>, <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... rum=10">Copyright Posting Policy</a> or <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... agenum=3">Privacy Notice</a>.

No problem - don't worry about it.

Simon

As I've said, when it's open again it will be in the Main Menu. I'll also say here when it's back open.

When it's open again, and we are working on that, it will be in the main menu. We'll make announcements when it's open again.

This subject has come up in a couple of threads, with some strong opinions expressed.

We have two site policies that are relevant here.

1) We will respect and uphold the law, and

2) We will respect and uphold the wishes of John Norman.

I won't go into the details here, but there have been times during the development of this site when we have disagreed with decisions made by John Norman. When that happens we'll present our case in the hope that John can be pursuaded, but if not then we accept his decision.

That policy applies to fanfic and other derivative works too. If John Norman says they are not acceptable, then we do not post them or encourage their posting elsewhere.

That said, John has not actually said a great deal on the subject. What he has said implies that he is against fan fiction, and it has to be assumed that that applies to all fan fiction, as we have no information to the contrary. However, it may be that there are circumstances in which he will permit it.

The comments and views expressed here are not the only ones I've heard over the past few months. I think it would be very helpful to have some more detailed information from John outlining what kinds of derivative works are OK, and what are not, and any conditions he wishes to impose (such as not using his characters in fan fiction). We will do our best to get that information, but it may take time and we may not get it at all. We'll try though, that I can promise.

We'll post any news we get on this site. In the meantime, I fully understand that people have strong views on the subject, some of which I in fact agree with, but please understand and respect our policies on the subject.

Simon

Thank you. The suggestions are appreciated, and we'll add them to the mix. We're currently discussing the future of the Chat Room, so watch this space.

Thank you to all those who dropped in to see us in the Chat Room, during our opening weekend.

We've been delighted with the number of visitors, to the site as a whole as well as the Chat Room, and we hope you will all stay and participate, and help the place to grow.

The Chat Room is now closed once again. We will open it from time to time, maybe for specially announced live discussions on particular topics, maybe for a regular slot. If you have suggestions for it, such as ideas for discussions we could host there, do let us know.

In the meantime, do enjoy the rest of the site.

Simon

It has come to light that some last minute changes to the <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... ?pagenum=2">Terms of Service</a>, made very shortly before the site was opened, were not made to the Terms that users were shown when they registered. The <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/wfch ... ?pagenum=2">Terms of Service</a> page on the Site was correct though. The main paragraph affected was paragraph 10.1 though there may have been very minor changes elsewhere. Please review the updated document. The Terms shown to users upon registration have now been updated.

I thought I'd mention here that the Chat Room is open and I'll be sitting in it much of the weekend. Do feel free to drop in and say hello!

Whenever we make changes to our Terms of Service, Privacy Notice, Copyright Posting Policy or any other official notice or policy statement of Chronicles of Gor, we will post the details of the changes on this topic, with links to the revised documents so they can be reviewed in their full context.

Please check this topic regularly to make sure you are aware of any changes, or you can make use of the Active Notification feature, and set it so that you are automatically notified of new posts in this topic via email or private message.