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Inappropriate Conduct in Public / Art Theft

Reporting Inappropriate Threads/Posts
All threads have a Report Post button in the top right hand corner of every post after the first one, and a Report Thread button at the bottom left hand corner of the page. The Report Post button should be used for singular posts within a thread that break the ToS; the Report Thread button should be used if there is a problem with the first post itself, or if the entire thread is in error.

As an extra note, there seems to be a small problem with people accidentally clicking the report post instead of quote, or vice versa. It will only take an extra second to make sure you push the correct button, so please take care to do so!

After determining that you need to report a specific post or thread, you will be taken to a report form page with the following information/guidelines, a post/thread number, and a box to write your explanation in.



Following these guidelines, put some information about why you are submitting the report; it is generally best to keep this short and concise, and avoid suggesting how it should be handled- that is up to the moderator who receives the report. "A Spam thread asking for gold" is a good report, according to a mod I have spoken to; "A spam thread asking for gold- should be moved to Charity" is not.

If a thread or post has already been reported, do not report another post within the thread to get attention faster; it is best to simply wait it out. When you report multiple posts, it makes more work for the moderators, and it does not get the thread seen to any faster, as reports do go into a queue, and those reports will go in after your original report- thus rendering them redundant and unuseful. wink

The only exception to the rule of using the report buttons is in the case of a "forum invasion" -when someone or a group of people spam-troll a forum with offensive content, be it words or images. If you run across such a situation, it is best to PM an online Dedicated Moderator (regardless of assigned forum) and explain the situation to him or her.

Reporting Chain Letters
The absolute most frequently sent on chainletter on Gaia is the following. The information in the following quote is not true. Sending it to anyone via PM is a ToS violation!



There are a lot of other chain letters that make their way through the PM underworld of Gaia. Unfortunately, a lot of them can and are taken seriously, and passed on. The main thing to remember if you get a chain letter is that they are a violation of the Terms of Service, and that if you send them on, you will get in trouble. Also keep in mind that if you get the chainletter from a friend that you don't want to get in trouble, it may be best to sort out the matter personally, and inform your friend of the ToS violation he or she is participating in- and again, do not send the letter on yourself.

The best way to report a chainletter is to quote it, take a screenshot of it, and then send the screenshot and the quote to a dedicated moderator- it really doesn't matter if the moderator is online or not, as chain letters aren't an emergency.

If you continue to receive chainletters from the same person, you can PM them asking them to stop; if they still continue, put them on your ignore list, and fill out a harassment report (see the report harassment post) on the issue.

Reporting a Journal
Journals should only be reported if inappropriate content is posted in them. Unpleasant pictures, flaming, cybering...the same rules apply to journals as to the forums. When reporting the journal, link to the entry with the offensive content in it, and give a brief explanation why you are reporting it. If the entire journal is offensive, linking to the entry is not necessary.

Reporting an Inappropriate Guild
Guilds are subject to the Terms of Service as much as threads are; however, unlike threads, Guild reports should be handled a little more in-depth. If you believe a guild is in violation of the Terms of Service and you decide to report it, within your report you should write a very clear explanation for why you are reporting it and include, if possible, links to the inappropriate content.

Reporting Inappropriate Conduct in the Casino or Fishing
In order to report inappropriate conduct, you must be within the room; reporting room-titles can be done, but does not do much good as there is no way of telling who is actually in the room, or what they are doing.

If you are in a multiplayer fishing or casino game room, and one or more parties begin to engage in activity that breaks the ToS, you should:

• Copy the entire log of the conversation; to avoid losing it, I would suggest temporarily saving it in a notepad or simpletext file.
  
• Take a screenshot of the room, with a portion of the inappropriate content displayed. Do not take separate screenshots for every single incident- that is what the log is for.
  
• Upload the screenshot to the internet- I would suggest tinypic.com if you don't have your own host, as most other free hosts have stringent rules against certain types of content.
  
• Send a link to the image, the log you saved, and a brief explanation of why you are reporting the incident, to an online Dedicated Moderator.

Reporting Art Theft
There are two ways to do this.

• Art Arena Theft
  If you find art in the Arena that obviously breaks the rules -is traced, eyeballed, otherwise copied, or directly stolen from another website- you will need to copy the link to that image, and then go to the Art Infringement Report Thread. You will need to post the following information:
  
  Art Theft Report

  User Name: (and/or User ID number)
  Link to Art Arena image: (use the "Link to this page" URL)
  Link to Proof:
  
  
  
• Picture Post and Minishop Art Theft
  This should be reported using the standard Report Thread/Report Post buttons.

Reporting a Scam

Scammers come in many varieties, the most frequent being any one of the following:

a.) Email/PM scams. These are supposed correspondances from "administration" about needing to get into your account to solve a hacking case, give moderator status, replace stolen items, you name it. If the scam was sent to you via email, in addition to the steps given in this post, you should forward the scam letter to their email provider's abuse department (i.e. abuse@hotmail.com) to have the account shut down.

b.) Fake Contests / Lottos / Charities. Sadly, these do occur. Someone will set up a contest, or a lotto, or ask for funds for a charity or to replenish their inventory after a "hacking" and once they get a sum of money, they'll vanish. This is the most likely to to occur and the ones that the moderators can do something about.

For this type of scam, it is generally a good idea to attempt to retrieve a refund from the host of the contest before reporting them; it is possible that they were not able to be on the computer at the time of the contest's completion, and being banned for having a real life would be a pity.

c.) Liars in the exchange. "I'll trade you this, but you have to give me your item first because something's wrong with my account," or "I'll trade a letter for this item, you know it's a deal," ..etc. Some of them could be avoided, but they are still scams.

Once you have determined that what has occurred truly is a scam, you will need to go to the Scam Report Form (Link is at the bottom of the main forum index).

The form will ask for the following information:



As with all report forms it is very important that you fill this form out as truthfully and completely as you can, as the more information you give, the more likely it is that the issue will be resolved.

Once you have submitted this report, you will need to wait for a response from a staff member. If it has been over two weeks and you have not received a reply, you may PM an Omnimoderator with an inquiry as to the status of the report.


Would-Be Scammers
Yes! You can report people for scamming even if you haven't lost items. If you run across a situation that seems like a scam, you should fill out a scam report exactly like you would if they'd actually taken your gold. Give all the details you have available; screenshots of posts and PMs, etc. A mod will look into it and determine if it really is a scam or a false alarm- nine times out of ten, it is a scam and you've saved yourself some gold.

Situations where a pre-emptive report would be smart:

• You get a PM saying your account is disabled/broken and "admin" needs your password to get your stuff back.
  
• You get a PM saying "I can give you a lot of gold but I have to have access to your account to do it."
  
• A lotto or other contest where the owner has taken all the contestant's money, but has not said a word in weeks or months, and did not leave any type of notice of unexpected vacation. (Do your research before reporting this one! If it's a long term contest, there's a high possibility the owner has a legitimate reason for not being around!)

And of course others but those are the most obvious.

Using the Feedback Form

The feedback form is fairly simple to use; it asks for your username, your email twice, has a drop down menu to select a subject, and then a field to put your message in. Each subject has a specific use; subjects should not be falsified to get priority over others. This is a general guide on how to use the subjects in the form.

General Inquiry
Pretty much self explanatory. Have a question about Gaia in general that you want answered? This would be the heading to use. Note that many inquiries about Gaia can be made and answered in the Questions & Assistance forum.

Account Activation Problem/ Cannot Register
This is what you would need to use if you are a newcomer (or an old one trying to make a new account) and for whatever reason are unable to complete the registration process, or the process is faulty. You should include as much detail as possible.

Confirmation E-Mail Not Received
If you registered but never received the email to confirm your account, you will need to fill this out to get your account fully activated.

Account Inactive After Changing E-Mail Address
Pretty self explanatory as well. If you change your email address and then get a "this account is inactive" notice the next time you try to log in, you should submit this form.

Donation Problem - PayPal Related
Having an issue with donating through Paypal? Unsure if the transaction went through and want to verify that things are working properly? This is the form to use. You will need to include an explanation of what the problem is, and either the paypal receipt and/or the url to the malfunctioning webpage that is hindering the donation process.

Note: if you completely fill out all the paypal forms and click submit and get a "page cannot be displayed" on the Gaia domain, you have already donated and going back and repeating the steps will submit your donation twice.

Donation Problem - Mail In Donation
If you think your donation may have been lost in the mail, you will need to submit this form; if you sent a mail order or check, you should include the tracking number so they can check their records.

Donation Question/Inquiry
If you think something may have gone wrong with your donation- you haven't received letters and it's been over ten days, you received the wrong number of letters, you want to know where letters came from if they randomly show up in your inventory, you will want to use this subject.

Feature Suggestion
This is what you would use if you want to submit an idea for a new Gaia feature to the admins. Before doing this it may be a good idea to check out the Feature Suggestion Thread to make sure it hasn't been suggested already.

Item Suggestion
This is what you would use if you want to submit an idea for a new inventory item to the admins. Before doing this it may be a good idea to check out the Item Suggestion Thread to make sure it hasn't been suggested already.

Problem Report - Avatar/Gaia Related
Having an issue with a glitch that is not forum-related? Here is where you can detail what the issue is. It's also suggested you check out the Bug Reports & Technical Supprot forum to see if the problem has been reported, and to see if a work-around has been found.

Problem Report - Forum Related
Having an issue with a forum-related glitch (such as the "I can't post with a poll" problem)? Here is where you can detail what the issue is. It's also suggested you check out the Bug Reports & Technical Supprot forum to see if the problem has been reported, and to see if a work-around has been found.

Fishing/Chat TOS Violation
Whilst chat cyber reports should go to Dedicated Moderators, more stringent or repeat ToS violations should be reported using this subject line.

Hacking Report/Account Was Hacked
While you can use this subject to report a hacking, it is highly suggested that you use the Hacking Report Form instead.

Scamming Report
While you can use this subject to report a hacking, it is highly suggested that you use the Scamming Report Form instead.

Advertising On Gaia/ Advertising Rates
If you want to advertise on Gaia and have questions about it, this would be the type of form you need to submit.

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Again, be very sure to use only the subject line that applies to your problem. In the message box, be sure to be both precise and descriptive about what it is you are contacting them about. Include links or screenshots if needed (depending on the situation). Also triple check to make sure your email is correct, as that is how they will contact you.

Once you have submitted a form, a page will pop up saying to allow one week for a response; that page is out of date. The current waiting time for a response from a feedback forum is one to two weeks. If you have not received a report after two weeks, you may submit another...and again, two weeks after that.

The Reporting and Moderator FAQ

-Under Construction-

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