Middle-earth Center provides the services to you, the visitor, based on its Terms of Service outlined here. When using the services provided by Middle-earth Center, you are subject to these posted terms. Usage of the services on this site denotes acceptance of these terms. The TOS may be changed at any time and without direct notice to individual visitors, so it is recommended that you check back with this page at any time you have questions or concerns.

Registration Requirements

In order to view messages on the MEC message boards without user restrictions, no registration is required or necessary. In order to post messages on the boards, and use other advanced services, you must register with Middle-earth Center using a valid e-mail address.

You are not required to give us any personal information, names or other information that might be traced back to you. However, your IP-adress and E-mail adress will be available to forum moderators and administrators for secuirity purposes. ]Middle-earth Center does not knowingly collect any information from any users under 13 years, and if it is found that an underage user has fraudulently registered, their account will immediately be terminated. In order to abide by US-law, all registrants must be 13 years of age or older. Middle-earth Center does not knowingly collect any information from any users under 13 years, and if it is found that an underage user has fraudulently registered, their account will immediately be terminated.

Content Notice

By viewing the site content, you agree that all content on the Middle-earth Center Message Boards is the responsibility of the person from which the content originated. You agree that neither Middle-earth Center nor its sponsors or affiliates are responsible for all content that you personally post or upload. Middle-earth Center does not directly control any content posted on the boards, and does not guarantee the truthfulness or quality of any content.

You agree that while using the MEC message boards, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable, and that you will in no way hold Middle-earth Center nor its sponsors or affiliates liable in any way, shape, or form for any harm or loss that may come to you or others as a result of viewing this content. Middle-earth Center is not responsible for screening content before it is posted, although an offensive language filter is installed on the system that will reject certain posts that may contain certain words deemed offensive or used most often in an offensive way.

Account Responsibility

Users are solely responsible for protecting their accounts from access by others. You are strongly encouraged to select a hard-to-guess password and not re-use that password on any other sites where it may be read by the owners or administrators of that site.

While it is acceptable for users to maintain multiple accounts on Middle-earth Center, Middle-earth Center can and does track multiple shared accounts from a single or multiple computers as one account in terms of TOS violations. If the TOS is violated severely enough to warrant the banning of one account, all known accounts shared between a single or multiple users who use the same computer may also be banned for the actions of the violating account at the administrators’ discretion.

Because of this rule, it is highly recommended that board users do not share their accounts with others, nor share their computers used to access the site with others, as the actions of some other person could easily directly impact all known shared message board accounts.

Privacy and Release of Information

Under normal circumstances, Middle-earth Center will never release your provided information to any third party without a court order requiring us to do so. However, in cases of certain severe and/or repeated TOS violations or illegal activities, we reserve the right to forward any and all known information about you and your accounts to your ISP (including libraries, schools, and places of employment), e-mail service provider, your ISP account owner (if someone else is actually paying for it), and any parties whose copyright has clearly been infringed by your actions on the boards.

Member Conduct

You agree that you will not use this service to perform the following actions:

1. Offensive Posting
   Posts of a patently offensive nature are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
   • Using vulgar, profane, or sexually explicit language as a means of insult or frequent usage of such words.
   • Using race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, handicap, nationality, or gender as a means of insult.
   • Using sexual preference terms as a term of insult in any way, shape, or form
   • Using threatening, harassing, defamatory, hate-speech, or libellous language
   • Posting or requesting links to or material from pornographic, obscene, or hate-speech web sites
   • Posting links to web sites with potentially offensive content without a clear warning
   • Descriptions or details about any sexual act or sexual organs
2. Censor Bypassing
   The Middle-earth Center message boards are programmed with a list of words that are considered vulgar under any context, and these words are not allowed to be posted. Attempting to bypass the censor by misspelling, inserting spaces or symbols, transposing letters, using look-alike symbols, or any other method is not allowed. The only acceptable method of posting one of these vulgar words is to completely obscure it, making it impossible to determine what the word is without context. Additionally, certain words are prohibited from being used in topic titles and user information pages; bypassing the censor to post those words where they are restricted is also disallowed.
   For example, if “gris” is a banned word:
   • Not allowed: g-r-i-s, gr*s, g***, 9|-1$, girs, gryeeeas, grizznizz, **** (rhymes with “bris”)
   • Allowed: ****, ****ed, ****ing, g’ed, g-word
3. Flaming (Insulting Other Users)
   Posts clearly insulting other board members, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
   • Name-calling (“You’re an idiot”, “You moron”)
   • Direct insults (“Screw you”)
   • Offensive orders (“Go kill yourself”)
   • Insinuations (“Are you stupid or something?”) or insults towards family (“Your mom…”)
4. Trolling (Inciting Flames)
   Posts intended solely to annoy and/or offend other posters by going against the clear nature of a board or topic are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
   • Provoking other users to respond with flames
   • Provoking fans of a particular system or game, especially on boards dedicated to that system or game
   • Making misleading topic titles
   • Asking obviously useless questions
   • Posting false information as fact
5. Illegal Activities
   Posts that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, asking for or providing, in any way, shape, or form:
   • Illegal copies of copyrighted software (ROMs, Warez)
   • Methods of circumventing copyright protection (Cracks, CD Keys, mod chips)
   • Illegal copies of copyrighted music (MP3s), movies, videos, or any other type of media
   • Methods of cheating in online games
6. Spamming
   Posts that clearly advertise a service or product are not allowed, unless the forum provides an “advertising” board. This includes, but is not limited to:
   • Unsolicited commercial or personal web site advertisements
   • For-Sale/For-Trade/For-Auction/Wanted notices
   • “Make Money Fast” scams, chain letters, and pyramid schemes
   • Advertising for another message board (even other Middle-earth Center boards)

Users are allowed to include a web site address in a signature, request comments on their personal site in a social setting, or providing only once an interesting or relevant link to another site.

1. Off-Topic Posting
   The main purpose of the Middle-earth Center Message Boards is to provide discussion forums for various video and computer games and their systems. Topicality is expected and will be enforced on all boards, so take the extra time to post on the proper board.
2. Disruptive Posting
   Posts that disrupt the message boards for other users, intentional or not, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited, to:
   • Message posts or topic titles that force browsers to scroll horizontally
   • Large blank or content-free posts
   • Bumping old or “dead” topics without a reasonable cause
   • Posting multiple identical or near-identical messages or topics, including “fad” topics
   • Topic titles or posts consisting of all or mostly capital letters (Images cannot be larger than 600 pixels wide).
   • Intentionally hard-to-read posts (i.e. using all, mostly, or alternating capital letters; using no spaces, capital letters, or punctuation; using large amounts of “1337 speak”, et cetera)
   • Post counting (i.e. “First”, “100th Post”)
3. Flooding, Invading, and Board Wars
   Users will be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for:
   • Flooding a board with multiple disruptive topics or posts
   • Invading another board (flooding a board as a group with multiple topics or posts)
   • Instigating, participating in, or retaliating in an invasion of a Middle-earth Center message board or any other online service
   • Announcing or inciting a “war” or any conflict with the regular members of another board
4. Impersonation
   Users will be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for impersonating other boards users by creating and/or using a message board account with a name clearly intended to impersonate, mock, or antagonize another user, or otherwise falsely claiming to be another message board member.
5. Harassment/Stalking/Privacy
   Continual harassing behavior directed towards a certain individual or group with the intent of an creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the boards, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is strictly prohibited. Posting private information without permission is also prohibited. Requesting someone’s age is also prohibbited, unless it’s done by the board administration/staff.
6. Unauthorized Access
   Accessing or attempting to access any Middle-earth Center user account not belonging to the user in question without permission is prohibited. Accessing another user’s account in this manner is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.
7. Bugs and Exploits
   Using exploits or tricks in the Middle-earth Center code to gain privileges, access, or abilities not clearly intended by the board design is prohibited. While you are more than welcome to try and find any exploits away from the public eye, making them public or using them for personal benefit is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.
8. Usernames, Profiles, and Forms
   Violating any of the above rules with a username or any part of the user profile (signature, quote, e-mail, IM) is considered a severe violation.
9. Signature Images
   If you use an image in your signature, please keep it within 400×125 pixels. Most image editors will tell you how large the image is, in terms of pixels.
10. Other
    Any other activity that is clearly detrimental to the flow of conversation and normal activities of the boards and its users may also be deleted.

Terms Violations

Topics and message posts that violate the TOS will be deleted from the boards, and additional penalties may be applied at the moderator’s discretion. Re-posting deleted violations (yours or those of others) is also considered a violation.

Messages and topics may be removed at any time and for any reason at the sole discretion of Middle-earth Center and its designated moderators. User accounts may be warned, suspended, or revoked at any time and for any reason at the sole discretion of Middle-earth Center and its designated moderators. All determinations of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable” content will be determined solely by Middle-earth Center and whoever it designates as moderators. You agree that the decision of the moderators and administrators is final, and you may not legally contest their rulings.

Intentional, repeated, or severe violations are cause for the banning of your account, all use of the boards from your IP address or your entire ISP, and Middle-earth Center contacting your ISP or other relevant parties concerning your activities.