So we're planning on working on validations. That doesn't mean we're knocking them out, it doesn't mean we're going to do them all, tackle them or whatever. We're simply going to do some whenever we have time. This is in contrast to what we have been doing since March, which is literally nothing. We haven't validated a single account. So if your waiting, hold tight. We'll get to you eventually.

Now, with that said we're going to do our best to prune down the idiots and spammers, but there's a limited ability to actually weed these people out. Especially idiots. So, as of now ANY BACK SEAT MODERATING WILL AUTOMATICALLY RESULT IN A 3 MONTH BAN. There are going to be shitty posts, there are going to be idiots and there are going to be spammers. I don't need every member harrassing these people and doing my job. This is a zero tolerance policy. I don't care if who you are and I am not kidding about that. So if you want to help, send an admin a pm and we'll use our best judgement. If you don't like our judgement...well...go fuck yourself.

Talio.

Edit: Okay, so apparently you guys didn't understand. PM us about bad posts. Not to help us validate.

Let me preface this "news article" by saying that everyone who runs this site is, first and foremost, a nerfer. None of us have ANY interest in growing our site, member base, or this hobby in any manner that is not beneficial purely from an end user standpoint. We are all end users.

The truth is that I would be perfectly content if this site was 30 members strong but I could nerf wherever and whenever I wanted. As such I've rarely enforced any rules to protect our traffic or attempt to monopolize our member base. I have memberships to most major nerf websites and browse even the ones where I don't. I really don't see other sites as competition. It's simply not in the best interest of me as a nerfer.

That said, Cx and I, since the launch of NerfHaven, have had a no advertisement policy. We never asked for any money, we never used pop-ups or banners, and we created a painstaking validation process to remove spam and adbots. Therefore, we felt it only fair for our members to refrain from using our bandwidth and traffic for their own gain as well. That meant no plugging your sites, and no advertising your endeavors. This rule has been largely ignored for some time now for the reasons listed in the previous two paragraphs. I like more nerf. When I go through all the active topics here, I check the other sites. That's why what I've come across in the past few months really saddens me.

It's come to my attention that other nerf sites, who freely plug their forums on ours, have been actively discouraging their members from posting here, and have gone so far as to remove content from this site. Raging against us is all fine and good; as anyone who's frequented this site can attest, the approval of others is not a motivating factor in my life. What just makes NO sense to me, though, is this behavior, actively detrimental to our site, in light of the fact that these same individuals rely on us to provide traffic to their sites. It is a purely parasitic relationship, and I'm just not willing to let it go on any longer.

From this point forward we are not allowing the advertising of other nerf forums. If there is a post or write-up that you'd like to reference on another forum, that's fine, but don't start a topic for the purpose of linking to another nerf site, don't post other nerf forum links in your signatures, and don't link to information elsewhere that could be found or posted here. In other words, don't plug for the sake of plugging.

I want to appologize to all the site owners who have linked their sites in good faith, simply looking to augment and improve the NIC through their efforts. Unfortunately, in order to be fair I have to enforce this rule across the board. If you think you have a special case, please pm me and we'll discuss it. I, in no way, want to discourage other nerf sites who simply want to add to the community.

Hopefully the counterproductive actions of a few can be worked out and we can go back to not giving a shit about this stuff in the near future. Until then, please do your best to comply with this rule. I'm not going to start editing signatures or handing out bans right now. I'll give people a few days to do it themselves, and then we'll start addressing the issue wherever it occurs. If we address an issue involving you and you continue to violate the rule, suspensions may be handed out. I'd honestly rather avoid that altogether.

Thanks for reading my longwinded post, and reply if you have any sincere questions.

VACC

I assumed that in order to apply for membership one would need to be sufficiently literate to read the news posts. I was mistaken. Lemme make this very clear. The validation essay stunt was an april fool's gag. I've said as much on this front page. The email address provided does not, nor has it ever, gone to me or any other member of the NerfHaven staff. If you're still sending essays in...well, you're an idiot.

Here's what I got from Nerf this morning:

Here's another new gun coming from Nerf. It'll be on all the social networking sites tomorrow. In the meantime here's the email I got about it and everything I know: