FAQ: Community

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What’s a Community and why should I join one?

As defined by Wikipedia, a Community has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location. The word is often used to refer to a group that is organized around common values and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household.

Choose from our various Communities to discover like-minded people, connect for business or for pleasure! There's a community out there for everyone!

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Are there any rules or guidelines as to how communities operate?

There is a base (minimum) set of rules that applies to all Communities. Communities may have additional rules of their own. As with all our rules and documents, we may change these rules at any time. You should check with each Community as to what their rules are when you become a member. Community Rules will be placed in a prominent spot within the Community.

Some General Community Rules and guidelines

  • Abuse and misuse of the rules of Empire Avenue Communities will not be tolerated and may result in a penalty. You should look at the Terms and Conditions of Use and the Privacy Policy as a reference to appropriate activity. Penalties, if imposed, will be determined by the Community moderator(s) or an Empire Avenue administrator. Penalties include, but are not limited to, deletion of abusive material, banning from posting in a Community, banning from a Community, banning from Empire Avenue, etc.
  • Spam is considered Abuse. Spam includes posts in “Discussion” streams that are simple advertisements to buy an profiles’s virtual stock, or to join their Community.

    • For example: “Buy (e)DUPS! I’m working hard for you! Buy now before I get too expensive!” is not appropriate content in any of the content streams.

  • Community members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a penalty or warning.
  • Members are asked to not act as “back seat moderators”. If members note an issue that contravenes something in this policy document or the Terms and Conditions of Use or Privacy Policy they are welcome to bring it to the attention of a Community moderator or an Empire Avenue administrator.
  • Members should remember that their Community is aimed at a general audience. Posting pornographic or generally offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated.
  • Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users linking to or asking for information that promotes piracy, or re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and their post will be removed. Repeated violations could result in a ban.
  • The moderators and administrators reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to the moderators and administrators.

The above rules where applicable also apply to all of Empire Avenue, not just Communities!

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How many Communities can I create?

You are allowed to Found two Communities and have them active or archived at any time. If you wish to create a new Community, remove a Community and start a new one. We follow the philosophy that a strong Community leader will run a good Community. If you need more Communities than two, please contact Support.

To prevent SPAM by creating and removing Communities we have also limited the number of Communities you can create in a single week.

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Is there a difference in how my Empire.Kred scores function in Private and Public Communities?

No, we measure engagement in both Private and Public communities whether they are moderated for signing up or not.

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Can I leave a Community that I have Founded?

No, you cannot leave a Community that you have founded. Upon account deletion we will remove the Community as well.

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How do Communities work for users that I have blocked?

Please see the full details on how Muting and Blocking works on Empire.Kred and how it relates to Communities.

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What is the difference between Admins and Moderators?

As of July 2013, there is no difference between an Admin and a Moderator. Since we expect this to change, please check back.

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Someone has posted SPAM in my Community, what can I do?

If you are a regular member in a Community and you spot “Spam” please “Report Spam” under any of the discussion posts. An Admin will see the spam notice count in their dashboard. The Admin can then remove the offending post, ignore the offending post or in extreme cases “Kickout” the person from the Community.

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If I kickout someone from the Community, can they just rejoin?

No. Kicking out someone from a Community is similar to banning them from the Community. Until you remove their ban as an Admin, they cannot join the Community again.

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What happens if my Community is inactive?

We "archive" communities which are inactive after 60 days. Those communities will be marked as inactive and no one will be able to use the community until the Founder "revives" or removes the community. We inform the Founder by email when we archive a community. All information stays and is not deleted.

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I created a public or private community and now I cannot change the privacy settings! Help!

We do not allow you to change the Privacy settings once you have created the Community. The reason is that members might have posted with the expectation that the Community would remain private. A change by an Admin or Founder would be a breach of that trust and privacy expectation. Where this needs to happen, you may contact Support. It may take up to a week for us to decide on what course of action to take as each case will be viewed independently.

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