The following is a list of policies that are in place on the ACT website. These provide guidelines to you as a member of ACT, as well as to the staff in their responsibilities for managing the website. If any of these policies are unclear and you would like more information, please Request Help so the staff they can assist you.
Controversial Topics
The Admins and Moderators reserve the right to remove any content that may be deemed controversial. There are certain topics that people have strong feelings on and may disagree about. These topics, while they are not bad or wrong, may not be something that parents want their children to learn about from a website. Because we want ACT to be able to be used by all ages, and we don't want parents to have to block their children from ACT, we have made the decision that topics such as these will not be allowed on ACT. If an Admin or Moderator contacts you to let you know that something has been deleted for this reason, please respect that decision. If you see something that would be considered a controversial topic and it hasn't been caught by the staff yet, please Request Help to let them know there is something that specifically needs their attention.
User Privacy
ACT respects the privacy of its members. We require only the minimum of personal information (your email address), and that information is not accessible by general members unless you set it as such in your account profile. The email address is only used to protect the security of your account. All other account profile fields are optional.
"Hacked" Accounts
To our knowledge, ACT has never been "hacked" into, including user accounts. If you suspect that your account has been accessed by another member, it's either because a) you have given your password out to someone, or b) you have left your account logged in at a shared computer (one that is used by other people besides yourself). In order to avoid this problem, you should carefully choose a password that only you will know, and not share it with anyone. If you do use a shared computer you should log off by clicking the "Log Out" button at the top right corner of the ACT pages to log off before you leave the site. If you believe that you are still having problems with other users accessing your account after taking these steps, do not discuss this in the public boards or in private threads, please hit the Report A Problem button from your profile page so that the Staff can research it further.
Site Bans
The ACT staff works hard to enforce the rules and policies of this site as necessary. Violations of site rules and policies are taken quite seriously, to ensure the safety and comfort of all ACT members. In extreme cases, violations may result in a site ban, a temporary or permanent block on a member's account to prevent them from using the site. Any user who has been banned either temporarily or permanently will receive notification of the ban by email along with an explanation of why the ban occurred.
The staff reserves the right to ban a user without an initial warning in extreme cases where it is deemed necessary to protect other members of the community. The staff also reserves the right in extreme cases to not send a ban notification email to the banned user if it is decided that the ban notification will only egg on the behavior that originally warranted the ban. If a banned user has questions about the circumstances of a ban, they should contact the staff by replying to the ban notification email or by replying to support@acteens.x10hosting.com. Note that the decision to ban a member account is not one made lightly and is usually agreed upon by several staff members before the ban is put in place, therefore it is only in very rare circumstances that a ban decision would be changed.
The staff will not discuss the circumstances or terms of a ban with anyone except the banned user. This is to protect the privacy of the user involved. For the same reason, no one should discuss the circumstances of a ban in the message boards on the site. Any user discussing a ban, or sharing their account with a banned user, will face consequences and may have their account banned as well.