A. Homophobic Remarks : This is a gay community. Straight members are more than welcome to participate, but homophobic abuse will not be tolerated. Such behaviour will lead to your account being suspended, your IP address being blocked, and your ISP being contacted.

B. References to FMF : Duopoly is very different in nature to FMF. FMF provides a major resource of male celebrity photographs on the net, whilst Duopoly provides a social community. As a result, the two sites attract differing audiences. The contents of FMF may not suit Duopoly members, and vice versa. However, Duopoly was created as a site to complement FMF, not rival it. Duopoly would not exist today had it not been for FMF’s existence originally. Accordingly, derogatory comments regarding FMF should not be made on Duopoly. Such comments will be removed and repeat offenders may be cautioned.

C. Sexual References : The provision of Duopoly is for members to make friends, interact with each other online, and become eligible for meet-ups offline. At no point is it acceptable to use Duopoly and its member base specifically for sexual exploits. If you are looking for a community on which you intend to pull, this is not the place for you. Complaints regarding predatory behaviour and inappropriate sexually explicit comments towards other members will be taken very seriously. Innuendo, however, is actively encouraged.

A. Pornography : Duopoly does not describe itself as an adult site. Accordingly, pornographic images are not allowed.

B. Abuse : Abuse of other members will not be tolerated. This covers all intentional malicious discrimination including ageism, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and homophobia (see paragraph 1A), as well as deliberately hurtful personal remarks. Comments made both in posts and messages sent via Duopoly's internal messaging system are covered by this rule.

C. Offensive Comments : In addition to disallowing attacks of a personal nature on other members, we also discourage outwardly offensive comments in general. However, this rule does not apply within the Jokes forum where comments are anticipated to be of an outrageous nature. However, please refrain from using deliberately racially offensive laguage in the jokes forum.

D. Spam : Any post made on Duopoly must not purely serve the purpose of your own interests - including websites, communities, businesses, and personal hobbies or interests.

E. Profiles & Blogs : The intention of Duopoly is to actively encourage members to make posts on the forums. Posting links to your own pages on profile sites or your own blog is not allowed, as it drives potential posts away to third-party sites. Examples include (but are not limited to) Gaydar, Faceparty, Out, Myspace, Livejournal & Blogspot. Links to such sites are however permissible in your signature or Duopoly profile.

F. Text Speak & Shouting : Posts should be made in plain English only. Text speak is not allowed as you’re not limited on the number of characters you can enter, like you are on a mobile phone. Additionally, typing either a large part of your post or its title all in CAPITALS is considered shouting in internet terms. Please refrain from doing so.

G. Post Formatting : Overuse of the text formatting functions available when making posts is discouraged. Please don’t make your posts difficult to read by overusing the bold, italic, font size, colouring or underlining features. Offending posts may be edited, closed or removed.

H. Private Conversations : Everyone should have equal rights to participate in every single post on Duopoly. Do not make your posts exclusive to another individual or small group. When cliques form, other members can feel excluded, and that's not what Duopoly stands for. Posts of this nature will be closed.

I. Unwanted Attention : As touched upon in rule 1C, unwelcome attention of a sexual nature or otherwise may lead to a caution. Please respect the privacy of the other members of the forums at all times.

J. Generic Posts : Please try to avoid making generic posts, these including daily posts asking how everyone’s day has been in general. In the past, such practices have led to there just being one single post each day. Try to keep your posts to a specific subject matter.

K. Signature Content : The only restriction in place regarding the size of your signature is that it should not be greater than 300 pixels in height - this is to prevent signatures filling up more than half of the screen. Signatures are there for you to make your mark at the bottom of your posts, rather than dominate with attention seeking creations. Width-wise, members are trusted to apply common sense. Oversized signatures will be removed. The content of your signature must not breach rule 2A regarding pornographic content.

The number of meets per year varies, but there will always be meets in March (to celebrate the anniversary of Duopoly’s launch) and a summer meet in June/July. These tend to be the most popular of all the meets. The meets take place in various towns & cities throughout the UK. Usually, at least one of the meets will take place in central London each year. All meets are organised & controlled by the board owner. The exceptions are non-London meets, where a Duopoly member (local to the destination) assists in the planning & co-ordination of the meet.

Meet ups these days tend to extend to a full weekend, with the main activities taking place on the Saturday. Details of a preferred meet hotel are published well in advance of each meet up. Preferred hotels are chosen in order to make the meet easier to co-ordinate, especially when the group needs to move as one. The structure of the main day of each meet usually comprises mid-morning rendezvous, tourist attraction(s), late lunch, afternoon drinks, and then optional evening meal and/or club trip.

For all meets to be a success, and as much fun as possible for all involved, there are a few meet up rules that must be adhered to:

A. Attendance : Duopoly is a community, to be part of that community offline, you need to be known by its members online, and it will benefit you to know who’s who before you meet everyone the first time. Therefore, in order to be allowed to attend a meet up, you must be considered a regular member of the forums. A regular member (in Duopoly terms) is someone who has been around for more than a month (prior to the meet up date) and who has made more than 50 posts, also by said date. Until you've met those 2 criteria, you cannot come to a meet.

B. Third Parties : You are not allowed to bring a non-member to a Duopoly meet up. This also applies to the night before/day after if you have a unofficial gathering of a smaller group of members. Partners who are non-members may attend if permission is sought from the board owner beforehand.

C. Young Members : Due to the inclusion of bar & club visits, these parts of meets are not open to members aged under 18. Younger members may attend the tourist attractions & lunch venues, but must leave the group before any drinking begins. Please also be aware that any meets involving a private venue for parties may sometimes be limited to over 21’s only due to the restrictions in place by some venues. While every effort is made to accommodate all members aged over 18, please understand that sometimes it isn’t always possible to please everyone.

D. Privacy : To avoid meet ups being gatecrashed, they are organised and discussed in a private forum called Directory. When a meet up is announced, a post giving basic details is made asking members to confirm their attendance. Only when you do this (for your first meet) are you granted access to Directory where you will find out the full details of the meet. Meet up plans are NOT to be discussed outside of the Directory forum. Any breach of this trust will result in a caution depending on the severity of the breach. Once you have been granted access to Directory, you will retain your access for future meets until such a time that you are no longer considered a regular meet attendee (once you've missed 4 meets in a row), or are no longer considered a regular member of the forums. However, you can regain Directory access by signing up to any future meet.

E. Trust : Before you attend your first meet up, you will be asked by the board owner for your mobile number so that you can be contacted on the day should you not turn up by the rendezvous time. Your mobile number will not be used for any other purpose or provided to anyone other than the board owner. You will also be asked to post a picture of yourself so we know what you look like before we meet you. Without providing these basics, you may be disallowed from attending the meet.

The forums are provided completely free of charge, however we do hope you'll like it enough here to donate to the running costs of Duopoly from time to time. Costs incurred by the board owner include a monthly hosting charge, domain name renewal, and occasional prizes for online competitions (such as the annual Christmas quiz & summer caption contest). If you do feel the urge to contribute to these costs, you may do so by clicking the "donate" link in the top left-hand corner of the screen on all pages - or by clicking here.
 

Thank you for taking the time to read the few rules that Duopoly has in place. There is now nothing else left to say except that we hope you enjoy your stay on Duopoly and come back often.

Have fun!!!

x2k