De jure is an expression that means "based on law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "in fact".
Standards[]
The terms de jure and de facto are used instead of "in principle" and "in practice", respectively, when one is describing political situations. A practice may exist de facto, where the people obey a contract as though there were a law although there is none. A process known as "desuetude" may allow de facto practices to replace obsolete laws. On the other hand, practices may exist de jure and not be obeyed or observed by the people.
Application in Gaia Online[]
De jure and de facto standards can differ greatly in certain parts of Gaia Online. For instance in General Discussion, a general rule of General Discussion is that is optional to tack the "Discuss" summary at the end of posts, but it is done anyway, especially with prominent users of General Discussion. Likewise, the discussion of "subjects" that tend to need to be placed in one's Gaia Journals are de jure not permitted, but de facto seem to be a common occurence for many topics in General Discussion.
Rulings from Moderators and Administration[]
Various reasons and rulings have been made about certain activities on Gaia Online. Anything that may have been illegal de jure but have been de facto "legal" have been cracked down in Gaia Online. Such examples include:
- Cybering in the Gaia Towns, Gaia Slots, and Gaia Fishing chat systems.
- 14/28g Posts have been cracked down upon due to their "annoyance" from users.
- Tagging threads in the Life Issues Forum to state their resolution status. Many threads do not get tagged even if an issue is resolved. This is a minor problem that it really is not enforced.