Forum Rules

Registration to this forum is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you don't agree to the terms, please quit this forum right now.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

The owners of My-Addr Forum reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.

Posting to the Forums:

Section I - General Policy:

By registering and participating in My-Addr Forum discussions you agree to the following policy. If you should not agree you have the right to no longer participate in forum discussions at your own discretion.

This is your community. Most people have a common sense feel for what is and what is not appropriate in our forums and you folks generally do a great job of policing yourselves. We do, however, need to have a few set policies for everyone to refer to when the need arises.

While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible where acceptable, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or web-master (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any applicable laws (please see the backyard for specific rules for that venue). Doing so may lead to you being immediately, permanently or temporarily being banned (and your service provider being informed).

If the user continues to break policy the said users account will be reviewed by the forum resolution team and removed if need be. It is at the sole discretion of the resolution team to remove violating accounts.

The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that the web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or post at any time should they see fit under the guidelines specified below. You agree that the web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum have the right to send a private message with a warning and or censor any forum user who is in violation of forum policy.

1. Forum Threads and Flaming:
• Flaming And Condescending Messages: Messages personally attacking, calling names, or otherwise harassing or being condescending to another forum member or any ethnic or religious group will be removed or moved.
• If the thread is flame-bait, it will be locked or removed without notice. Individual flame-bait may be deleted or edited at the moderators' discretion. Certain users who continue to post flame-bait or engage in other questionable practices (such as trolling) may be subject to more serious sanctions.
• If the thread turns into pure flaming, it will be locked or removed without notice. Sometimes a moderator may split the thread or delete certain portions in order to keep the discussion going.
2. If a thread is spam it will be moved.
3. Adult Content/Violence/Illegal Activity: Messages containing sexually oriented/violent/illegal dialog, images, content, or links to such will be deleted. Messages with links to or suggesting illegal activity will also be deleted. These actions could result in a ban.
4. Thread Drifting/Steering: Please keep discussions on topic. Non-technical and Non-3rd party project discussions belong in the Community Cafe forum.
5. Please remember that these forums are inclusive of ALL people, and we strive to maintain accessibility to everyone.
6. Please strive to communicate with other users as effectively as possible:
• Please try to write your posts in English. We have many users from many different countries that visit here.
• When writing a post, please space paragraphs with a blank line in between them for better readability.
• Please do not write posts in all uppercase letters, as it looks as if you are screaming at the people reading your post.
• Please refrain from using "leet" speak or slang. These forums are a tool for communication, which will be obfuscated by those types of writing.
• Please do not shorten your words to acronyms or abbreviations. It is very difficult to read and understand.
• Please use color and font properties for highlighting portions of your text, and not for all of the text in your post.
• Typos and other errors can cause miscommunication between users on the forums, please preview your text before posting.
7. If you have found a post that you feel is inappropriate or that violates forum policies, please use the Feedback system.
8. Please be prudent in your use of images; they may help to explain something more clearly or indicate a problem you are experiencing better but you have to remember that not everyone has the same bandwidth. If an image is the best way of handling the information, please keep your image to less than 100kb.
9. Forum signatures have a few rules they are as follows: No Images, limited to three lines of text, 10pt maximum font size. Signatures are also not a place for inappropriate material such as flaming, slandering, harassment or religious remarks.
10. The web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum will preserve forum content when possible. However editing, locking and deleting content may be necessary at the sole discretion of the web-master, administrators and moderators when policy has been violated.

Section II - Forum Staff Policies and Expectations:

Staff duties are based upon the following:

1. Dealing with Profanity:
   Mild profanity/swearing is allowed in the context of general speech. Explicit profanity/swearing is not allowed, and under no circumstances will we allow any profanity to be directed toward another person. If you feel a user is out of line please contact an administration with the details, they will issue a warning to the user.
2. Dealing with spam and potential "jailed" posts:
   If its a user trying to advertise something move the post to the jail, once the post is moved the user will receive a private message letting them know we have removed their post. Posts that are used to flame, harass or harm another person should be reported to an administrator asap. We do not encourage staff to partake in conversation in these types of situations and the administration will handle the issue.
3. Editing of posts:
   When a post breaks guidelines and requires editing in order to bring it back under compliance with the rules, the moderator shall first copy the un-edited post to the jail and then edit the original post, thus preserving the original content should an issue become larger. The moderator should also PM the author and specify which guideline(s) the post did not follow.
4. Thread Closing:
   If a thread has run it's course and posts have begun repeating themes a thread may be closed - if possible, announce that the thread has run it's course before closing so that people may add closing statements - don't forget to thank all users involved in the discussion. If a thread has become a situation where people are simply too personally involved in the issue a thread may be closed and / or jailed. If a thread is a duplicate of another thread, it may be closed (please provide a link to another open thread on the same topic.)
5. Jailing of posts/thread:
   If a post/thread would require over half to be edited in order to bring it under compliance, or if editing the violations would result in a nearly blank post/thread, the post/thread should be moved to the jail instead.
6. No images or advertising in the signatures unless the advertising is directly related to linux in some way, you can make the informed decision. If you see a signature that needs moderating, contact an administrator they can edit it and contact the user via private message. Avatars should be kept clean and inclusive of all people. No porn, racist images, or rtfm types of images. If the user has one of these private message them and ask them to remove the avatar. If the user does not voluntarily remove their avatar contact an administrator to have the avatar removed.
7. Adult Content/Violence/Illegal Activity:
   Messages containing offensive / sexually oriented / violent / illegal dialog, images, content, or links to such will be moved to the backyard or jailed depending on the information it contains, use your best judgement. Messages with links to or suggesting illegal activity will soft deleted by an administrator. These actions could result in a ban for the user.
8. Religion/Politics threads:
   Clean conversations should be kept in the backyard. If you find a thread regarding religion/politics and its not already in the backyard please move it.
9. RTFM/I hate linux/I hate Microsoft threads:
   As the community grows these types of threads will be more prominent. We need to make sure we can try to steer these conversations into a positive discussions, however in many cases these threads will only end in hurt feelings and will be locked. If the thread cannot be steered into a clean discussion the staff member who locks it needs to be fully supported by staff.
10. Thread Steering:
    It will become necessary to steer threads away from becoming damaging towards the poster and other users. Our policy is that we do not allow threads to veer too far off topic, even in community chat, to areas where it would be very easy to get ugly fast; for example, "I hate Linux" threads. Please do your best to keep posters from getting too personal during heated debates.
11. Keeping an open mind:
    Sometimes you will be faced with a thread you might not agree with it's imperative you keep an open mind towards all inclusive people, and keep a neutral focus when replying. It is our duty to steer the conversations back into a positive nature without engaging in negative behavior.
12. Signatures:
    While we do not have guidelines for staff signatures, please try to keep them moderate and within reason.

It should be noted that, like all things, these rules will continue to change and evolve with constructive feedback from users and from experience. It is our hope that these policies will create open, honest, and civil discussion. As always, we welcome feedback about any concerns that you may have so feel free to post in the forum discussion section of the forums. It is the users responsibility to check forum policy for updates.

Last Updated 24/02/2009