admin Site Admin
Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 13 Location: New England
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Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 7:15 pm Post subject: General Rules & Guidelines - read BEFORE posting here |
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Rules
These are the forums rules. If you don't follow them you will be warned and your posts edited. If you habitually ignore them, you will have your user account disabled until you apologize to an administrator and promise to behave.- Respect other members! This is going to be the recurring theme throughout this rules section. Treat others as you want to be treated. Remember, we were all beginners once. Think twice before you post.
- No personal attacks. We encourage frank and open discussions conducted in a civilized manner. We appreciate that this will often lead to technical disagreements in this type of forum, but any personal insults on the board, however justified you think they are, will not be tolerated.
- No cursing or profanities. You might be mad/enraged but smilies or using #@$!%! type things to express emotions are preferred. We want to be able to read the forum with our mothers looking over our shoulders. Well, perhaps not, but you get the idea.
- No pornographic or generally offensive images or text. There are enough forums on the Internet for this sort of thing. This is not one of them. If you wish to express yourself this way, then go elsewhere.
- No Spam or commercial postings. As the board matures we may be making specific features and/or forums available to registered vendors but for now we don't want any promotional posting for your (or your friends) businesses. Recommendations are another matter and we trust you'll know where to draw the line.
- Keep your user profile valid. This is not an anonymous forum, although we do value your personal information and won't be selling or giving it away to any 3rd parties. Please fill your location in to give a general idea of where you live/work, and provide at least your firstname and the initial of your lastname in your signature, see signature guidelines. This is a first-name-terms board for a friendly technical & regional community. If you get your kicks from trolling forums and hiding behind your alter-ego screen name, please do it elsewhere.
- Post in the relevant forum and follow its rules. Every forum has a description to help you decide where to post. They all have a 'Rules & Guidelines' sticky post for forum-specific policies that differ from or extend these general rules. If in doubt, PM a moderator and ask for help.
Guidelines
These are the recommendations we make for the forums. If you don't follow them there will be no punishments. However, if you repeatedly ignore them, you may be sent messages encouraging you to change your behaviour and may have your posts or profiles edited.- Use proper English, including spelling, punctuation & grammar. We're not English professors and we appreciate that English may not be everyones primary language. However, it is the language used on this board and we expect our members to make an effort to do their best. If the shift key is broken on your keyboard then we have plenty of technical members who can help you in the Non-Automotive/Misc forum. If you feel you are a l33t hak0r who simply can't type in English, then you're in the wrong place!
- Keep embedded images small and in context. We are allowing remotely hosted embedded images but we expect these images to be kept small (500 pixels is a good rule of thumb for the maximum length of the longest image side) and relevent to the discussion at hand.
- Avoid making posts on contentious issues. This is an extension of the respect other members rule and is not meant to stop open technical discussions or disagreements. Just don't try to upset anyone or start a war, nobody likes a troll. This guideline applies doubly in the non-automotive section, see specific forum guidelines for examples.
- Don't post links to inappropriate content. We allow links to be placed in your posts, but please don't post links to content that would break any of the above rules. If you feel your link is pertinent but may bend some of the above rules or may offend some people, then please supply a warning with the link, but supplying a warning does not make you immune to above the rules.
- Avoid obnoxious avatars. Avatars may be chosen from our Gallery or uploaded from your own PC. The maximum image size is 80x80 with a file size of less than 6K. No animation. We would like to encourage users to use a respectable image that you feel best represents yourself or your car's look or temperament. Ideally a picture of yourself or your car makes it easier for others to recognize you at meets.
- Make your signature useful. You can only use plain text in your signature, this is a policy decision for this board. Include the name you usually go by, as well as brief details of your car. It helps to include your car in your sig especially when asking technical questions as your background information may already be there. No full mod lists or full biographies. You are limited to 255 characters. Keep it to 5 lines maximum. More info here.
- Usernames. While we don't have strict guidelines on usernames, they should be respectful towards the community here. Names with any references to material you wouldn't post in a car-related forum (ie, pornography, obscene language, etc) have no place on this board.
If you feel the need to discuss or add to any of the above points then please do so in the Site Admin / User Feedback forum. We are open to suggestions and want to make this the best community it can possibly be! |
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