Where are the Rules written?

[Dave22443]

 I really like this board and I have no problem playing by the rules.  And there does appear to be some rules in effect that I've heard mentioned (No nudes, No political discussions, etc.)  SO... where are these rules posted at? 

[dodge freak]

Me too , I like to know, seems like different people think there is different rules, even for  different members or topics.

[Troy]

When you signed up you had to agree to the Terms and Conditions. Here's the abbreviated version:

You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this forum.

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Other than the obvious, we are one of the more lenient forums out there. We ask that you treat others with respect and realize that there are younger members here. There are "standard" offenses that apply to every internet forum as a whole and they include:
Trolling - posting inflammatory remaks in an effort to antagonize the real members of a site.
Spamming - just like that junk in your email inbox - useless blasting of the board with advertisements.
Thread hijacking - changing the subject in the middle of a thread of because you feel like you'd rather discuss a different topic (start your own thread and let people respond or ignore it as appropriate).

I, personally, won't tolerate racism, hatred, bigotry, or personal attacks on other forum members (and sometimes even stupidity  ). I also have a severe problem with opinions posted as facts. If you're going to spout off about something you better be able to back it up and expect to be questioned. I won't lock or delete a post/thread but I'll most likely call you on it. There are a couple of situations not covered in the "official" rules and those are religeous and political threads. Simply, don't do it - they tend to turn into member bashing free-for-alls rather quickly. If people could have calm, constructive conversations with respect for other points of view then this wouldn't be necessary (but most can't seem to manage something that simple).

To sum it up, this is a community so it's best to look around and get a feel of how it runs and what behavior is tolerated just like you should when moving to a new place in the real world. This site is mostly self-moderated so if we (the moderators) start to get a lot of complaints about a specific member or thread then we take action. I apologize for not having a huge list of rules posted but I've found that the majority of web surfers don't bother to read any way and it seems a little to formal for this place. This approach has worked for several years and over 12,000 members and we've only had about 10 people that just couldn't manage to get along.

As a side note - moderators have a broad range of interpretation and free reign to do what they feel is best. Some members may in fact have different rules applied if they have called attention to themselves and need to be kept on a short leash (so to speak). We have the right to lock or delete any post or thread that we feel is necessary at that time. This may be different day-to-day depending on the circumstances although we rarely have to do anything along those lines.

Troy