Tropical Fish Forum

Think Fish Tropical Fish Forum => Welcome to our Tropical Fishkeeping Forum - Please Read => Topic started by: Robert on March 01, 2014, 11:35:25 AM

Title: Fish Forum Rules and Etiquette
Post by: Robert on March 01, 2014, 11:35:25 AM
The thinkfish  community is generally a nice bunch of people who want to help out and give good advice in a relaxed and accommodating way - occasionally, people rock up and try and abuse things - the rules below are mainly for their benefit but you might want to review them yourself, just in case.


If you fall foul of them, we may send you a polite message and remind you of your obligations.   :cheers:

1. Postings

Posts must not:

    1.1    Contain personal insults
    1.2    Contain derogatory comments about other users of this forum
    1.3    Stereotype or offend groups on the basis of ethnic origin, race, age
             or sexual orientation
    1.4    Be purposelessly inflammatory
    1.5    Contain private information about someone. You may not publish or post other
             people's private and confidential information - for example, their phone number,
             address, and so on - without their consent.
    1.6    Contain bad language
    1.7    Contain messages, comments, images, links, documents, or 'jokes' that may be
             interpreted as obscene, vulgar, sexually-orientated, hateful, racist, or threatening
    1.8    Discuss illegal activities
    1.9    Constitute a breach of UK, US, EU, libel, incitement, copyright, or
             other international laws.
    1.10  Be considered as plagiarism or breach of copyright. If you quote text from an
             external web site then please always provide a source link. Members are asked to
             copy only as much as is necessary when quoting material from external sources,
             do not copy and paste entire articles or web pages.
    1.11  Promote or 'preach' your own religious beliefs
    1.12  Be interpreted as spamming
    1.13  Advertise or promote commercial products or services (this will be considered
             as spam)
    1.14  Use the forums for profit or gain - no adverts, promotion, or selling,
             except in the "For Sale" section (and then for personal items only)
    1.15  Potentially bring the site into disrepute
    1.16  Have an underlying agenda. This often involves the starting of forum threads or
             making posts which appear to be legitimate in nature but which are aimed at
             surreptitiously promoting some political view, religious belief or to attack or
             criticise other members, beliefs or views in an underhanded manner which detracts
             from unbiased and fair discussion.
    1.17  Contain material that is knowingly or intentionally false, inaccurate or misleading.

2. Behaviour and Etiquette

Behaviour - Please be civil and courteous to other members at all times.

    2.1    Racism or hatred: We have zero tolerance for racism or hatred towards any specific
             race, religion, country, gender, individual or group.
    2.2    Harassment: Do not harass, defame, threaten, bully or victimise other members.
    2.3    Profanity/Swearing: Do not use profanity/swearing, crude, vulgar language or
             attempt to intentionally bypass the profanity filter.
    2.4    Trolling: Do not troll the forums. We define 'trolling' as the act of causing deliberate
             disruption or offense. Such behaviour usually involves the posting of intentionally
             false, controversial or offensive comments designed to provoke, bait and annoy
             other members.
    2.5    Flame baiting: Do not taunt or bait another member into an argument.
    2.6    Abusive behaviour: Do not be rude, insulting, offensive, snide, obnoxious or abusive
             towards other members.
    2.7    Suggestive conduct: Do not post sexually suggestive comments, innuendo or
             engage in inappropriate sexually oriented personal exchanges or harassment.
    2.8    Sock puppetry: Do not post under more than one alias at the same time or pretend
             to be more than one person via multiple accounts.
    2.9    Forum groups: The formation or promotion of disruptive groups, clans or gangs is
             disallowed.
    2.10  Thread derailment: Do not derail or 'hijack' threads with posts that are either
             off-topic or designed to draw attention away from what is being discussed.
    2.11  Forum warfare: Do not initiate or participate in "wars" with other members.
             Collective or individual attempts to attack, accuse, discredit or force a certain
             viewpoint on other members are disallowed. A "war" can constitute a prolonged
             series of disruptive confrontations between specific members or groups of members
             with similar beliefs or views, usually with either side accusing the other of being the
             aggressor and attacking, criticising and baiting each other on a regular basis. Action
             will be taken against members who instigate or participate in this type of activity.
    2.12  Defamation: Do not use this site or its services to attack, promote hatred towards
             or otherwise defame other web sites, forums, groups or individuals.
    2.13  Role-playing: Do not use the forum or chat room to 'role-play' as a fictitious
             character or entity.

Etiquette - in the interests of maintaining constructive and friendly discussions:

    2.14  Personal attacks: Attack the point being presented, not the person who is making it.
    2.15  Spelling and grammar: Do not point out mistakes or criticise other members on their
             spelling, grammar or punctuation.
    2.16  Personal scrutiny: Do not attack or scrutinise another member's intelligence, mental
             status or personal/educational background.
    2.17  Topic bashing: Do not enter a thread just to shout "fake!" or to state point blank
             that "x does not exist". Elaborate on your response with a constructive comment.
    2.18  Disrespectful conduct: Do not be rude, unpleasant or disrespectful towards other
             members - always be polite and courteous.
    2.19  Balanced debate: Do not make posts forbidding opposing viewpoints, both sides of
             a debate should be represented.
    2.20  Shouting: Do not write in all uppercase letters, writing in this manner is considered
             "shouting" and rude.
    2.21  Redundant quoting: Avoid quoting large amounts of material just to provide a short
             reply, only quote what you need to in order to avoid ambiguity.
    2.22  Rule quoting: Do not quote the site rules to other members, if you believe the rules
             have been broken please hit the 'Report to Moderator' link.
    2.23  Self elected Moderator: Don't elect yourself as a Moderator by telling other members
             what they can and can't do on the forum. A polite reminder to others is acceptable,
             imposing your own rules is not.
    2.24  Cultural and regional differences: Acknowledge and respect that members in other
             parts of the world may have cultural differences, values, and beliefs that are different
             to your own.

3. Moderation and Disputes

    3.1    Any posts breaking the above rules may be removed without prior notice being given.
    3.2    The Forum team (Moderators/Administrators) will be the sole arbiter of what does
             and does not break these rules.
    3.3    Members with grievances should contact the site Moderator/Administrator only
    3.4    It is not permissible to discuss disputes within the forum.
    3.5    To report a post use the "Report to Moderator" link that exists in each post.
    3.6    Generally a warning will be given first to a member breaking the rules.
    3.7    Repeated infractions will result in a ban.
    3.8    Bans may be for a temporary period or permanent.
    3.9    Posts will be moved to the appropriate board if posted in the wrong section.

Members will

    3.10  Agree to co-operate with the requests of our site staff should you be asked to stop
             doing something that they deem to be disruptive, inappropriate or in violation
             of the forum rules.
    3.11  Agree not to attack, harass, threaten or become abusive towards any member of
             staff. Members who become offensive or participate in harassing, threatening or
             retaliatory action against the site or a member of staff will be subject to further
             action. All our moderators/administrator are volunteers who give up their own free
             time to keep the forum a safe and friendly place, please treat them with the respect
             that they deserve.
    3.12  Not start threads, make posts or use the shout box to complain about, petition
             against or to query moderator action. If you disagree with action taken by a
             member of staff you have the option to appeal the decision by PM'ing a moderator
             or Administrator.
    3.13  Not register more accounts in order to circumvent a restriction if access or posting
             rights have been revoked. They will also not ask or have another member post or
             deliver messages on their behalf. Accounts that we found to belong to previously
             banned members will also be banned and removed.

4. Members Accounts and Passwords

    4.1    Members accounts and site permissions will be allocated and amended by the
             Site Administrator.
    4.2    A members permissions may be amended if thought necessary.
    4.3    Standard members cannot use the account for commercial purposes
             - see Commercial Memberships
    4.4    As a condition of membership, members should ensure that their registered email
             address is current and active.
    4.5    From time to time members may be sent (by email) a newsletter or announcement
             from the site. Members may elect not to receive this by indicating so in their profile.
    4.6    No details (such as members email addresses) will be given or sold to third parties.
    4.7    Members may request their membership to be terminated at any time. If a member
             has not posted at all then the account will be permanently deleted. If the member
             has previously posted then we will disable the account and remove any personal
             information only. The username will remain but the account will be deactivated.
             Previous posts and images will not be deleted unless there are less than five and then
             at the discretion of the forum Administrator.
    4.8    We will delete a member's account if it is six months old and the member has not
             posted anything. This includes uploaded avatars.
    4.9    Members are responsible for keeping their username and password confidential, and
             they are requested not to divulge these to third parties. Note:  Members
             passwords are encrypted on the site. Even the site administrator cannot see your
             password. (Administrators can only reset passwords).
    4.10  Extreme circumstances: Members accept that in extreme circumstances, and where
             asked to do so by a court of law or government security agency, the site will provide
             their membership and posting details. In all other circumstances members registration
             details will remain confidential and not passed to third parties unless the member has
             opted to make these public within their registration profile.


5. Signatures

    5.1   Large or inconsiderate signatures spoil the site for visitors so please keep signature
            images to a reasonable size. Only one graphic please, max 468px wide by 50px
            high.
    5.2   Signatures can link to personal non-commercial sites (such as blogs etc.) only. Such
            sites cannot contain any form of advertising (this would be deemed commercial).
    5.3   Commercial advertising or links may not be placed in signatures without the
            permission of the site Administrator and would generally only be granted to
            Commercial members only. This includes text links.
    5.4   Signatures formed by text only can be no more than 5 lines.
    5.5   "Fuelly" signatures are permitted.
    5.6   Signatures with links to Social Networking websites are permitted (except commercial
            entries).
    5.7   All signatures must conform to the requirements in Section 1 of these Rules.

6. Avatars

    6.1   Users are permitted to utilise a gallery avatar or to link to one of their own.
    6.2   User defined avatars are to be no larger than 100 pixels square.
    6.3   Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect and decency,
            and so forth. It must not contravene any item in Section 1 of these rules.
    6.4   We reserve the right to change or ask you to change and/or remove your avatar
            at any time.
    6.5   Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges or
            even banned.
    6.6   Animated gifs are permitted, but they must be the correct size when uploaded or they
            may not work.

7. Spam posts

Common forms of forum spam include but are not limited to:

    7.1   Advertising: Do not use the forum to advertise or promote a product, site or service.
    7.2   Recruitment: Do not recruit or invite members in to joining other sites, groups,
            services or forums.
    7.3   Multi-posting: Do not post the same post or topic in more than one place on the
            forum.
    7.4   Thread bumping: Do not post 'bump' or some other short text solely to return a
            thread to the top of the topic index.
    7.5   Link dropping: Do not make posts for the purpose of dropping links for
            promotional/SEO purposes (see next section)

8. Link Spam and Technical Interference

Link spamming is widespread and prevalent on many forums. It is a worldwide issue that many under estimate.

Members should be aware that:

    8.1    We treat link spamming extremely seriously.
    8.2    All logins are monitored automatically and members IP addresses are compared
             dynamically with known spam databases e.g.  Cisco Senderbase, StopForumSpam, SpamHaus
             If a match is made (in exceptional circumstances) then you will be
             automatically prevented from accessing the site.
    8.3    Without exception we report all spam. Members posting spam links will find
             themselves recorded on these databases. This may affect your ability to join other
             websites as you will find your IP address and other details blacklisted.

Members should not:

    8.4    Attempt to hack or interfere with any aspect of the site or it's functionality.
    8.5    Deploy malicious code against the site in any form.
    8.6    Use a proxy IP address
    8.7    Attempt to access "restricted" areas of the site
    8.8    Use multiple user names

Any of the above will result in instant termination of membership.

Note: Members who forget their login details should attempt to reset their password first. If you rejoin because you forgot your login details then tell us straightaway as we could probably locate and re-activate your "old" account.

8. Private Messaging

    9.1   The above forum rules also apply to private messaging (pm's).

9. Commercial Memberships

   10.1   Standard Membership is strictly for personal users only.
   10.2   Commercial Membership is offered to business organisations that wish to promote a
            service or product(s) on the site.
   10.3   Please contact us via the Site Administrator for advertising rates
   10.4   Commercial members are offered:

                              i)     Dedicated area in forum to promote product or service
                              ii)     Ability to interact with members in dedicated area
                              iii)    Banner advertising opportunities

----------------------

Although these rules cover most common situations, they cannot cover everything. We therefore reserve the right to take any action we think appropriate to prevent the disruption or abuse of the forum in any way, and to amend these rules from time to time as necessary.


These rules are in addition to the registration agreement and supercede any previous ruleset.
Title: Re: Fish Forum Rules and Etiquette
Post by: Robert on July 13, 2014, 10:31:59 AM
A more general addition that isn't really covered explicitly above and applies to a more general common sense approach when dealing with folks whose communication skills aren't the best.

Do also remember, that there's no obligation to help folks, especially those who you feel maybe annoying the hell out of you. This isn't a social correction school, neither is it a place where you must but must respond to everything that someone says.

Sometimes it's best to just move on and deal with someone else's problem rather than use your energy trying to get someone to see that they're either being ignorant, silly or just plain meddlesome. The majority of people who use forums know how to behave but sometimes folks don't. It isn't really anyones fault and it's often the case that people who are a pain in the neck simply don't know it due to illness, age or general cultural differences.

Don't forget that you can always PM a moderator or the admin and vent your frustrations. I'm personally always happen to listen and act accordingly. :)  :cheers:
Title: Re: Fish Forum Rules and Etiquette
Post by: Robert on October 22, 2014, 11:08:54 AM
A gentle reminder to new members who are here for reasons other than to be helpful, assist others, learn etc

If you post in an unhelpful or unnecessary way then I'm going to assume that you're a bit of a "you know what" and block your account from posting.

Life's too short.  :wave: