Draft community rules

[Janet H]

We have many new members and increasing issues with spam, commercial posting and general rabble-rousing. So... your beleaguered mods have developed some draft guidelines that will help us and hopefully, our members know where the line in the sand is. We believe that this document reflects our current, albeit fuzzy, practice.

These will be posted in the form of a link on the lower bar, seen upon registration and in a few other places. Please help us out by posting your constructive comments to this thread. Comments accompanied by chocolate, single malts or cash would be especially appreciated.
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Thanks for joining! Most of us are here because we enjoy interacting with and reading the interactions of the friends we have made on this forum and making new friends on the forum, even though few have met or ever will meet face to face. It's an unusual community brought together by our interest in early retirement, a topic often misunderstood or awkward to discuss with others, even family. Although brought together by that common interest, we talk about a good many things, as does any such group.

Friends don't always agree on everything or even on most things. They can agree to disagree. When that happens, they try keep their discussions logical and free of name calling and so forth, or more often they just spend their time on other topics. They don't take every opportunity to express their disagreement, incite argument, insult each other, and fan flames. When they are incapable of avoiding this sort of thing, they become much more disruptive than welcome.

Most of us, while we welcome perspectives on all sides of any issue, would not invite a frequently and apparently intentionally disruptive or rude person to a gathering of friends at our homes, nor to any other gathering of friends that they are hosting. With this in mind please take some time to review our site guidelines.

Registering and participating at early-retirementforums.org constitutes agreement to abide by the Social Knowledge Network Terms of Service (insert link) (Social Knowledge is the company that owns this forum). We reserve the right to modify these rules at any time without giving prior notice to you.

There is no charge for joining this Forum! This is a community of individuals who share a common interest in early retirement. Please think before you post and keep your comments limited to the topic at hand and above all be nice. If you come across any violations to these guidelines or have any problems navigating the site, do not hesitate to let us know through the Report Post option or via the forums Contact Form. We'll be happy to address your concerns. We encourage everyone to participate in and enjoy the Community while at the same time adhering to these rules:

Be Courteous!
We aim to ensure that the forum is an enjoyable place that you want to visit time and time again. Our underlying philosophy is that the strength of the member relationships we build here is what sets us apart from the other boards - we are friendlier, more civil, more insightful and more fun.

• Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully. Excessive sarcasm, comments about race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, etc may be considered personal attacks.
• Do not post unsubstantiated gossip, libelous remarks or directly misleading information.
• Stay on topic by keeping discussions relevant and on track.
• Do not post the same discussion more than once or in many forums.
• The language of this forum is English. If you are not a native English speaker, do your best. We are glad to have you as a member and will be supportive and polite.
• Be mindful of yourself and others. This forum is not a democracy; it is privately owned. If rules are violated we retain the right at our discretion to remove, edit or delete posts and if necessary ban or remove members. Any abuse toward our staff may/will result in immediate suspension of your account. Complaints about moderator decisions may not be made in posts; instead send a private message to a moderator. If a moderator deletes or edits one of your posts and you disagree with the action, contact the moderator concerned. Do not repost deleted material.
• We take the "be nice" rule VERY seriously! We do not tolerate ANY rudeness.

Be Appropriate!
Please don't post it here if you wouldn't say it to your grandmother. Posts containing explicit, obscene or vulgar language, images or links to websites with adult content/images or punctuation marks designed to "trick" our obscenity filter will be removed. Discussion of politics and religion is permitted only in off topic forum.

Be Welcoming!
Welcome newcomers to our growing community. Many of our community's members have a wealth of knowledge and much to share. Please help new members learn about how to find information and resources and how to get involved in the Community.

Be Ethical!
Many participants have commercial interests associated with the forum topic and bring valuable information and expertise to share. With a few specific exceptions, participants may not use the Forum for commercial gain.

• Participants may not post to direct others to any pages at their own commercial website or website in which they have a commercial interest, including informational pages.
• Participants may not send out SPAM via our Private Message system.
• Members may have only one account. If duplicate accounts may be deleted or merged.
• Our user base is not a resource to be "mined" by individuals, groups, or businesses, for profit or not for profit.
• Participants may not bump threads unnecessarily. Bumping is posting useless information, posting one-liners or any other action to deliberately keep a thread hot.

Posting standards:
Forum members may use standard fonts available on the forum. The standard font size is 2. The use of bold, large or colored fonts should be used sparingly. Posts containing inappropriate formatting will be removed or modified at our discretion; e.g. all caps or excessive color. E-mail addresses are not appropriate forum user names.

About the First Amendment, censorship and your "right to free speech":
You do indeed have a right to free speech. However this forum is privately owned and requires members to abide by our rules and by the decisions of our staff. If you cannot accept these guidelines we encourage you to contact one of the many good web hosting companies out there and exercise that right to your heart's content.

Do not post protected / copyrighted content:
Information copyrighted or owned by any individual or entity other than the member should not be posted without the consent of the owner. Copyrighted material includes images and text produced and owned by others. If such an event occurs, the individual posting the information shall be held solely responsible. You cannot legally post entire articles or news in the forum without permission from the copyright holder. Even if you attribute the article correctly it’s still copyright infringement. Under Fair Use provisions you can legally post a small abstract of an article - or perhaps the opening paragraph. The exception to this rule is press releases; they are meant for distribution and can be copied and distributed. If you are not sure if you can copy something then always err on the side of caution and simply post a link to the material.

Signature Standards:
Signatures must be setup in your profile rather than manually added to your messages. They will appear at the bottom of every post you make.

• Signatures must be kept to a maximum of three lines (including blank lines) and contain no more than two links (non-commercial).
• Signature may not include email addresses, links to competing websites, prompts to contact or a sales pitch.
• Signatures must follow our forums posting standards and only one line may be bolded.

Commercial Parties (For-profit companies, non-profit organizations and industry professionals):
The forum does not discourage nor endorse any commercial entity and is not intended for soliciting business by commercial parties. Our purpose is sharing knowledge so others can benefit and we are glad to have your perspective and input; however, commercial participants must adhere to all the forum policies including these specifically set out for commercial participants.

• We enforce a very strict policy regarding solicitation of our membership by commercial participants. Do NOT solicit.
• Do not quote prices.
• Do not use the Forum to direct others to any pages at website in which you have a commercial interest, including informational pages except as specifically allowed in these policies or by prior arrangements with SK networks.
• You may mention your affiliation (occasionally) with a commercial entity in the body of a post but do not discuss your products or services unless answering a direct question and even in this case do not quote prices.

Someone has to interpret the above guidelines and how they apply to this forum. Ultimately it's up to our site moderators and administrators to make this decision. If you have any questions about these guidelines, please feel free to contact us. Thanks to everyone for keeping the tone appropriate for a group of friends, at least the vast majority of the time. Please keep it up!

[Nords]

After biting back a number of less-than-productive comments, let me say this.

Signatures must be kept to a maximum of three lines (including blank lines) and contain no more than two links (non-commercial).

Hunh? Is there a rationale behind this limit?

I've had a four-line signature for at least two years, and I've added two "." lines because this board's software jams the signature up against the body of the post. So how 'bout six lines, unless another poster cares to put forth a higher number.

[REWahoo]

Janet, two comments:

Originally Posted by Janet H

Registering and participating at early-retirementforums.org constitutes agreement to abide by the Social Knowledge Network Terms of Service (insert link) (Social Knowledge is the company that owns this forum). We reserve the right to modify these rules at any time without giving prior notice to you.

I'd strongly urge this paragraph be in bold.

Originally Posted by Janet H

• We take the "be nice" rule VERY seriously! We do not tolerate ANY rudeness.

While I do not disagree with the intent of the above, I do question the ability and willingness of any team of moderators to police a forum of this size and realistically maintain a "be nice or else" policy. I suggest changing "We do not tolerate ANY rudeness" to "Rudeness is not acceptable and may result in the moderation or deletion of your post."

Good luck!

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by Nords

After biting back a number of less-than-productive comments, let me say this.


Hunh? Is there a rationale behind this limit?

I've had a four-line signature for at least two years, and I've added two "." lines because this board's software jams the signature up against the body of the post. So how 'bout six lines, unless another poster cares to put forth a higher number.

It was picked for no particular reason other than it's sort of an average. Long signatures add clutter - but we can change to 4 or 5 or 1.... We are looking for input.

[Nords]

Originally Posted by Janet H

It was picked for no particular reason other than it's sort of an average. Long signatures add clutter - but we can change to 4 or 5 or 1.... We are looking for input.

Then let's change it to six lines, the length of my signature. Unless someone has a longer signature.

I think a signature adds value, but if a user thinks it adds clutter then they can choose to not display signatures or to put that user on the "Ignore Poster" list.

[Martha]

I do what Nords does, leave a space before the signature. Is there any way to "program" that in? It adds more clutter when it bumps up against the post.

I agree with Wahoo's comment as well. The "rule" about staying on topic is going to be difficult to enforce with this bunch.

[Nords]

Originally Posted by Martha

The "rule" about staying on topic is going to be difficult to enforce with this bunch.

The only people who'll suffer the burden of that rule will be the moderators...

[haha]

Let's just simplify this to "Nothing that could be in any way be entertaining to a normal adult will be tolerated."

[Moemg]

[quote=Martha;563493
I agree with Wahoo's comment as well. The "rule" about staying on topic is going to be difficult to enforce with this bunch. [/quote]


Plus that's when some of the most interesting conversations get going !

[ERD50]

Looks pretty reasonable at first glance.

I suppose it is just a subset of 'on topic', but how should one actually deal with say, political insertions into a thread that is intended to be non-political? The trick to 'on' or 'off' topic here, is that some people see political ramifications to everything, and that is valid, to a degree. But that does not mean I want to discuss them as part of that thread.

I might start a thread on coin collecting, and some poster wants to discuss how countries control currency valuations, which was not the point of the thread. This might be in the 'off topic' forum, but I don't want it to be political either.

So what do we do?

First step is politely ask the poster to refrain from the political associations.

Second step?

1) Walk away (this means people may start walking away altogether if many of their discussions get the political treatment).

2) Report to moderator?

3) Suggest that person start their own thread, Political: Currency Controls?

Repeat Offenders?

Please don't suggest the 'ignore' function. For various reasons, I am opposed to using it, it might be fine for others.

One other thing - I'd expand on the 'grandmother thing' as far as appropriate pics/avatars. This came up on another forum, and here is my take:

Some people would legitimately want to check this forum on a lunch break at work, or at home with the kids around. So, in fairness to those people, it helps to keep the avatars and pics (unless warned in the title) to be 'work friendly' - and that means pretty tame in some environments. As much as I've enjoyed some of the avatars, I think those people's legitimate concerns take priority, even the most extreme of them. Any of us can search out that stuff at an appropriate time, if we wish.

Oh, and BRAVO on the statement on Free Speech! When people take 'free speech' to mean anytime, anywhere, and/or on someone else's dime it makes my skin crawl.

Thanks - ERD50

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by ERD50

I suppose it is just a subset of 'on topic', but how should one actually deal with say, political insertions into a thread that is intended to be non-political? The trick to 'on' or 'off' topic here, is that some people see political ramifications to everything, and that is valid, to a degree. But that does not mean I want to discuss them as part of that thread.

I might start a thread on coin collecting, and some poster wants to discuss how countries control currency valuations, which was not the point of the thread. This might be in the 'off topic' forum, but I don't want it to be political either.

So what do we do?

First step is politely ask the poster to refrain from the political associations.

Second step?

1) Walk away (this means people may start walking away altogether if many of their discussions get the political treatment).

2) Report to moderator?

3) Suggest that person start their own thread, Political: Currency Controls?

Repeat Offenders?
....Thanks - ERD50

I would expect to follow the plan you have laid out. A complaint made to a moderator about wandering too far off topic, most especially when the thread starter makes it, would get my attention.

It's a fairly simple thing to split a thread into two when it has wandered off topic, but generally if it has wandered far, this becomes impractically messy.

[twaddle]

I like it. But two areas I think are out of sync with the prevailing ethic here:

1) We don't stay on topic, and we take pleasure in seeing how the stream of consciousness causes a thread to evolve.

2) We don't keep the tone appropriate for grandma, unless grandma happens to be a raucous salty old bird.

[Rich_in_Tampa]

Originally Posted by twaddle

I like it. But two areas I think are out of sync with the prevailing ethic here:

1) We don't stay on topic, and we take pleasure in seeing how the stream of consciousness causes a thread to evolve.

2) We don't keep the tone appropriate for grandma, unless grandma happens to be a raucous salty old bird.

True observations. I also kind of like the rambling, "where's this gonna go" quality, at least for some threads. I think where a truly new, substantial topic emerges there is no harm is splitting off the thread. That way users who are new to an interesting digression won't miss it cause it's hidden away under an unrelated title. But I'd be pretty tolerant of digression as you say.

As to the tone and civility deal, personally I think it too often it goes well beyond the "earthy" part that gives texture to a writer or a thread, well into the offensive category. Don't want to censor anyone's ideas but I could do without some of the more extreme belligerence, insults, profanity, extreme anger etc.

I'm commenting as a member, not a mod.

[brewer12345]

I find the admonishment to stay strictly on-topic very much at odds with how the forun is now and how it has been historically. I suggest you strike that dictum entirely from the rules. Threads here quite successfully meander off and sometimes back on topic and usually the conversation is more interesting for it.

I also think sig space should be more expansive.

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by twaddle

I like it. But two areas I think are out of sync with the prevailing ethic here:

1) We don't stay on topic, and we take pleasure in seeing how the stream of consciousness causes a thread to evolve.

That is true, some of the drifting and evolution has a fascinating dynamic. But, if no one is complaining, I guess there is no harm.

I think the problem comes when Poster A keeps going off on one angle, and Posters B & C say a couple times 'hey, we are trying to discuss this one point, stop dragging these outside things into it'. At that point, I think Poster A should drop it, or start their own thread.

So, maybe something with a bit more leeway. Like, 'if the topic starts drifting from the original, consider starting a separate thread. Definitely start a new thread (or get back on topic) if any poster reasonably objects to the drift.'

Yep, I know,'reasonable' is a weasel word, but this is all going to be a grey area anyway.

-ERD50

[DRiP Guy]

Originally Posted by Nords

After biting back a number of less-than-productive comments, let me say this.


Hunh? Is there a rationale behind this limit?

I've had a four-line signature for at least two years, and I've added two "." lines because this board's software jams the signature up against the body of the post. So how 'bout six lines, unless another poster cares to put forth a higher number.

And after biting back a comment for nearly a year or so, let me finally say that a "Sig" is, I believe, a short identifier, and if it takes more than a line, maybe two... three(?).... four (!) then perhaps it is increasingly likely to be seen as a nuisance rather than an aid to identity, for those who see it affixed to every single post.

I apologize in advance for my rather puritan view on this, but I'm glad to get it off my chest, as a veteran of Usenet groups that went through signature inflation reaching nearly demonic proportions before finally fading back down to reason.


IMHO, rest looks good, with the understanding voiced later in thread by ERD50 that if participants are getting along peaceably, let's please not not call an arbitrary "O/T" foul, but if a O/P ever feels the thread is wandering and asks for some focus, they should obviously be obliged voluntarily, and then aided by a mod, if the request is not successful.