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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
----
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.
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.
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.
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.