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| Community Rules |
| 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 to keep their discussions logical and free from 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: Although we don't have a laundry list of inappropriate topics, discussion of subjects such as politics (unless directly related to early retirement), gun rights, religion and abortion rarely end well. For this reason the moderation team may close or remove discussions of these topics as well as any other topic deemed to be inappropriate, particularly if the tone has become disruptive. Certainly any discussions related to early retirement are welcome - we don't have any "party line" and while individual members may have (and express) strong opinions on anything from paying off your mortgage early to the wisdom of annuities, they speak for themselves. We just ask everyone to follow the "reasonable person" principle. Be Courteous and Appropriate! 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. Treating each other with respect and kindness, and thinking before you speak will go a long way towards making this an enjoyable place.
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. Do your own due diligence! People who are professionals in a variety of fields post on this forum and share their general knowledge. Many of them are brilliant. Some are doofi. Information obtained from professionals (or from anyone for that matter) who are participants in this forum should be not be relied on when making important life decisions. Their posts are not intended to be professional advice. Their posts may not be accurate, applicable or complete for your own unique situation. Be Ethical and Don't SPAM! 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.
Customer Disputes: This forum is not intended to be a mechanism for people to solely vent frustrations about services, products, vendors or sales. Please settle your differences with the seller, provider, manufacturer or dealer through other means but not through our community. 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 guidelines and by the decisions of our moderators. 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 are setup in your profile. They will appear at the bottom of every post you make.
This forum is largely self-policing, which means that moderators will respond and react to problems reported through the REPORT POST option, via the CONTACT FORM at the bottom of each page, or via PM. Do not hesitate to use these tools to report any problems regarding the forum. Disabling accounts: We may delete accounts that have no posts. If the account has many posts, completely deleting the account can significantly disrupt thread continuity. In that event, we may (if requested and at our discretion) disable your account. When we disable your account we may do the following: • Change the user name. • Remove signature content • Remove any info from the profile that might be identifying or replace it with fictitious info • Remove all subscriptions • Remove avatar • Remove e-mail address or alter as well as personal web site info • Change account options to refuse PM's and E-mails from users and admins • After doing all this - ban account Where you make use of the communication features to share information with other individuals, however, (e.g., sending a personal message to another Forum user) we generally cannot remove such communications. Also, if someone quoted your post, the original user name will be shown as having been quoted (which we cannot purge). If you would like to disable your account, please use the contact us form at the bottom of the page to make this request. Someone has to interpret the above guidelines and how they apply to this forum. Ultimately it's up to our site moderators and administrator to make this decision. If you have any questions about these guidelines, please feel free to contact a moderator or administrator. 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! Registering and participating at early-retirement.org constitutes agreement to abide by these rules and to abide by the Social Knowledge Network Terms of Service (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. |
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About Us This community was started in 2002 as an alternative to a then fee only Motley Fool. The focus of the discussions is on topics related to early retirement and financial independence. The community is moderated to ensure a pleasant experience for our members.
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