|
A. INTRODUCTION
The aim of the ChadzBoyz forums is to provide a sense of community for young gay teens from around the world. These forums were founded on the ideal of open and civil discussions amongst these teens. While the forums are intended for young gays, all are welcome to join the community as long as they respect the membership, support gay teens and do not prey on young gays in any manner. First and foremost it pays to remember that we are all entitled to our views, be they right or wrong. That's the whole point of this forum.
Here are some important things to note:
(1.) These forums have always been intended to provide an area where anyone could discuss current issues of interest to gay teens and almost any other topic they desire;
(2.) We expect and will absolutely enforce at least a basic level of civility and courtesy in your postings and interaction with other members here. We also expect you to leave behind any racial or other prejudices you may have along with anger or hate behavior when you login to the forum;
(3.) As our guests, you can either play by these rules and the overall ideals and objectives of these forums -OR- you can go elsewhere for the kind of one-sided "debate" which you might prefer. The choice is yours.
B. GAINING FORUM ACCESS & POSTING
We try our best to be a secure and safe site for gay teens and that means keeping out those who dislike gays and would like to shutdown or damage the site. Since this is a gay teen forum we need to keep it safe for our members and require the security measures discussed below.
STEP 1: Selecting An Acceptable Username & Email Address
To complete your registration you must
1.1) pick an acceptable username;
1.2) choose a valid and acceptable email address;
1.3) create a password;
1.4) confirm that you are 13+ years old;
1.5) type a visual confirmation code into a box to prevent from bots registration;
1.6) Finally, an email will be sent to your email address asking you to click on a link to complete the registration process.
Acceptable User Names
Your user name must be between 4 and 18 characters and consist only of letters and numerals with no spaces. No obscene/questionable names will be accepted. The name may not suggest any special or official status on the forum. If you are NOT out, then pick a name that does not give away your identity if your mom joins the forum. :)
Acceptable Email Addresses:
Only aol.com email addresses are unacceptable to use in signing up. In addition, Chadzboyz does not reply to any aol.com addresses.
Our site host advises:
“While this might not seem fair, the largest quantity of spam complaints come from AOL users and we’ve found eliminating AOL addresses helps significantly in minimizing the risk of complaints. You can have the AOL customers supply an alternate, non-AOL email address.”
Password:
We suggest you to avoid the following examples of passwords: word in the dictionary, date of birth, your name or any other personal information that you could disclose in the forums.
Our recommendation is that your password should contain upper and lower case characters as well as numerals.
STEP 2: Beginning with a Novice Membership
After you successfully register, you may login to the forum with your user name and password. With a Novice membership, we can only allow you to post replies to existing topics in these four sections: Testing, Introduce Yourself, Open Discussion and World Media News & Events. However we encourage you to initiate one introductory thread in the Introduce Yourself forum and you can always test our forums features such as font and emoticons in the Testing forum. This is temporary until we get to know you better so that our current members will remain safe from unwelcome attacks of any kind by predators and homophobes. With this said, take the time to make meaningful posts so that we can get to know you and so you can become familiar with all of our rules and regulations.
STEP 3: Gaining Full Membership
If you want Full membership privileges to the site, that means, if you want to be able to post in all the other sections and with some new ones, you will have to send one PM (Private Message) to one of the New Member Mods (NMMs) after you have a minimum of 10-15 posts (the NMM have purple usernames.) Please make these posts meaningful and not just a few phrases so we can get to know you – posts made in the Testing forum are not considered in this total. The NMMs will review your posts and determine whether or not you are approved for Full membership. Please do not PM a regular Moderator for this task as it will only slow things down. If you have any questions about the registration process or the forums or these rules please PM one of the NMM. You must follow this procedure to gain full membership. No exceptions will be made under any circumstances so do not ask for special consideration.
After you have PM'd one of the above NMMs, two or more of these NMM will review all of your posts and if everything is in order, a moderator will approve your application for Full membership in the forum! If your posts are too brief, you may be asked to post more before gaining approval. If you seem a risk to our community or if your ideals go against the ideals of this forum, you may be asked to review your behavior. An admin will then add you to the full forum group and you will be notified of this approval. This can take a few days or even a week and it depends on several factors such as: the quality of your posts, IP and other admin concerns and the availability of NMM and Moderators during busy periods of time. Sending your request to more than one NMM will slow down the process. If you have concerns, PM the NMM you first contacted. Please be patient but let us know if the approval takes more than 1 week by contacting a Moderator.
STEP 4: Becoming a Responsible Full Member
Now that you have Full membership, it is a good idea to review once again all of the rules and regulations of the forum that will keep you in good stead as a full member. Read this whole document to become familiar with how we operate here at the ChadzBoyz forums.
STEP 5: Selecting an Avatar and Signature
It is not necessary to select an avatar and signature -now or ever. However many members feel this adds to their identity on the forum. The goal in selecting these is to keep them from overpowering the posts. After all, it is the posts that are the real reason for the forum. As for the images, you must upload your avatar graphic to the site and may not link to graphics on other sites. Please respect all copyrights. Both signatures and avatars may contain no image which attempts to portray the user as having an official status here (e.g. mimicking ranks or copying avatars/signatures of admin team members). As well do not use the same avatar or signature as another member.
No profanity, slander, slurs, threatening, obscene, vulgar, threatening, racial or explicit sexually-oriented comments or photos are permitted in your posts, avatars or signatures. This, and any violation of applicable laws (Canada, U.S., and International) will be dealt with severely. Members should remember this board is aimed at a young audience.
Signatures
(1.) Signatures may contain up to five lines (one line being that displayed on a browser opened to 800 px width) of text (of small or normal size) and/or one or two images of no more than a maximum total image height of 70 px high, 468 px wide and 12 kB (12 000 Bytes) in size. Signatures containing one or more images 70 px in total height may also include one line of small size text. Signatures containing a smaller total image height may include additional lines of small size text or normal size text equivalent in height to a 70 px image plus one line of text. Animated images are not allowed. Smaller signatures are encouraged so as not to detract from the messages. Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect to racial or other slurs, decency, warez, good taste, emoticons, and so forth.
(3.) Links in signatures are permitted to up to 3 unique pages or sites. You may not link to warez, porn or political, racist or other similar hate sites including those that feature nudity. Links are included in signature size limits.
4.) If your signature graphic is too large and you need to reduce it you can consider downloading a free copy of Paint from http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net or resize it through www.imageshack.us/ Oversized signatures will not be displayed.
(5.) Users abusing these rules will be warned first and lacking prompt corrective action may have their signature deleted or lose signature rights.
The following are NOT allowed: Racial and other slurs/comments
Violence, or items obviously derived from violence, e.g., blood, etc.
Nudity, sexual situations or sexual intentions.
Text or graphics that display, suggest or promote hate or discrimination or drug/alcohol usage. Graphics and text that are designed to overpower and/or detract from the posts and/or that are annoying to other members will not be allowed. The decision of the Supervisors will be final in all such matters.
Avatars
(1.) We provide avatars for your use here, which you can specify through the "Profile" area of your account options. Also, do not abuse our bandwidth by linking to our images or avatars from some outside location. This will get you in trouble.
(2.) Users are permitted to utilize a gallery avatar or upload one of their own. You are not allowed to link to an avatar off-site. We recommend user defined avatars to be no larger than 100 px square and no smaller than 20 px square. Avatars may contain no animation and are limited to a maximum of 12kB (12 000 Bytes) in file size.
(3.) Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, and so forth as outlined in the section on “Signatures” above.
Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges.
(4.) All original content, titles, images, graphical design, logos the “ChadzBoyz” name and other trademarks of this site are to be respected, as per all applicable Canada, U.S. and International intellectual property protections, and you may NOT copy or use any of it without our express permission.
STEP 6: Posting in the Forums
(1.) Post in proper forum
Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions before posting. Users consistently posting to the wrong forum will be given a warning by the Moderators.
(2.) Make original posts
Make sure the topic of the post you are about to make has not already been posted. Use the forum search feature if you are unsure.
(3.) Use a descriptive title
Members should use an appropriate, descriptive title when posting a new topic. Examples of bad titles include; "Guys!", "Weird!", "Read-very important", etc. Examples of good titles include; "What do you look for in a guy", "Riots in France", etc. that give you an idea what the post is about.
(4.) Use proper English
English is the language of this form. Also please type in proper English that is easy to understand. Try to avoid using excessive abbreviations such as “ I h8 it wen ppl tipe lyk this”. A well-written post gets more responses and feedback than a post full of net-speak, etc.
(5.) Use proper Formatting
Don't abuse the font color or size options, avoid saying things in ALL CAPS (interpreted as shouting). Use BBcode sparingly – BBcode feature is only available for members with full membership and it allows you to quote posts from other members. Keep your text to the normal forum size and colour for posting in the forums.
(6.) Avoid Bumping, Grave-Digging & Thread Hijacking
Bumping (replying to your own post to move it up on the page) and grave-digging (responding to very old posts) are discouraged and should only be done if the original post somehow becomes relevant again. Do not hijack threads by changing the focus and intent of the original poster and setting off in a new direction. Use a new topic or a random thread.
(7.) Learn How to Quote Properly
Use the quote feature sparingly. Do not quote the entirety of another post, especially when it is on the same page of the thread as your response. This is both unnecessary and disruptive. Avoid the excessive use of quotes within quotes -they are seldom necessary and waste space. NEVER include photos or inline images in your quote: some people must pay for everything they receive over their internet connection and not everyone has a high speed connection.
8.) Posting Photos and Graphics
If you are posting more than one photo in a post please label each photo and limit the number of graphics in a post to 10.
If you don’t know how to post photos and graphics, please read the “how to post pictures” thread in the Pix Box board once you have full membership.
9.) Followup Posting
If you just made a post and want to add additional information, please edit the post rather than making two separate posts in a row. Remember that the edit feature is only available for members with full membership.
(10.) Hotlinking
Try to avoid putting in links to images directly from someone else's website. This can add a lot to their bandwidth, and then the host has to pay for it. In other words, if you see an image you like on another site, put in a link to that site, but don't use the [IMG] tags so the image loads into your post from their site directly. If you really want an image in your post, put it in a public site someplace like www.imageshack.us and link to it from there. If you own the image, then you can upload it to the board yourself.
C. BASIC FORUM RULES, TERMS & CONDITIONS
(1.) The ChadzBoyz Forum Management Team
This team consists of the Forum Admins, the Moderators, and the New Member Mods. The Forum Admins reserve the right to suspend or ban any member for any reason, at any time, with or without any prior warning, notification or justification. All decisions are final, and no other communication on the matter is required.
(2.) You are guests in this forum
As such you will abide by our rules, the management team, and the general ideals which guide our decisions. If you don't like it, you'll either find yourself on the outside looking in, or you can voluntarily find another forum that suits your requirements.
(3.) Play Nice!
NO name-calling, baiting, trolling and personal attacks are allowed. All of these issues can best be summarized or described as an intentional effort to disrupt or damage what would otherwise be a fairly civil discussion among and/or personal attacks against other registered members here. We acknowledge that this sometimes does happen, but if we see a pattern in your posts which indicates you are guilty of blatant assaults towards a poster rather than the post, you will receive few if any warnings before being disciplined.
(3.1.) Hateful Posts Racial and other slurs or hateful, insulting or demeaning comments and racial jokes are not allowed and will result in severe consequences up to and including suspension from the site. It is important to avoid sarcasm and unsupportive comments in forums such as the Advice Board where members come for aid and advice.
(3.2.) Comments that encourage suicide are strictly forbidden and may result in immediate suspension with no further notice.
(4) Hateful Posts
Racial and other slurs or hateful, insulting or demeaning comments and racial jokes are not allowed and will result in severe consequences up to and including banning from the site.
(5.) Number of User Accounts
Members may only maintain ONE user account here. You cannot have more than one account. Under certain special circumstances we may allow a name change if the request includes good reasons for such a change.
(6.) Misbehaviour
We record your IP address and other information every time you visit or post something here. An IP is the address automatically assigned to your computer by the internet every time you boot-up and connect to your internet service provider, from home, work or elsewhere. Therefore, if you commit any serious offenses (violations of applicable laws, malicious activities, or attempt to circumvent our banning mechanisms), we can and will use this information to track you down, contact your ISP (Internet Service Provider), as well to assist local and/or federal law enforcement agencies in their investigations.
(7.) Managing Posts
The forum management (Admin and Moderators) reserve the right to lock, edit, move, or delete any material that violates the rules or in any way disrupts the posting environment we are trying to support and preserve here.
(8.) Dealing with Moderators and Admin
The Moderators are responsible for managing these forums and in all cases, without any exception, their decisions are final and their authority is to be shown the respect that is typical for any online environment such as this. Do NOT get into an argument with a Moderator and do not disrespect them in any communications under any circumstances. If you have some disagreement with the Forum MODERATORS or other admin members, you will try and resolve it with them using respectful language, IN PRIVATE, using the "PM" or "Private Messaging" systems provided here. If you are unable to resolve the issue or disagreement with a particular moderator, then you may escalate the issue to another Moderator or a Director. If that is also unsuccessful then you may contact a Supervisor. Please present your side of the issue clearly and concisely and factually without exaggeration. The incident will be investigated and a decision made. The Forum Admin's decisions are final. Any PUBLIC or PRIVATE attacks on the Moderators or Admin, any "brinkmanship" against the management, any attempts to divide the users of these forums against the management, or any behaviour or responses towards other members which attempt to supercede or surplant the role and responsibility of management will result in either a serious warning or immediate banning. (see a detailed explanation of the warning/banning process below). If you get into an argument learn the fine art of apologizing -it will go a long way to smoothing things out and will make you a better person for it. Any derogatory or insulting comments directed to a member of the Admin team will not be tolerated and consequences will follow such an event. Trying to cover up a comment with “j/k” will not help.
(9.) Reporting Posts
If members see a post or signature or avatar etc. that they feel breaches the rules set out in this document, they are welcome and encouraged to bring it to the attention of a member of the Moderator Team. You may report a post by clicking on the report icon beside the post and giving some details about your concern. Only contact an Admin if a moderator team member has not replied within a reasonable time. Do not respond to other members concerning this violation yourself. Allow the moderators to do their job. Members who consistently "act" as backseat moderators may be warned.
(10.) Respect Intellectual Property
You are required to respect the copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property protections placed on any content you wish to quote here. Do not post complete articles from other sites without the required permissions from the original author or site that owns the content. If all else fails, it is usually best to simply paraphrase or summarize an article you've found elsewhere, and just provide the URL to that external article in your post. When posting images, please make sure you do not post more than 2-3 (50-60kb) of photos, as a courtesy to those with slower connections. Also, you should only include inline images (using the [IMG] tag) from a web space that you own, or with the permission from the web master on which the image is located to avoid what results in costly bandwidth theft to the originating site owner. Instead, please post a link to the image. Do not post any inline photos containing a copyright symbol. We do not permit spam, advertising or commercial links in your posts, avatars or signatures intended for personal gain.
(11.) Additional Thoughts
By allowing members to freely post comments here, we find ourselves having to spend most of our time just reminding people to "play nice"... But that's a fair price to pay, considering the alternative, which would risk allowing these forums to de-evolve into yet another one of those pointless and dull "he said, she said", name-calling battlegrounds...
We want this to be an open discussion forum where the members actually have the capacity to disagree, express opinions AND to maintain at least a moderate level of civility towards, and respectful dialogue with their fellow participants.
First of all, everyone else believes in their own opinions just as strongly as you do in yours. Secondly, as such, name-calling, mean-spirited and personal attacks and other derogatory comments will do nothing to persuade others to your viewpoint nor gain you any respect - and in fact can only strengthen opposition to your views to the point where no one listens to you at all. So, you've got two choices when arguing an issue with other people here - Either try and persuade them with logical and factual arguments or simply ignore them. Either way, it is unacceptable for anyone here to resort to ugly rhetoric and derogatory attacks against other forum members.
D. THE WARNING, SUSPENSION & BANNING PROCESS
It is our strong hope that you will never have to come into contact with the warning system. We need to nurture and protect our community from anyone who disrespects the forum, the members and our goals. That means we need to have some basic rules and a means for enforcing those rules when challenged.
The process defined below will come into play if you decide to challenge the rules and administration of these forums. Banning is the very last resort for us, but for some members, this simply is inevitable. This entire process can happen (from no warnings to outright banning) very quickly for some, depending on their attitude and intentions here. For others, we generally look to their overall contribution and attitude as evidenced in their postings to make our ultimate determinations in this regard.
(1.) Wrist-Slaps:
In most cases, if we see something that mildly crosses the line, we will send you a private message (PM) informing you of the potential problem, and giving you a chance to rectify the situation. For very minor offences, this is not normally recorded by the moderators. An attempt will be made to resolve issues at this level where possible. If this "wrist-slap" advice is ignored, you will advance to the warning system. Wrist-slaps may also be given by members by asking offenders to cool down or by reporting posts.
(2.) Cautionary Warnings:
There can be up to three cautions depending on the severity of the incident. For more serious offences, the warnings can escalate to the next warning level after two cautions. Cautions are recorded by the Moderators. If after a first caution and if things do not improve, a second caution may be sent. Where possible we try to wait at least a day before the next caution and have a different moderator make the followup caution warning. This allows the offender time to reflect on his/her actions and to reconsider inappropriate behaviour. If you receive a caution, you would be wise to pay attention to it and take the proper action to comply. Failure to do so will escalate the issue to the official warning level.
(3.) Official Warnings:
The supervisors are directly involved in official warnings. Depending on the type of violation, the general history of your activities here, or any number of other factors which we do not need to explain, you might only receive one official warning before we resort to suspension or banning. Generally, you are given up to three total warnings (or "three strikes") before your forum privileges are restricted or suspended or terminated, but again, we reserve the right to take any action deemed necessary at any time.
(4.) Forum restrictions:
If even after your first official warning you continue with unacceptable behavior, the Administration might choose to remove certain forum privileges such as removing signature/avatar privileges or by removing your access to specific boards. If not, we proceed to a second official warning or suspension or banning.
(5.) Suspension:
In some cases, we might give a participant some time to think about what they've done, if we think there's even a small chance they might be salvaged. In that situation, we will simply de-activate their full membership, so they can still browse the forums as new members. This suspension could be as short as a few days to a week, or up to a month or more, depending on the problem. In other cases the suspension may be a total removal of access to the forum for either a specified period of time or for an indefinite period depending on the receipt of a promise to follow the rules and refrain from any future such incidents.
(5.) Termination/Banning:
We try our best to never get to this ultimate stage unless it is deemed absolutely necessary by the Administration. If banning is necessary, we not only de-activate your username, but we also submit your username, e-mail address and your IP address into separate "blacklist filters" that are designed to prevent you from re-registering here - or in some cases, even from so much as viewing any of the topics here.
IMPORTANT: Any attempt to circumvent a banning, such as by re-registering under another username, may be met with the most severe response, up to and including notification of your ISP (internet service provider) and local and/or federal authorities where necessary. This is also the course of action for any criminal activity involving the forum and/or its’ members.
(6.) "The Lock Box": Most cautionary and official warnings are the result of a particular post or comment made by the member. In many cases, we will move the problem topic/post to a completely separate, locked and read-only area known as "The Lock Box". The Lock Box is where posts, discussion threads and topics will be moved just before the person who posted it gets a warning from the moderator or some other form of discipline. If you want an idea of what NOT to do around here, just review some of the posts there.
(7.) Appeals: If you think the Moderators and /or Supervisor of Discipline have not treated you fairly, or if you have had a change of heart and can now promise to follow our rules, you can appeal to the Supervisor of Member Care. You will be asked to state your case clearly, supply relevant data and your appeal will be considered.
E. LOCKING TOPICS
At times members question some of the Admin Team’s decision on why a certain topic was locked. Here is a list of RULES that must be followed by members.
Please note the following guidelines APPLY to all forums and are especially relevant in political and religious threads:
1.) If you must comment on someone's opinion, comment on the idea, not the person.
2.) Do not degrade someone because of their political/religious beliefs, age, or ethnicity. This includes calling someone stupid, or any variants thereof, mocking, extreme sarcasm that becomes rude, etc. Respect the nationality of all members, as this can be an especially sensitive topic. Please understand historical sensitivities. For example, mentioning Apartheid might offend South Africans, both white and black, just as slavery is sensitive to Americans, white and black.
3.) Don't say something to someone online that you would not say to a strangers’ face on the street.
4.) Please do not limit threads to certain people, i.e. Canadians only, Americans only, etc.
5.) Understand the sensitivities regarding religion. While you are free to intellectually discuss the morals, history, merits, etc. about individual religions, please understand there is a limit to this, and derogatory comments about ones’ personal religious beliefs will not be tolerated.
6.) Please understand that if you enter a religious or political thread, you are exposing yourself to heated, emotional debate. If those things offend you, please do not read! A lot of members have strong opinions about Politics and Religious topics. We approve debates but not fighting. You can still disagree and show respect at the same time! If you cannot control your emotions, and cannot disagree in a respectful manner, please DO NOT take part in a political/religious threads!
Please be aware of, and understand, the procedure for discipline as outlined below.
If you break any of the aforementioned rules, you can expect the following actions to be taken by the team of moderators and administrators.
1.) The offending topic will be locked. If possible the moderator will attempt to save part of the topic by splitting. If you should disagree with this action, then please contact a moderator first or later an admin, who will listen to the concerns of all parties and address them impartially. A decision by an admin shall be final!
2.) The locked topic will be moved to “The Lockup” which is a read only, locked forum. More severe violations will be moved to the Moderator’s Evidence Room. New posts or posts in other topics asking “Why has my post been deleted?” are not allowed. You may however PM a moderator to ask this question if you really don’t know why.
2.) The offending individual shall be warned by a Moderator or Admin via PM.
3.) If misbehavior continues, then an Admin shall contact the offending member via PM with a letter of concern regarding the members’ inability to follow the rules and guidelines as outlined.
4.) If the member continues to disregard the rules, he will see his privileges reduced to pre-member levels.
5.) Finally, should all else should fail, the member will be banned.
F. GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS & YOUR PRIVACY
(1.) Reply vs. Quote: Please use the "Reply" button to reply, and only use the "quote" button if you really need or want to repeat something another member said in a previous post. There's a tendency to just use the "quote" button all the time, but this adds significantly to the length of a given topic page, diminishes overall readability and generally makes for bad form. If you have trouble using these controls correctly, we will warn you about it.
(2.) Private Messages: If your intentions are good, and another member has opted to receive private messages from the board, you may do so. If you abuse this privilege or send another member any comments that is in anyway personally derogatory or threatening, you'll be dealt with severely. Also, if you need to ask a question or have a complaint for the management (Forum Admin and/or the Moderators), it is preferable - and strongly advisable - to do so by PM. We respect members who respect us, so private gripes or complaints are treated as such. Public gripes and complaints against the management are deemed inappropriate and will likely result in action against you.
(3.) Abuse/Fraud/SPAM: Report any abuse, fraud or spamming to us immediately. Please note, we are not responsible if you willingly post your e-mail address publicly, and then receive spam as a result. There are thousands of automated "spam-bots" which scour millions of websites every day just trolling for fresh e-mail addresses they can add to their mailing lists. Don't make that mistake here, because there's nothing we can do to help you if you post your address for everyone to see.
(4.) Personal Privacy: Everyone is entitled to their privacy, and these forums do as much as is technically possible to protect our members. But you also need to protect yourself: Do not provide any information about yourself or select to display any private information, unless you are willing to face the consequences and potential for abuse by the large number of visitors that come here each day. Also, any posting of someone ELSE'S personal information without their expressed consent will result in an immediately termination of your account. Period.
Your private messages are indeed private and we do respect your privacy in this matter. However if we must investigate some wrongdoing, we reserve the right to view members PM’s and postings only in so far as required by the investigation.
Also, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you configure any desktop or other e-mail filtering, anti-spam or challenge/response services you may use to ALLOW messages from this forum. Spam is a very difficult issue faced by most of us today, but there are other problems that may result if you don't know how to use your own e-mail filtering options. Any account/user here who, by their own inaction or error, causes any automated or other spam-complaints to be sent to our hosting company will be removed from our systems. We absolutely respect our members' privacy, we use a double opt-in registration process, you have total control over whether or not you receive messages from this site through your own account settings and links provided in our communications, this site does NOT sell or share your contact information with anyone, and we are fully complaint with all mailing requirements.
G. ABOUT THE CHADZBOYZ FORUMS
We hope you will find a home here in our community and become a productive and responsible member of our family. We have seen many of our young members grow with the confidence and acceptance they have gained in these forums.
There is also the very real problem we face each day in permitting the participation that we do here - namely that the forums always risk diminishing into nothing more than non-stop, "he said, she said" fighting, angry, hateful "flame-fests", where everyone would rather spend all their time bashing those who don't agree with a few of their opinions, rather than trying to figure out some good answers to the various other issues and problems we face as a community and as individuals..
Such members will not last long here. Our Moderators work hard to keep the forum running smoothly. Some day you too may be a Moderator here. We try hard and bend over backwards at times to work with members who really need to be part of a community for once in their lives. But they have to work with us also. There is a limit to our patience and we cannot allow the actions of a few to disrupt the forum for the many.
H. THE LAST WORD
In summary, just remember that this forum is our "party", we're the hosts, and you are the guests. For example - If you were invited to someone's house for dinner and one of the other guests said something to which you disagreed, you basically have two choices at that point: (1.) start yelling at them in front of everyone else, telling them what a useless waste of human life they are, and generally make a scene which makes you look worse than that person ever could OR (2.) show a little respect for your hosts and conduct yourselves accordingly, take the higher-ground in your discussions, keep it civil and maybe censor YOURSELF by waiting a few moments, letting yourself calm down a bit before opening your mouth.
If you choose the first option above, I'm sorry, but you'll be handed your cap and asked to leave. If you choose the second and better option above, you can stick around for dessert. And if you demonstrate you are also a fairly interesting and wise person, genuinely interested not only in helping educate and inform others, but also in actually LISTENING to their point of view to see if perhaps your own logic and opinion could be improved in any way (because even the best of us is human and fallible), then you'll probably be offered some fine music and expensive chocolates by the fireplace after dessert (in forum talk - given the chance to oversee more of the discussions and to help moderate the forums).
That's how normal civil human discourse and interaction works in the real world, and that's how we hope these forums are maintained.
We devote a lot of energy to trying NOT to ban people from here, as can be attested by the fact that we've only banned about a dozen of the nearly 5,000 members that have come here over the past years. But that effort on our part comes with both a price and an obligation. The price is paid by us (the forum management team) because we have to spend a lot of time basically telling people to just "play nice" with the other kids. The obligation is yours to do so.
So, to all those people who get the point here, we'd like to thank you in advance for holding to the higher ground in your exchanges. It's a great thing to see so many young people who can argue, bicker and generally disagree on just about everything - but still hold on to their humanity. It's very much appreciated around here, even though we don't say so enough.
By the way, "humanity" can mean different things, but in this context, it's very simple: The person here who disagrees with you on almost every topic, and supports almost everything you personally oppose - might also stand up for someone like you at school, one day work to extend rights for gays in his country, or take a bullet in the line of duty. If that happens, would you feel proud - or disgusted at what you said to that person here?
Opinions are important, but let's not sacrifice our humanity in expressing them.
I. VERSION HISTORY
Version 0.1.0: 22 Dec 2005 - initial draft version
Version 0.1.1: 23 Dec 2005 -revised
Version 0.2.0: 28 Dec 2005 -major revision and reorganization
Version 0.2.1: 29 Dec 05-revised
Version 0.2.2: 04 Jan 06 -revised formatting
Version 0.2.3: 18 Apr 06 -revised section on Intellectual Property and added sections on quoting and hotlinking.
Version 0.3.1: 25 Mar 07 –revised and updated for phpbb3
Version 0.3.2: 20 Aug 07 –finalized for phpbb3 & published
Version 0.4.1 02 Oct 07 -updated for Olympus;
-converted to html webpage on forum.chadzboyz2.com
Version 0.4.2 28 Oct 07 -increased max photo size limitations (640 px) to allow for photobucket resizing.
Version 0.5.1 30 Jan 09 – updated with revised terminology
|
