My Dear Hard Drive

On the post Handling conflict on a forum I was pondering situations that put your discussion group in danger. One of the best ways to pre-empt a problem is to come up with good set of rules, that are easy to read and easy to understand. Most free boards and site packages come with a default terms of use, but practically nobody ever reads them, so they are useless in the sense of creating harmony, but perfect for covering your ass legally. If you can be bothered to read them through yourself, I congratulate you, I haven’t yet… So I prefer to write my own rules. The following rules are written for a general topic discussion board with adult users on it. Don’t ever copy and paste them without reading them through and seeing if they actually fit on your site. This is to help you think. (Comments written in italic, and are not meant to be included in the rules.)

1. Discussions on this board are to be written in good humour. Any user that is creating and promoting negativity by in any way provoking other users on this board can be banned for set period of time or permanently according to case-by-case consideration by the administrator.

2. Humour needs to be funny - do not try to insult a fellow member and cover it with humour.

3. Tasteful erotic / sexual content is allowed. Health related topics are welcome. Pornographic photos and texts are not allowed. (If you are not sure if your content is okay, ask the moderators or administrator.)

4. All content provided by you remains yours. The site does not claim any copyrights of sent material. Also, you are responsible for any content you send, and remain so in all circumstances.

5. All content on restricted user areas like “members only” or “certain members only” sections is to be kept between the allowed users. Mentioning this content is allowed if the people in question remain unidentifiable. (Take into account the situation and their friends, who may know enough to put two + two together.) Understandably it is hard to control, and hard to judge, but it would be too much to ask of members to never mention anything to their spouses for example.

6. Do not rate users expecting them to rate you back. Positive feed back systems are to give an accurate idea of a user, not to promote a popularity contest.

7. Any harassment of members via public or private messages result to an immediate ban. Harassment includes but is not restricted to unwanted sexual comments, repeated dating requests, insulting comments and the like.

8. Avoid using animated images as your avatar. If you animate, keep it stylish and discreet so that your avatar doesn’t irritate readers. You may be asked to change your avatar, or it may be changed for you.

9. Keep signatures at reasonable length. The larger signature area is there to enable users to use html or javascript on their signatures, creating a small interactive signature. Keep the size under 150 pixels high, which is about the hight of your avatar + user name on the side of your message. (Depending on site settings.)

10. When posting images and long links, make sure they do not stretch the site layout out of proportion. If this happens, make the image smaller or use the Link-tool to create a linking word instead of the whole URL. This applies to signatures as well.

11. If a member tries to take or takes advantage of another user, for example agreeing to a trade without holding up to the agreement, his or her access will be limited or denied, depending of the situation.

12. The administrator reserves the right to edit or add to these rules at any time there is need to. New rules will be announced on the board.

13. Any violation against these rules or the spirit of the rules can result into full or partial ban or removal of the account without notice. A person who has received a limited time ban, will be excluded from any post count groups from then on.

Ps: It’s not advisable to edit rules right after someone does something wrong that is not included in the rules, even though I end up doing that all the time - as a lot of times people keep surprising you with the things they do…