RCReptiles.com

[RonCrawford]

RCReptiles.com Forum Policies
This document is designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members here at www.RCReptiles.com/forum. Please read it and become familiar with it. Its terms are retroactive and agreed by team and group members. RCReptiles.com reserves the right to change these rules and regulations from time to time at its sole discretion.

1. Forum Rules
1. 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 may be given a warning (see policing below).
2. Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
3. Members are asked to not act as "back seat moderators". If members note an issue that contravenes something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it to the attention of a member of the Moderator Team. Only do this if a moderator team member has not replied within 6 hours. Do not respond to such topics yourself. Members who consistently "act" as moderators may be warned.
4. Members should remember this board is aimed at a general audience. Posting pornographic or generally offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
5. Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users linking to or asking for information on warez, crackz, etc. or re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and their post will be removed.
6. Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites. The use of inline ([IMG][/IMG]) image tags pointing to data stored on third party systems for which the user has not received permission to link to may be removed.
7. Members should post in a way that is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or colored text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g.! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned. Members should use an appropriate, descriptive title when posting a new topic.
8. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering hosting services (charged and free), installation services, solicitation, ball pythons for sale, ball pythons wanted, how much is my ball python worth, etc. You are implicitly agreeing to a non-compete with RCReptiles.com and are not allowed to offer, post or provide links to animals for sale if they compete in any way, shape or form with animals offered by RCReptiles.com. We spend a considerable amount of money each month on marketing our website and animals so it's unfair for persons to "piggy back" off our marketing endeavours, traffic and resources by attempting to monetize from our efforts and capital expenditures. Recruiting of any sort (moderators, designers, professional MOD work etc.), be it for paid or unpaid jobs, is not permitted either. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed.
9. Members are asked to not disclose to any 3rd party, board, or list any vulnerabilities in phpBB before first notifying the developers. You should submit all finds to our security tracker. Time should be allowed for us, at least 3 working days wherever possible, to respond.
10. The moderating, support and other teams reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to Team Members and not users.
11. The above forum rules where applicable also apply to private messaging. Abuse of the private messaging system may lead to warnings (as above) and/or the revocation of private messaging.

2. Signatures
1. Signatures may contain up to five lines (one line being that displayed on a browser opened to 800px width) of text (of small or normal size) and/or one image, valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 60px high, 468px wide and 6kB (6000 Bytes) in size. Signatures containing an image this large may also include one line of small size text. Signatures containing an image of 30px high may include up to three lines of small size text or two lines of normal size text. Images of 15px height or less may allow up to three lines of normal size text or four lines of small size text.
2. Text sizes should be between 9 and 12 (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons, and so forth.
3. Links in signatures are permitted to a maximum of four unique pages or sites. Linked sites may be commercial in nature. You may not link to warez, porn or political, racist or other similar hate sites. Links are included in signature size limits.
4. Users abusing these rules will be warned.
5. See rule #8 in Forum Rules above.

3. Avatars
1. Users are permitted to utilize a gallery avatar or to link to one of their own (subject to previous points on misuse of bandwidth). User defined avatars are to be no larger than 90 pixels square, contain no animation, contain no image which attempts to portray the user as having an official status here (e.g. mimicking ranks or copying avatars of team members), may not exceed 6kB (6000 Bytes) in file size and have a consistently high availability (i.e. links to images on slow servers or those prone to failure may be removed).
2. Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with to respect decency, and so forth.
3. Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges

4. Policing
1. RCReptiles.com/forum operates a three-strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offences in a three month period. If the need arises for a fourth warning a temporary ban will be put in place of between 1 to 7 days.
2. Arguing with team members after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed three strikes a temporary ban will be put in place as above.
3. Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact the relevant team leader, e.g. if warned by a moderator you should contact the Moderator team leader. If they feel you were treated badly they may remove a warning. Their decision is final. Contacting group members over warning matters should be done so as a very last resort ... group members do not want to be bothered unless vital.
4. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account of evade an email ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
5. An exception to the three-strike rule applies when users contact team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.
6. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While RCReptiles.com may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time, this is a rare occurrence. We do however reserve the right to issue an immediate ban on a member without giving him or her any prior warnings if we feel such an action is necessary. Bans do not require any explanation on the part of moderators or administrators. A complimentary email may be sent to a banned member informing him or her of their status but any further explanation, discussion or dialogue about why the ban was issued is solely at the discretion of the administrator.

[RonCrawford]

1. Forum Rules
12. Do not create threads along the theme of "What do you think about the ball python market?" or "What will ball python prices be in the market for this or that this year?", etc. so on and so forth. There are plenty of forums out there that discuss this type of rhetoric and these sort of topics don't add value to our forum.
13. Do not create threads or make inquiries about other ball python breeders or their animals in our forum. Again, there are other forums out there where you can inquire about other breeders, their animals and their reputations.
14. Members are not allowed to create threads or solicit members openly, indirectly, through private messages or the chat room with the intent to either buy, sell, trade, give away, etc. so on and so forth, ball pythons or solicit market pricing. This is considered SPAM (see section 1.8).
15. This is a ball python and reptile themed forum so please do not post religious, political, sexual related, economy, etc. threads or material in our forum.