For a number of reasons, none of which I'll go into right now, I thought it might be a good idea to give new members and potential new members a bit of guidance regarding things which may be unique to this forum. Established members can feel free to contribute to this list, as I'm sure I won't cover everything.

In no particular order:

Political discussion: Members are free to discuss politics with few restrictions. Some members will tell you that given the shamefully biased nature of our news media these days, they rely on SIGforum for the truth, separated from all of the propaganda.
There should be no threats or declared wishes of harm coming to politicians. Such things will get you the wrong kind of attention in this forum.
The biggest thing to remember, though, is that you should never introduce politics into threads which are not political in nature. No one here wants to have every topic stained with politics.

An example:

Member A: "I bought new tires and they suck!"

Member B: "You know what else sucks? Congress!"

Never do this type of thing here. Feel free to create a thread and complain about politics to your heart's delight, but keep politics completely out of non-political discussions. All of the above is true for religion as well; the subject is allowed to be discussed freely, but should never intrude into threads whose topics do not deal with religion.

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Profanity: Profanity is allowed in this forum, with a couple of reasonable limitations. There should be no profanity in the subject lines of threads. This is explained here: https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/8191014801

Cursing is an art form. If you overdo it, using profanity excessively, or if you are particularly vulgar in a disgusting way, the admin will show up. Be artful, or refrain from the profane in the main.

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Commenting on the appearance of others: With rare exception, we do not allow commentary on the appearance of others. Any grade school boy can call someone ugly or fat, or ridicule how someone dresses or combs their hair or whatever. This type of thing indicates a dull intellect or, at the very least, a lack of maturity. Such remarks should not appear on the pages of this forum. If you wish to criticize someone, focus on what is important- their words and their actions.

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Subject lines of threads should be clear and unambiguous: When creating a thread, please make sure that the subject line you choose indicates clearly the subject matter of the thread. You should not use "click-bait" subject lines, or vague subject lines, or subject lines which mislead members. Please give members the opportunity to decide if they want to open your thread.

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Posting of news items or other content from external sites: All posted news items must be accompanied by a link to the source. When copying and pasting content from other sites, please make an effort to make sure there are not extraneous items included. News stories will often have links or other text embedded between paragraphs of these stories. Please make an effort to omit such things from what you post.

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Subject matter to avoid: Please do not post sensationalist news items and avoid in particular "Breaking News" about mass shootings. This is explained in detail here: Mass shootings, media conglomerates, and SIGforum. Rushing to post such things in the forum is not viewed favorably by forum ownership. Early on in such incidents, much is not known and much of what is reported is speculative at best and many times is flat-out wrong. Allow time for facts to become clear. We are not talking about waiting hours to post on such things. We are talking about waiting days to post about such things, and that's if we jump on the bandwagon at all, which we usually do not.


Also, avoid posting conspiracy theories or engaging in fantastical speculation. This stuff really annoys the admin.


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Before posting to a thread, please take the time to read the initial post and as much of the thread as practical. Naturally, if you encounter, say, a 25 page thread, it is not practical to try to read every post before commenting, but please make an effort to understand clearly the subject matter of the thread, and avoid drifting threads by interjecting extraneous comments. Stay on topic.

Also, before posting a news item- particularly on current events which have a good likelihood of already being posted in the forum- perform a quick search or at least scan the page to make sure the item has not already been posted.

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Avoid nested quotes. There are quotes within quotes. This can happen when there is an extended exchange between two members. You can quote someone without including the previous portion of the exchange. Nested quotes needlessly take up a lot of real estate on a page and add nothing to a discussion because they are reproducing what has already been posted in the thread. Quotes can be edited to remove text which is already been posted in a thread. If unsure how to go about this, please ask for assistance. Forum members will be happy to help.


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Participation in the Classifieds section of this forum: The Classifieds section of this forum is provided as a courtesy for participating members. A participating member is someone who doesn't use the forum's bandwidth merely for the purposes of commerce. Any member who places ads in Classifieds is expected to contribute content to other sections of the forum. Because of recent scammer activity, it may be that before too long, there will be restrictions placed on new members using Classifieds, such as a minimum post count, or date of registration, or perhaps both of these things. Whatever may happen along those lines, we expect members who use Classifieds to demonstrate that they wish to be real members of this forum, participating in the discussions taking place in its various sections.

Please do not create multiple ads in Classifieds at one time; combine all items for sale into one single ad. You may bump your ad no more than once a day.

All items posted for sale must include a price. "Make me an offer" is not allowed. No auctions are allowed in Classifieds.

Items placed for sale in this forum should not be listed for sale anywhere else. All listings must be exclusive to this forum. Explained here: https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/3430091733

Additionally, members should refrain from commenting in the ads of other members unless they intend to conduct business with the creator of an ad, or they are considering conducting business with the creator of an ad. Never interfere with a member's ad. Any concerns or suspicions you may have about an ad or the creator of an ad should be conveyed to forum staff via the Report-This-Post function, which appears as the small yellow triangle in the lower right hand corner of every post. Using this function will cause an alert to be sent to the administrator. I assure you that your concerns will be taken seriously and the post or thread in question will be reviewed carefully.

Also, selling outside of Classifieds is strictly forbidden as is soliciting members to sell. Outside of Classifieds don't offer anything for sale, do not attempt to purchase anything from other members, or trade anything, etc. Along those lines, please do not post any links to active auctions.

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Price checks: SIGforum allows no price checks. Price check inquiries signal that a member is seeking the value of an item in preparation for selling it, and this is tantamount to selling outside of Classifieds, which is prohibited.

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Registering for the forum: Recently, because of scammer activity, it became necessary to add three new required fields in the Profile form- City, State and Country. You must answer honestly in these fields. When you register, your IP address is logged. As part of the screening process, your IP address is traced in order to ascertain your physical location. If what you put into the State field (or, in the case of those outside of the United States, the Country field) does not match the results of the IP address trace, your application will be rejected. As part of introducing yourself to the forum, we must be able to determine your actual location. This means also that if you are disguising your location at the time of registration, by using a VPN, your application will be rejected. Now, after you've registered, you are free to use a VPN when accessing the forum generally (though I would rather not see VPN use in Classifieds, for reasons which should be apparent). Again, I cannot stress it enough- when you register, answer the required fields honestly. Your street address, I couldn't care less about it, and this is not a required field. You can leave this blank if you wish. Also, your location- city, state and country- as listed in your profile can be viewed by the forum admin only. This information is not visible to anyone else. There is a "Location" field in your profile, and whatever you put into that field is visible to all members, but this field is optional. You can leave it blank if you wish.

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Your personal information: SIGforum has never, and will never, sell your information. Personally, I find such things loathsome. Your information is safe with us.


What else, gents? I know I've missed some things?

No selling outside of the classifieds.

Thank you. I added that to my post.

Price checks are considered selling outside the classifieds.

No more than one "for sale" ad at a time for non-commercial members.

Thread titles that clearly identify the content of the thread.

Cute, cryptic, or unclear titles that require someone to enter the thread to see what it is about can get the thread locked/deleted and bring unwanted attention from the admins.

No links to live auctions?

There are certain phrases which will get a thread locked immediately.

I know it could be exhausting to have a list, but there are a few that stick out like a sore thumb.

Can registration requirements include going to this list of rules and at least checking a box that says they read and agree to them?
I understand that there is no way to verify they actually read them but it removes the "I didn't know" story.

Just a thought and I've been guilty of it too but a reminder or statement to be aware of what SECTION you are about to post to by checking that before you hit Post. There's nothing more annoying to me than someone asking about a pistol in The Lounge or discussing ammo in What's Your Deal. I know it sometimes can be a fine line if something belongs in the general discussion area of The Lounge or in the pitch your bitch discussion area of What's Your Deal.

Items listed for sale may not be listed anywhere else. (Dealers are exempt from this)

Link to rule

Good, thank you. All added.

When copying an article, and pasting to the forum for people to read, please edit your paste. Sometimes it contains script for ads, or repeats unnecessarily.

Also, those articles need to have links.

You must post a price for the item. Bidding wars (Sigforum Auctions) are not permitted unless authorized by the Admin. No 'make an offer' posts.

Thank you. All added.

When you get pissed for whatever reason don't ask to have your acct. deleted....Just leave.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
When you get pissed for whatever reason don't ask to have your acct. deleted....Just leave.

I think we'll leave the terms of the exit interview out of it.

^^^ covered in the waiver ^^^

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Can registration requirements include going to this list of rules and at least checking a box that says they read and agree to them?
I understand that there is no way to verify they actually read them but it removes the "I didn't know" story.

There's some great guidelines in Para's OP. I think 220-9er's suggestion would be very helpful in the long run.

Do a quick search before posting so as not to duplicate

Something about school shootings or mass shootings and speculation and such. I don't remember the specifics - I just stay out of it.

If it's a "meme" thread - don't post a bunch of written comments.

Don't copy and paste huge long reply chains.