Talk Montgomery Rules and Regulations

[capcityfreepress]

Aside from standard forum etiquette, Talk Montgomery has a few specific actions and types of behavior we prohibit. These things are listed below. We do not enjoy having to burden our users with various rules and regulations, but the policies listed here are in direct response to problems we have encountered with some previous users. This list does not cover everything prohibited on this forum - no pornography, no personal attacks or harassment of other users, and no Spam for example - because we’d like to think everyone will apply good judgment when participating here and not have to be monitored like a child. We will, however, add items as new problems arise, and whenever Talk Montgomery implements a new policy, it will be added to this post.

If you have any *serious* questions or concerns about any of these items, please post those to this thread or send me a private message.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.


‘Hidden’ links not allowed - Posted August 20, 2009

We have encountered some users, primarily Spammers, including ‘hidden’ links in their posts, signature lines and/or profile. Spammers typically use this tactic to cause forum users to mistake the link for something else in order to create traffic for their website. For example, hiding a link to an “adult” website within the text of the words: “Yahoo Search”--without checking by mousing over the text, a user may be fooled into thinking the link is to the Yahoo search engine and click on it only to be taken to the adult website (or something worse) instead. Sometimes well-meaning forum users will obscure the URL to a website in the text of their message simply to avoid having to cut and paste a URL which may be quite long. But regardless, please refrain from including any ‘hidden’ links in your posts, profile and/or signature line even if you have no malicious intent so that we can avoid any confusion.


Inactive members - Posted July 15, 2009

Beginning August 15, 2009, members of Talk Montgomery who have not made a post within a year (since August 15, 2008) will have their membership deleted. We can only assume that members who have not participated for such a lengthy amount of time are no longer interested in using this forum, and retaining those inactive memberships only eats up needed database space. After deleting the applicable, inactive memberships on August 15, we will continue purging inactive memberships on a regular basis in the future, but we will always post a notice and/or send a mass email to all registered users prior to doing so.

UPDATE: The next purging of inactive members is scheduled for December 31, 2009.


Editing posts - Posted May 14, 2009

Unlike many forums, we do not restrict a member's ability to "edit" a post they have made. We allow "editing" because we believe users should be at liberty to correct typos, bad links, misspellings, etc. However, we've now encountered two users who have deliberately returned to threads in which they've participated and completely removed all the contents of their posts and replaced the posts with nothing but smilies throughout most, if not all, of the thread.

It should go without saying that doing such a thing completely wrecks a thread and ruins it for other users since it renders them unable to follow the discussion due to the missing posts. It's not fair to our members - especially those participating in that thread - for someone to be so petty and disruptive as to go back and ruin it for everyone by removing the contents of their posts.

We do not want to restrict anyone's ability to "edit" their posts providing they are doing so for honest, legitimate reasons as described above. But any user who alters their posts by removing all of the content for the sole purpose of disrupting the thread or trying to cover up something they previously posted will be BANNED.


Posting of personal and/or private information - Posted February 13, 2009

Talk Montgomery has experienced several instances recently of users posting personal information about private citizens and/or other users. This is dangerous behavior and violates the privacy of others. Please do not post the personal information of ANYONE, a private citizen OR another Talk Montgomery user. This may range from posting a user's actual name in part or full without their consent; posting other personal information available on another user found at another website without their consent (MySpace page, personal home page, etc.); revealing information about another user's employer when that user has not given consent to post the information or has never referenced it him or herself; posting ANY personal information ranging from someone's medical or relationship or employment status when he/she is NOT a public figure, etc. I believe this covers everything in general, but if you would like to post information and you're not sure whether it falls under any of these categories or not, contact me to discuss it via private message BEFORE posting it.

This forum is NOT intended as a means to "out" someone in regards to their identity, employment, line of work or any other personal status, etc. We will not tolerate it under circumstance.


Linking to and posting copyrighted material - Posted January 21, 2009

A user of this forum has been banned for repeated copyright violations. I had warned him several times and given him clear explanations on why we cannot violate copyright laws with the content we post, and I provided instructions on how to post content appropriately in order to avoid such problems. Not everyone may be aware of these procedures (though they have been posted on many occasions when similar violations have occurred on this forum), but once you have been warned MULTIPLE times and continue to do it (as was the case with this user), ignorance is no longer an excuse and we can only believe at that point that such actions are DELIBERATE.

I cannot stress this enough: You CANNOT copy and paste ENTIRE articles from any media outlet or any other content provider which are COPYRIGHTED. This includes content from media websites - Montgomery Advertiser, WSFA, CNN, the AP news wire - and even many blogs and websites such as Wikipedia. Posting entire articles or even the majority of an article - especially without even providing a link to the article’s source - is a copyright violation, and we will not tolerate it.

Here are some tips and guidelines for posting copyrighted content:

-When posting content, ALWAYS include the link to the article… NO EXCEPTIONS. Also, you cannot link to just the main page of a website that contains that article--you MUST link to the actual page which contains THAT article.

-Only SAMPLE from the article in your post and use the QUOTE feature so other users know they’re reading content from the ARTICLE and not your own words. For example: If an article is 10 paragraphs long, you shouldn’t include more than a few paragraphs of it in your post. There will be some instances in which an article is very short--in such a case, you may just have to post the link to the article and not quote it at all in order to be safe. And of course, no one’s obligated to quote from an article at all--simply posting a link to an article is fine. (For a very lengthy article, you may post more than a few paragraphs providing you’re STILL not posting the majority of the article.)

-Please use the ACTUAL HEADLINE of an article you’re posting, as in the headline written by the media outlet and provided with the article. If you change the headline, two things are probably going to occur: 1) No one is going to know what your post is about and so they’ll be less likely to read it; 2) changing the headline from the original will make it more likely that someone else will post the exact same article since they won’t recognize your post includes the same thing. (In some cases, a headline will be too long to fit into the subject box. If that’s the case, just fit as much as you can in the subject box and/or re-word it if you feel comfortable doing so.)

-Some written and distributed materials are okay to post, such as press releases and public notices. If you’re not sure whether something is copyrighted or acceptable to post for any other reason, simply ask an admin or moderator and get it cleared BEFORE you post it. (An example of something that may fall into a gray area would be the Montgomery Advertiser poll questions I often post. They’ll post a single, one-sentence question without an article or anything, and I’ll post it here for discussion, however, I’ll also state in the subject box that it’s an M.A poll question and I’ll STILL include the link to the poll question on the Advertiser’s website.)

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"I don't care about the Constitution." -Bill O'Reilly

[TalkMontgomery]

Notice: Please reserve this thread for serious inquiries about Talk Montgomery's rules and regulations. This thread is not in place for anyone to use as a means to launch personal attacks and/or make false allegations against another user or the administrators of this forum.

The previous posts which were unrelated to our rules and regulations have been deleted. Members and visitors alike read this thread to stay abreast of any policy changes or additions we may make, not to sift through a childish pissing contest riddled with false claims, name-calling and other troll-like behavior.

Any serious questions not addressed in our rules and regulations can be addressed to any mod or admin via private message, or you can post them as a separate thread.

Thank you for your cooperation.