BratBoard

[michael]

(based on the phpBB Forum Rules)

BratBoard Policies
You are strongly encouraged to read and understand this document, which is intended to clarify the responsibilities of BratBoard community members. By participating on this board, you agree to abide by what it says.

Forum rules

• Posts are to be made in appropriate forums. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions before posting. Users consistently posting to the wrong forum may be given a warning.
  
  
• Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. There is a fine line between satire and attack, and between strongly worded opinion and personal invective. Take issue with ideas, not personalities. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning. Spelling and grammar corrections? Not cool.
  
  
• Don't be a back-seat moderator. If you see something on this board you think is inappropriate, bring it to the attention of the board moderators instead of posting a reply to the board. Members who consistently "act" as moderators may be warned.
  
  
• 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 or ban. Individual forums may have different tolerances for incivility and conflict: what is acceptable in one forum might not be acceptable in another. This is intentional: we want different forums to develop their own community standards for what constitutes acceptable behavior. By posting to a forum, you agree to abide by the standards for that forum.
  
  
• Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users posting inappropriate links or artwork, or re-printing material without permission, will receive a warning and their post will be removed.
  
  
• Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites by not overloading messages to make them "pretty." 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 will be removed and may result in a warning.
  
  
• Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing." Users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small, or colored text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (?!?!?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned.
  
  
• Members should use an appropriate, descriptive title when posting a new topic. Examples of bad titles include "Hey" and "You Out There?" Examples of good titles include "2005 Reunion Update" and "DH'95 minireunion."
  
  
• Check your facts before you post. Do not, under any circumstances, post anything about spam, virus warnings, or anything designed to be 'forwarded to all your friends' to this list. If it is something cute, funny, or touching that you found on the Internet, don't post it here. Be assured most members have already seen it.
  
  
• Members are encouraged to use the test forum for general "test purposes." For example, you should use the test forum to check signatures, test a link or image, or learn how to use BBCode markup. Do not post test messages in other forums.
  
  
• Members may not open more than one user account at a time. Attempts to do so will result in a warning. The only exception to this is when a user requests permission to maintain a 'public' account and anonymous 'private' account at the same time because of special circumstances (currently working in Arabia, participating in a private discussion forum, etc.) Contact bratboard-admin@aramco-brats.com for more information.
  
  
• Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering any sort of commercial service or putting a link for commercial services in a post. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed.
  
  
• Although this board is operated by the ABI, users are free (and in fact encouraged) to offer positive and negative comments on ABI issues and operation. Nobody will be penalized for criticizing the ABI or individual officers, provided that they abide by normal rules of polite conversation.
  
  
• The ABI reserves the right to edit or remove any post or ban any user temporarily or permanently, at any time, for any reason. The determination of what is considered indecent, vulgar, spam, obnoxious, or inappropriate is the sole discretion of the Moderators. We want this to be a happy, thriving community: users who want to push the limits of what is acceptable are not welcome and may be invited to to exercise their Free Speech rights elsewhere.
  
  
• 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.
  

Signatures

• 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.
  
  
• At a minimum, signatures should identify your name and district/year so that other users know who they're talking to. This can be omitted if people can identify your real name from your username.
  
  
• Text sizes should be between 9 and 12 (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect to appropriateness of content.
  
  
• Links are permitted in signatures. Links to commercial ventures are acceptable within reasonable limits. (Posting a one-line message so you can advertise your business is not reasonable.) Links are included within the text and image limits above. Links to offensive sites will be removed and the user will be warned.
  

Avatars

• Users are permitted to use the site's avatar gallery 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 8KB in filesize, and must have a consistently high availability (i.e. links to images on slow servers or those prone to failure may be removed).
  
  
• Users should not copy the avatar belonging to other users. Avatars in the site's avatar gallery do not belong to any one user, and users who choose an avatar from the site gallery should realize other users may choose the same avatar.
  
  
• Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect to appropriateness.
  
  
• Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or will lose their avatar privileges.
  

Moderators and Warning Policies

• Moderators are appointed by the site administrators for a specific forum or for the entire board on an as-needed basis. Please do not volunteer to be a Moderator.
  
  
• Moderators are responsible for ensuring that messages in a forum are consistent with the purposes of the board and serve Brat community interests. Moderators can remove or edit messages that are not consistent with forum or board standards. Moderators can issue warnings to users who post messages that are inconsistent with forum or board standards. By using this board, you agree to abide by Moderators' judgement as to what is inappropriate.
  
  
• BratBoard operates on a three-strike basis. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offenses in a three month period. If the need for a fourth warning arises, a temporary ban will be imposed. Users who are banned three times in a year will be banned permanently.
  
  
• Arguing with moderators 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.
  
  
• Users who feel they have been unfairly warned can contact the site administrators (webmaster@aramco-brats.com). If the site administrator feels a warning was overkill, the warning will be removed. If the site administrator determines that a warning was appropriate, the warning stands. Contacting the site administrator over a warning should be a last resort: stop whining and behave, fercryinoutloud.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact BratBoard team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.