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General Rules
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This document is designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members
here at BTRACS Forums. Please read it and become familiar with it, it's terms are
retroactive and agreed by team and group members.
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.
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.
Members are asked to not act as “back seat moderators”. If members note an issue
which contravenes something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it
to the attention of a member of the Moderator Team. Please use the “Report Abuse”
button to report posts. Do not respond to such topics yourself. Members who constantly
“act” as moderators may be warned.
Members should remember this board is aimed at a general audience. Posting generally
offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
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.
Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites. The use of inline
image tags pointing to data stored on third party systems for which the user has
not received permission to link to may be removed.
Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is
users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, very large or very small 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 subject when posting a new topic.
Examples of bad subjects include; "Help me!", "I'm stuck!", "I've got an error!",
etc. Examples of good subjects include; "I'd like to tell you about a new movie
i saw", "Who can recommend a good HD Tracker?", etc.
Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. Users posting spam will be warned
and their post removed.
Members are asked to not disclose to any 3rd party, board, or list any vulnerabilities
in the forums before first notifying the developers. You should send all finds to
the forums administrator. Time should be allowed for us, at least 5 working days
wherever possible, to respond.
The moderating, support and other teams reserve the right to edit, remove or put
on moderation queue any post at any time. Please note that any very first post may
be placed in the moderation queue and may be approved/disapproved according to the
present Rules. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam,
etc. as noted in these points is up to Team Members and not users.
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.
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Signatures
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Signatures may contain up to five lines 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 20KiB (20480 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. Animated images are allowed.
Text sizes should be between 75% and 100% (small and normal). Text in signatures
is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons,
and so forth.
Links in signatures are permitted to a maximum of four unique pages or sites. The
forum's team members are allowed additional links to aid in rendering support for
the forums. Such links may only be to www.btracs.com/* or approved material. Linked
sites may be commercial in nature. You may not include links in a way which suggests
you offer official support, software, etc. for the forums. You may not link to warez,
racist or other similar hate sites. Links are included in signature size limits.
Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or banned.
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Avatars
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Users are permitted to link to an avatar one of their own (subject to previous points
on misuse of bandwidth). User avatars are to be no larger than 500 pixels square,
may contain animation, may NOT contain 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 50KiB (51200 Bytes) 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).
Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, and so
forth.
Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges.
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Forum's Support
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Community based support is offered via the forums. We ask that you do not contact
Team Members or other members of the community for support via PM/IM/email unless
asked to do so. Likewise, it is not necessary to notify us of new replies to your
topic; all members of the staff regularly monitor their respective forums for new
posts.
Please take note of any stickies and announcements (located above regular topics)
as they often contain frequently asked questions and additional forum-specific guidelines.
Bumping a topic (replying directly after your own post) is only permitted after
12 hours have elapsed.
All members of the staff and community are assisting you during their spare time
with only your gratitude as compensation. We ask that you consider this before posting.
No support will be provided for any person suspected of illegal activity, including
copyright violation.
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Support of MODs, Styles, etc. and linking offsite
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Members may include or post links to 3rd party sites in an effort to render support
for the forums in response to a support request (including requests for Mods not
available at this site). Members are not permitted to post links to material unrelated
to the forums or where linked material is not relevant to a given support request.
General linking (within posts) to other sites is generally permitted. Exceptions
may be made.
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Policing
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The forums operate a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three
times for any and all offences in one month period. If the need arises for a fourth
warning a temporary ban will be put in place of between 1 to 7 days.
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.
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 the warning.
Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban or other moderator action will lead to
a permanent ban of your account(s). Circumvention includes re-registering or using
an already registered account under a non-banned username. Other examples include
changing IP addresses, using a new email account or other action that can be taken
to evade moderator action to hide your identity as the owner of the sanctioned account.
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.
Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them.
While the forums team members may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time
this is a rare occurrence.
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