Forum posting guidelines (Read me!)

<font size=3>The Off-Topic forum has been a boon to this photography community for quite a while now. We have had heated discussions on everything from religion to politics and everything in between. Typically these have been very civil conversations with everyone arguing passionately for their point of view but pulling up shy of making personal attacks.

<i>Recently this has been changing.</i>

This website will not tolerate personal attacks of any nature on any person. The site manager and moderators are poised with their fingers on the delete button and anyone who breaks the rules is in danger of having their posts deleted.

We love having an Off-Topic forum. But we're not willing to compromise the overall good nature of the site for it. So please play nice or we may consider closing the Off-Topic forum.

Here is a guideline to help you understand what a personal attack is and whether the comments you are posting are personal in nature:

<b>If you are writing about the person and not about the topic, then you are making a personal comment.</b>

If that comment is deemed to be aggressive, mean-spirited, demeaning, or insulting by any of the moderators you best watch out. Yes, that means the judgment call is in our hands. <i>So it is best to err on the side of caution.</i>

Here are some words that might be considered aggressive, mean-spirited, demeaning, or insulting:
childish
stupid
ignorant

Oh and there are more! Many more... you never know when one of the moderators might decide you are being mean.

So to be safe <i>it might be wise to make all of your comments be about the topic and not about the person you are replying to.</i>

Examples of comments about a person:
"You are stupid for thinking that."
"Anyone who thinks that is stupid."
"Anyone who would say that is stupid."
"Anyone who believes in ______ is stupid."
"Anyone who would vote for ______ is stupid."
"Anyone who owns a _____ is stupid."
"Anyone who would eat a _____ is stupid."

Notice how the personal comment doesn't even need to be directly about the person! Wow we are making this hard!

So keep the discussions about the topics. You'll be safer that way. And trust me, having lots of members makes this site look good, so we hate deleting members.
So do it for us, not for you.

<i>Behave.</i>
Rick

Well said, Rick. Also, name calling says a lot about the name caller.

Thanks Mike for your support!

I'm a moderator on a scrollsaw forum. We've had members get so nasty, even after several temporary bannings, a couple had to be banned permanently. I'm just glad that this forum has never experienced this type of behaviour, at least since I've been a member. We have an amazing mix of members here and I'm proud to be one of them. This is more like one big happy and caring family that is here to help each other out. For everyone's enjoyment, I hope we can keep it that way.

THIS FORUM ROCKS!

After watching a huge increase in spam on this forum I'm going to add something to the guidelines - don't make your first post on the Off Topic forum. If you do, you will most likely be banned. It's almost always the case that people who post first on the OT forum are spammers. If you're really interested in photography, you won't post on the OT forum first.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

After watching a huge increase in spam on this forum I'm going to add something to the guidelines - don't make your first post on the Off Topic forum. If you do, you will most likely be banned. It's almost always the case that people who post first on the OT forum are spammers. If you're really interested in photography, you won't post on the OT forum first.

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PJ, any way to programmatically enforce it?

well people calling other members stupid or idiots should just not be welcome here anymore. I personally believe that these anti social elements do not have other tasks rather than yelling at others and demoralizing decent or new members.