2588 House Rules

Hello everybody,

I think its about time we had a clear(er) set of house rules that will make lives for all of us easier.

Here is a set I propose and I would like you input on this.

Once we settle on something I will post it online alongside a message welcoming the new moderators and reminding people who the old moderators are.

[FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black][B]Please, no flaming or trolling.[/B] Flaming means posting something that's angry and mean-spirited - the online equivalent of flying off the handle. It's not a pretty sight, and we recommend constructive discussion as a far more satisfying pastime. Trolls say deliberately provocative things just to stir up trouble - it's not polite, so please don't do it. the Italy Magazine Forums is an incredibly friendly place, so please help to keep it that way.

[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black][B]Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.[/B] You'll notice 'profane' in the list here. This means that hardcore swearing is not allowed, and if you do swear, a Moderator will **** out all except the first and last letters. If you feel compelled to swear, then use the first and last letters and ****'s for the rest. Some swearing - such as quotes from poems or plays in reviews, for example - may be editorially acceptable, but in everyday communication, it is not. All the types of content above break these House Rules. Please don't post it, or you may find we close down your account if you keep breaking the rules.[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]
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[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black][B]Please be patient.[/B] People of all ages and abilities hang out on the Italy Mag Forums, so please remember this when posting. Remember when you were a newbie, and try to be kind.

[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black][B]No spamming or flooding.[/B] Spamming is the posting of the same (or very similar) messages to lots of forums. Flooding is when the same (or very similar) message is posted over and over again to the same conversation. It's especially antisocial if it's off-topic for those forums. So please don't deliberately send the same message, or very similar messages, to loads of different forums, or post the same message to one Conversation multiple times. We'll simply remove your Postings, and possibly your account.
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[FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black][B]Be careful with including email addresses, instant messaging numbers and the like in contributions, and please do not include anyone else's personal details.[/B] You may include your own personal email address or instant messaging number in Postings (providing it is acceptable, ie not vulgar or offensive), but please be aware that you are potentially opening yourself up to a lot of email, and possibly spam email too, and you should be absolutely sure that you want people to be able to contact you like this. We recommend you set up a new email account specifically for people to contact you on, if you wish to publicise a contact point. It is not acceptable to publicise anyone else's contact details other than your own, and we will remove any postal addresses or telephone numbers from Postings. However, it [I]is[/I] acceptable to include general contact details for companies, for example, but you must [I]only[/I] include publicly available details, such as the address of a restaurant, or the email address for customer support for a company.

[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black][B]Only include suitable URLs in your contributions.[/B] Links to websites we consider unsuitable will be removed, so if you are considering contributing something that contains a URL, please make sure that it adds value and interest to the subject of your article, and isn't, for example, purely commercial. Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, sites that start automatic downloads or sites which may offend our users. We may also have to fail links to sites which are in languages other than English, for the reasons described above. Please note that we do not allow URLs to be included in Nicknames.

[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black]If you fail to abide by these House Rules, then the following procedure will be followed in most cases. Please note that Italy Magazine reserves the right to terminate accounts immediately at its discretion (in the event of such things as criminal behaviour or personal abuse or harrassment of Italy Magazine staff, for example), or to vary the following process as it sees fit (typically by being more lenient). Italy Magazine may also implement a period of individual pre-moderation[URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/hub/HouseRules#footnote3"][/URL] instead of or in addition to the following, at our discretion.[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]
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[*]For the first offence you will receive an official warning from the Editors.
[*]A second offence will mean that your account is suspended for seven days.
[*]A third offence will mean a suspension period of one month.
[*]A fourth offence will result in your account being closed permanently.
[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][/LIST][FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black]In each case the warning or suspension notice will be sent to the email address in your preferences, explaining the nature of the transgression and the process for transgressions. If this email address bounces, then the warning or suspension notice will be posted to your Personal Messages from the Italy Magazine Moderators.
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[FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black]While suspended, returning to the Italy Mag forums by creating another account will constitute a further offence and will extend the suspension to the next period, or will result in your account being closed permanently.
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[FONT=arial, helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=2][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=black]Similarly, asking other community members to post on your behalf while suspended will constitute a further offence on your behalf, and may constitute an offence on behalf of those Members.[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]
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Category

Moderator's Corner

I would suggest that you remove the second offence punishment, seven days is a very short suspnsion , either replace it with a formal, and public notice, or replace seven days with the month, and then onto permanent ban, there should be very few posters who move past the first stage in any event, and it is better, in my view to be rid of persistant offenders as quickly as possible.

[LEFT]Hi george, I think that the seven days one can be used for the not-so-serious offenders (banning someone for a month is basically equivalent to kicking them out of the forum and some people despite all their shortcomings we do want coming back)

formal notices should be private because we might have gotten the wrong end of the stick so its good to give people a chance to reply before publicly demeaning them.

what do the others think?[/LEFT]

Ohh, I see where your coming from, but we gotta debate a bit, gives us something on the table, then you put the rules in :-))
There's a wrong end to a stick ?????? Phew.....

Seriously, it's good to have a set of rules especially for newbies, I suppose that when you embark on something like the site, you have to make your projections to use and are more involved in actually getting the thing uo and running rather than concentrating on the minutiae (I was off the day they spelled that one) then catch up a couple of years down the line.

I have nothing to add to the rules and regs above - it all makes sense.

One thing I would like to suggest is that we make it compulsory on registration that people provide an ISP bonded email address (i.e. not a web based email address). On another forum I used to visit they found that this greatly reduced the incidence of 'trolling' on their forum.

Hello,

All sounds fairly straightforward to me. Agree on the confidentiality bit for 1st & 2nd offences - though I wouldn't mind 'naming & shaming' anyone who gets kicked off the site and explaining why! I guess this would probably happen very rarely anyway...

I'm sure you'll get a couple of sarcastic replies to the rules but at least it clarifies the whole issue.

Sano - not sure what you mean by "...ISP bonded email address (i.e. not a web based email address)." I take it you mean emails related to someone's company or personal website and not emails from the likes of providers like 'hotmail' (as I'm on one... :))?

Bring it on Ronald!!
:eek:

hi,

sano: i see where you are coming from with the ISP e-mail but probably that would exclude too many people. These days a lot of people will just check the forum from an internet cafe.

georgeS & iona: how about follow George's suggestion then and replace the second offense punishment with a public naming and shaming

will give marc and charles a chance to reply and then will go ahead with posting.

thanks everyone!

ronald

[QUOTE=ronald].....

georgeS & iona: how about follow George's suggestion then and replace the second offense punishment with a public naming and shaming ....

ronald[/QUOTE]

Ronald,

We'd have to ensure that it's done in a very neutral manner. Don't want to jeopardise losing valued members too if they get into a strop over someone's 'mistreatment' (as some might perceive it...)...

Stephanie

I am in a bit of a dilemma over public admonishment too, after raising it, although if it was done, softly, you know "George, we have spoken privately about your lapses into ............., a further instance will (is likely to ) result in a suspension from the forum, I am sure we would all wish to avoid this course of action" sort of thing.
Also, in the rules, there is a bracketed comment about being more lenient, as a T.U. official, I would have used that against an employer at every instance just to be awkward, it would mean that you leave yourself open to justifying EVERY decision you make. Leaving the statement out would not leave you open to anything, and, would still allow leniency in the more moderate cases.
Now, on a slightly more humerous note, are we going to run a sweepstake on the first member to replace their keyboard due to overuse of the * button :D
I know the rule must stay in it makes eminent sense, I am really interested in seeing if the swearing goes up as a result, thinking about it, the comments about the rules themselves will probably cause a couple of key boards to melt down ;) :eek:

[LEFT]
Ronald...

Rules seem OK to me. I would add something about advertising. As you know some members have, in the past, directly promoted their activities at every opportunity. I think having links with signatures is sufficient. It is up to a member whether they want to make contact or visit a web site.

Charles

[/LEFT]

Hi Charles, advertising will get a whole section of its own! Essentially what is already posted in the forums.

All the best,

Ronald

Hi Ronald,

I agree 100% with the rules, but the problem is that the people who would benefit most from reading the rules are the least likely to plough diligently through them.

Mind if I submit a condensed version?.....
[indent]

Please, don't post angry or offensive material, or material that could be interpreted that way. People of all ages and abilities hang out on the Italy Mag Forums, so please remember this when posting.

Objectionable material will be edited by the moderators and may result in your being banned from the Forum. By this we mean unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, or racially offensive writing.

Please be patient. Remember when you were a newbie, and try to be kind. The Italy Magazine Forums is an incredibly friendly place, so please help to keep it that way.

Please don't post your entry more than once, even if it's in different areas of the Forum.

Be aware of the implications of including email addresses on the Forum, particularly that their use may help others to 'spam' the addresee. Disclose your own email address if you want, but please, don't state those of other people.

Only link to other web sites if they are relevant to the topic, decent, and informative. Links to business web sites are acceptable, as long as they are not a sneaky attempt at advertising.

If you fail to abide by these rules, our moderators may edit your post, delete it, suspend you or ban you altogether, depending on how serious your offense was.
[/indent]

Any thoughts?

i think you are right mark.

i will post your short version (thanks for taking the time to edit the longer one!) throughout all the forums and keep the longer version (and associated penalities) under FAQ.

Many thanks to all,

Ronald

Absolutely agree with Charles about advertising, we must have something up there. We have a lot of very loyal advertisers who pay good money to go on the site and I know some of them get very fed up with those who use the forum to tout themselves or their products and don't pay for it!