(18 Sep 2006)
Board-wide Policies

This document is designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members here at the Dimond JROTC Portal. Please read it and become familiar with it. Its terms are retroactive.

1. Forum rules: First and foremost, this is a discussion board dedicated to topics of interest to our program. Posts that are not considered relevant to this subject will be removed and the user warned.

a. 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 (see policing below).

b. 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.

c. Members should remember this board is aimed at a general audience. Posting pornographic or offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning. In addition, adding punctuation to prevent a normally censored word to appear will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.

d. Members should post in a way that is consistent with "normal writing". This means users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or colored text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. While correct spelling is not demanded, abbreviated spelling (as commonly used in text messaging) is expressly forbidden. Users consistently abusing these guidelines will be warned.

e. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering anything for sale, services, etc. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed.

f. The board administrator(s) and/or moderators reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, or simply "chatty" as noted in these points is up to the administrators and moderators and not regular users.

g. 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.

h. Users should limit themselves to a single account on this board. Members who open up a second account will have that account deleted. If the problem continues to occur, it will be grounds for an official warning and possible removal from the board.

i. Members will refrain from directly attacking individuals, whether identified by name or position. Such posts only give one side of an issue and rapidly degrade into name-calling and useless complaining. Posts deemed to violate this rule will be deleted without notice.

j. Discussions and posts within the element forums (e.g. Staff or A-3) should remain professional at all times and be related to a professional topic. Posts should have substantial and worthwhile information. One word or one-line posts will generally be deleted and the poster warned. Generally, if something is important enough for you to post it should have enough information to take up at least two or more sentences. "Chatty" type posts on non-JROTC topics will be confined to the Lynx General Forum. Further, if members want to pass informal and one-on-one information to another member they should do so using PMs and emails, not posts within established topics. Violations will be deleted by moderators and administrators.

2. Signatures

a. Signatures may contain up to 255 characters over 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 - valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 60px high, 400px wide and 10KB 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.

b. Text sizes should be between 9 and 12 (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, emoticons, etc.

c. Pictures of individual Cadets, whether identified or not identified, are NOT allowed either in posts or within the signatures on this board.

d. Links are permitted in signatures. Links are included within the text and image limits above. Links to offensive sites will be subject to removal without notice.

e. Users abusing these rules will be warned and may be given Yellow Flags as noted below in section 5.

f. Moderators and Administrators may exceed the five-line limit for signatures due to the fact that they have additional lines of contact information they need to make available to users of the boards, and the signature line is a useful way of doing this

3. Avatars

a. Due to the recent global attacks against this style of portal by Muslin hackers, users are no longer permitted to upload avatars. This is one of the avenues of access that was used to damage or destroy many sites.

b. Dimond users shall access the avatar gallery and select the appropriate rank insignia to correspond with their current grade. When a cadet is promoted, they will then select the avatar to correspond with their promotion. Updating avatar rank insignia will not take place until after the promotion ceremony is actually held. c. Users not members of Dimond JROTC may access the yellow simile faces from the avatar gallery and select from them.

4. Private Messaging (PM)

a. Private messages sent and received are not really private. The contents of these messages can and may be reviewed by discussion board administrator(s). This review process is done at random to ensure that portal members are not the subject of harassment.

b. If a portal member is being harassed via the private message system, they should contact a portal administrator. The portal administrator will review the PM records. If it is discovered that a member has been using the PM system to harass another member, they will be given an official warning. If the harassment is serious enough in the opinion of the administrator, the offending member may be immediately banned from the discussion board or have their PM privileges taken away.

5. Policing

a. This board operates on a three-strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offenses in a three month period. If the need arises for a fourth warning a temporary ban will be put in place of between 1 to 7 days.

b. Arguing with administrators or moderators after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed three warnings, a temporary ban will be put in place as above.

c. Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact MSG Shelley (discussion board founder). If he feels you were treated badly he may remove a warning. His decision is final.

d. 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 to evade an email ban.

e. An exception to the three-warning rule applies when users contact administrators or moderators personally (via any method) with insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.

f. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While MSG may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence. g. On each occasion where a ban is put in to place, the portal administrator will directly contact the banned member's JROTC Unit.

6. Data Base Storage & Cookies

a. As a user you agree to any information you have entered above being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, the webmaster, administrator and moderators cannot be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

b. This forum system uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any of the information you have entered above; they serve only to improve your viewing pleasure. The e-mail address is used only for confirming your registration details and password (and for sending new passwords should you forget your current one).

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