Posting Guidelines and Terms of Use - Must read

[moderator_bob]

Welcome to the Official Transformer Movie forums! Before you begin interacting with other members and users of the Forums, we ask that you review the following guidelines to ensure that everyone has a pleasant, rewarding experience.



Posting Guidelines and Terms of Use

Please respect other members and the content of their posts. This may be a virtual community, but the people here are real and have real questions, thoughts and comments. Although we encourage healthy debate, we reserve the right to remove posts that in our opinion are abusive towards other members, defamatory, harassing, bigoted, sexually explicit, disruptive or otherwise exist solely to insult or violate these Guidelines. We may also remove user names when they violate these criteria.

You will want to visit the Terms of Use for a more detailed explanation of the terms governing your use of the Forums. You are solely responsible for the content of your posts so be sure to click on the Terms of Use link and read the entire article there.




Infraction/Warning System

The following explains the infraction system. It's a good way for you to track how many infractions/warnings you've received and for the Admins to track how many infractions/warnings have been issued.

Each infraction will generate a point. If someone accumulates 3 unexpired infraction points they will be banned for one week. If after a week the returning member continues to accumulate additional infraction points they could be banned for a month or more.

It is possible to get warnings too. Sometimes you will get a warning rather than an infraction. Warnings look like infractions but are worth 0 points and do not count toward your infraction total.

You may view your infractions points on your profile page. No one else is able to see how many infractions you have. If you do not see any infractions listed that means you have not received one. When you do get an infraction, a private message is sent to you. Infraction points expire after a certain number of days, so your point total can go down. Members can get infraction points for the following reasons:



• Not posting a spoiler warning (expires in 14 days)

This will become especially important as the movie draws closer, and once it opens. People need to post a spoiler warning before they post anything that might give part of the movie away.

• Inappropriate Signature or Avatar (expires in 14 days)

This includes any inappropriate pictures, language etc. Harassing or belittling others in your signature is also not allowed.

• Inappropriate Language (expires in 14 days)

This includes sexually explicit language, links to sexually explicit or innaprorpiate sites, vulgarities and swearing. The forum allows ages 13 and up and needs to have content appropriate for all ages.

• Actor/Director/Writer Bashing (expires in 14 days)

This infraction does not apply to those who say they hate someone's work. People are very free to express their thoughts but the name-calling, personal attacks, and general hate language needs to stop. It is distressing and it's not needed to say "I hate this movie (or the writing, or the graphics etc)." Comment on the work, not the person.

• General Disruptiveness - spamming, trolling, derailing threads, etc (expires in 14 days)

Normally trolls and spammers are banned straight off but sometimes a member falls off the good poster wagon and needs to be reminded about proper board etiquette. Also, a few people like to derail discussion threads with totally off topic running conversations and this needs to stop too. We have an off topic section so there is no excuse for hijacking other threads to discuss food, etc.

• Attacking or harassing Other Members (expires in 30 days)

belittling or attacking others for how they think or feel, name calling or debasement of any kind is not allowed. People are free to have their say within reason. If you think someone's post is unreasonable, please report them or place them on ignore.

• Attacking Moderators or Administrators (expires in 30 days)

Self explanatory. People needn't like what we say but we ask them to respect the rules. I will listen to thoughts and concerns but I draw the line at personal attacks.

If anyone tries to circumvent a temporary ban by posting under another user name, they will be banned permanently.

We reserve the right to ban people immediately as we deem appropriate. Please be aware that posters who deliberately and viciously break the rules may be permanently banned with no warning. Ruling on whether a permanent ban is necessary is ultimately left up to the discretion of the board moderators and administrators.





Reporting Posts & the Ignore Feature

If you see a post that is a problem in any way, please do not answer it. Use the report post button which is the triangle in the upper right hand corner of every post. If there is a certain member you’re unable to get along with, use the ignore feature found under the Miscellaneous section of your control panel. If someone is deliberately being disruptive report them but if it’s just a personality issue than it’s your responsibility not to react to them. Use the tools we provide.



If you have any questions regarding the posting guidelines, please visit the thread in the Comments & Suggestions board located here


Also, please do not report posts that were made prior to this posting. I understand there will be some posts that violate these formalized guidelines but we're looking at continuing on from here.



Thank you and happy posting!