Parent Chat Community Rules

[leela]

Parent Chat Community Rules
http://www.smartparenting.com.ph/parentchat/index.php?topic=115.0

Welcome to Parent Chat! This is the companion forum to www.smartparenting.com.ph, where members are encouraged to discuss parenting issues, share information, and interact with the rest of the community.

Please observe the following rules at all times when participating in the forum.


GENERAL CONDITIONS

I. Administrators and Moderators

Administrators manage the site and operations of Parent Chat and the www.smartparenting.com.ph site. They set the policies, manage the boards, and handle the technical issues pertaining to the forum’s appearance, structure, and member accounts. Global Moderators enforce the policies set by the administrators. They supervise order in the forum and implement the decisions of the administrators. They have access over the entire forum and guide the discussions in specific boards.

The administrators reserve the right to edit or delete posts and to ban members at any time, with or without warning, as they deem necessary.

II. Responsibilities of Members

While the administrators and moderators are here to guide the discussions, Parent Chat members are encouraged to maintain order among themselves. Members are expected to abide by the rules and respect the decisions and actions taken by the moderators and administrators. Likewise, they are expected to treat other Parent Chat members with the utmost courtesy and respect.

Remember that electronic media poses a risk of miscommunication and misinterpretation, so moderate language is required. To avoid potential conflicts, ask yourself these three key questions about each thread you start and each reply you post:

• Is it constructive?
• Is it informative?
• Is it relevant?

Respect each other. Complaints should be posted in the Questions & Suggestions board or addressed to administrators or moderators. If you feel that someone has violated the rules, report the incident by using the “Report to moderator” link at the bottom of each post. Please specify the exact rule/s which you believe has/have been violated.

III. General Violations and Penalties

For the rules listed below, note the following:

Actions to be taken in the event of specific violations are listed under each rule.

For each major offense, a formal warning will be sent to the offending member. The member will also be put under watch.

A maximum of three warnings will be given before additional action is taken. A member can reduce their warnings through good behavior: a one month period without any infractions will remove one warning.

However, if the member already has three outstanding warnings and commits another offense, their Parent Chat privileges will be banned.

PARENT CHAT RULES & REGULATIONS

I. The following are prohibited in Parent Chat:

• Profanity, lewd or lascivious statements, and solicitation of sex
• Name calling, discrimination, and statements against specific groups or ideologies, including known groups within the Parent Chat forum
• Personal attacks,  rude statements, and outright fighting
• Posts of this nature will be edited or deleted with or without prior notice. The offenders will be warned and this will be counted as a major offense.

II. Linking

• Linking to other websites in posts or through signatures is permitted, with the exception of the following:
  
  • Online communities in conflict with the interests of Parent Chat
  • Links to websites that are direct competitors of any Summit Media website or magazine
  • Pornographic sites
  • Sites promoting piracy
• Such links will be edited out of their respective posts. The offenders will be sent a Personal Message as an initial warning. Repeated posting of such links will warrant a warning for a major offense.

III. Posting

• Parent Chat members are encouraged to post in English or Filipino. Taglish is also allowed.
• Post with proper grammar, diction, and punctuation. Text-speak and typing in sticky caps are not allowed. All caps text is not allowed except for emphasis.
• Please limit font sizes to 12pt, max. Large fonts are really quite unnecessary if your post is sensible enough to get your point across.
• Spamming and flooding, or multiple posts of the same message to a thread, are not allowed. However, you can post the same message to different boards as long as it is relevant to the respective topics.
• When replying to a specific person, address them by their username to avoid confusion.
• When quoting a previous message, attach only the relevant portions, rather than the entire message.
• Violators of the above rules will be issued initial warnings via Personal Message. Repeated violations will warrant a warning for a major offense.

GENERAL FORUM BEHAVIOR

I. Special Interest Threads
Some threads are designated for discussion by specific groups of members, ie, the celebrity threads for fans. Unless the threads are created specifically for sharing and airing opinions, we discourage posting from members whose beliefs are not aligned with the content of the threads. This is to avoid heated discussions, accusations of trolling, and fighting among the members.


II. Merging Threads
Members may request that similar threads be merged, but merging will be done at the discretion of the Moderators and Administrators. Members are encouraged to post a link to related threads in the discussion if the boards have not yet been merged.


III. Advertising and Selling

• Starting threads to advertise a product, event, or service is only allowed on the MarketPlace boards. However, members may post recommendations and links to recommended sites and threads within threads, provided that they are relevant to the discussion. We strongly advise that such recommendations be made only once for each relevant thread. Multiple posts will be treated as flooding / spamming and will be dealt with as such.
• “Looking for” posts are allowed, provided they are made in the relevant threads and boards and do not violate any of the other rules.
• Selling fakes, pirated items, and other illegal materials is strictly prohibited.
• Posting in the MarketPlace board will not earn points for Parent Chat members.
• Please protect your own privacy. As much a possible, do not post your number or other contact info in the forum. It’s better if you PM (personal message) other members. This is for your own protection.

IV. Posting Content

• Please post threads and replies with content. Replies consisting of only smilies and simple “yes” and “no” answers are discouraged; please expound on your thoughts and explain your views.
• Posting copyrighted material without attribution is prohibited. This refers to full articles, images, and video covered by traditional copyright licenses. Reposting from other sources is allowed, provided: 1) the source is given proper attribution, and is accompanied by a link for online sources; 2) only the relevant portions are quoted; and 3) the purpose of posting is to inform, solicit views, comments, and further interaction from the community.
• When starting threads, phrase the titles clearly and concisely.
• If you're going to post images, make them board-friendly and download-friendly. It should be small enough to load quickly and to fit the board's layout. You can link the image to a bigger version so that people can just click on it if they want the bigger picture. If you're not sure how to do this, just post the link and not the image.
• Please keep your images at appropriate sizes. Make sure your images are at most 400 pixels by 450 pixels so that the web lay-out is preserved. We reserve the right to delete your image if it does not follow this specification.
• Please limit the number of images per post and in your signature. Make sure you only have a maximum of three images in each post and two images for your signature. Image size for signatures should be 100x400 pixels only. We reserve the right to delete your image if it does not follow this specification.
• Locking of topics and deletion of old entries. These will be care of Administrators and Moderators. After thirty pages, administrators and moderators have the option of locking a topic to minimize difficulty in back reading. Administrators and Moderators also have the option of deleting topics that have not been active in 3 months.

These rules and regulations may be modified or added to as the need arises. Please drop by regularly to check for updates. Likewise, you may check the News & Announcements board for updates.[/list]