Undernet Forum Acceptable Use Policy

You are invited to participate to the discussions on this forum and express your views, comments, insights and/or cricitisms related to the subjects discussed here. In order to provide the highest quality experience for other members of this community, please follow the simple rules listed below. These are simple guidelines, not a complete list; the administration of the forum through its representatives - the administrators, supermoderators and moderators - has final say about specific actions to be taken for each violation of the rules. The forum is a moderated environment, which means the administration has the right to close or delete any thread it considers unacceptable for any reason, to edit or delete individual posts and to restrict access to various functions or sections of the forum. The administration has no intention to censor messages based on the oppinions expressed within posts, however it will enforce the rules below. By participating on the forum you agree to respect these rules.

Basically, the ground rules are simple: Be polite, use common sense, don't abuse any privileges and don't break the law. Keep in mind that you and everyone else are here to have a good time.

Specific rules:

1. In order to participate on the forum, you need to register a username. The username represents your identity, similarly to your passport or driver's license, therefore you are forbidden to register and use more than one username under any circumstances. You are responsible for setting a password difficult to guess and for not giving it away to anyone else. If you have forgotten your password, the forum can send you a reminder by e-mail.

2. As this is a forum open to the international public, all discussions will be conducted in English, except for the sections or threads created specifically for other languages.

3. Rudeness, insults, profanity, vulgar language, personal attacks, inflammatory posts, threats, harrassment and impersonation will not be tolerated. Advertising, spamming and trolling are not allowed. Be polite, respect the other members and their right to a different oppinion from yours. Attack the subject with arguments, not the person with insults. If someone is bothering you, the first rule is to not answer back; just add the person to your ignore list.

4. Please do not post meaningless messages or one word or very short posts, repeating posts in the same or different threads in order to increase your post count or for whatever other reason. Make sure that you are posting in the correct section and discussion thread of the forum and that you have read the entire discussion you are replying to. Do not post off-topic. Give your thread a relevant title in the Subject field. If your message is addressed to only one member, please use the private message function of the forum instead of publicly posting your message.

5. IRC is an informal communication environment, very relaxed and without rules. In contrast, the forum requires somewhat more thinking about what you want to say, planning your messages ahead, arguing your point and generally ellaborating your message in a more formal fashion. Use punctuation, break your message into paragraphs whenever needed, and have a point. Please do not consider the forum as a chit-chat system; get on IRC for that. For a 10-minute course on a good online writing style, please read the Internet Writing Guide.

6. No illegal content or activities will be tolerated, including software, movie and music piracy, other intellectual property violations, hacking and cracking activities, links to warez sites, pornography and so on. Keep in mind that everything you post is legally considered your declaration, identified by your username and IP address, and any national or international legal authority may request this information to be released to them in order to prosecute you in a court of law.

7. As a member of this forum, you have several privileges, including a custom avatar (image), a signature for your posts (which can include an image), highlighting parts of your text with colors or emphasizing it with a different size, inserting smileys (emoticons). Please do not abuse these privileges, as your access to them can be blocked or they can be removed entirely from the forum. For example, do not post unreasonably large images in your signature (even the size of a regular banner, 468x60 pixels, is too large for a signature image), use something as small as possible to get your message across without interfering with visitors' slow connections or the actual messages. Do not overuse the smileys in a message, nor post everything in bright colors and huge font.

Breaking these rules or what the administration asks you to do can result in having your posts edited or deleted, your account partially restricted or completely disabled (banned) and even having your Internet Service Provider and proper authorities informed about your conduct. If you are given a second chance, do your best to learn from your previous experiences and not repeat the offense.