Forum Rules

Technical problems, questions, comments, and suggestions for the forum and wiki.

Locked
User avatar
Philosophical Vegan
Moderator
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:15 pm

Forum Rules

Post by Philosophical Vegan »

1. Content of Posts
This is a discussion forum. Please come here willing to discuss. This isn't a place to lecture, and then refuse to address others' rational arguments or even answer others' questions. Discussion is founded upon logic, if you don't accept basic logic as valid, there's really nothing for you to do here except lecture, and this isn't the place for it. Again: This is a discussion forum.
Discussion is also founded upon correct usage of words. The forum language is English, and while it's fine to discuss definitions, assertively twisting words beyond their reasonable definition to troll, like saying "Saliva is an animal product, if you swallow your own saliva you're not vegan!" is not acceptable.

2. Spamming
Spamming can be on or off-topic in nature.

Don't come here just to spam your survey/links etc. or to repost large amounts of generic content clearly not written for this community. If it's your first post and it's clear you're just here to get something, it will probably be considered spam. We may or may not be interested in helping you with your survey, or even buying your product/subscribing to your channel/reading your articles or blog (particularly if it's related to the forum subject matter). But please join in the discussion on the forum first and participate in the community. We have little tolerance for this kind of spamming.

On-topic argument/assertion spamming is a little different. This is typically found in claims being made repeatedly across multiple threads over time; claims which are usually fundamentally unfalsifiable/based on a rhetoric of radical skepticism or very different (and biased) assessment not shared by mainstream interpretation.
1. Somebody asks questions about a nutrient
2. The spammer chimes in on cue claiming veganism is very risky and the OP should eat animal products
3. Another forum member is compelled to explain that's not consensus among professionals, lest people be misled
4. The spammer claims whatever source cited isn't credible and alleges a grand vegan conspiracy, and demands impossible standards of evidence
5. The forum member explains we wouldn't expect that standard for anything else and that it's fear mongering based on speculation that could apply to anything.
The trend of these "conversations" is that they are cyclical and there's nowhere to go from these claims. The same exchange just repeats, and wastes everybody's time. The claims themselves just represent unfalsifiable double standards about evidence, or something else which can't really be argued beyond what has been presented.
In these cases, it's always appropriate for the spammer to make a single thread laying out his or her argument, and where anybody who is interested in the discussion may argue it, but it is inappropriate to repeat these claims indefinitely everywhere they may seem applicable.


3. Presentation of Posts
Post in English (it's OK if it's a second language), and please try to use mostly proper grammar and spelling (we're not grammar nazis, but it needs to be readable). If it becomes clear your English ability is not proficient enough to understand the posts of others written in clear English, and your behavior is one of arrogance and impatience rather than humility and a willingness to improve your English level to avoid the problem in the future, you may be warned or banned.

Keep the forum readable. Please DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPS FOR A SIGNIFICANT PART OF YOUR POST. A word here or there is fine, but not paragraphs of it. No obscene amount of punctuation!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!! Or :D :D :D Emoticons :) :lol: 8-) 8-) :twisted: or crazy colors or font sizes everywhere.

No huge images. Respect bandwidth limits of other users.

Mild profanity on occasion is fine, but keep any images safe for work. No porn. And nothing too obscene in other ways. We're not prudes, but there's a reasonable limit.

Try to post in the right forum, and use a descriptive subject line. Examples of bad subjects include; "Help me!", "You Suck", "I've got an issue!", etc. We need to know what you're talking about.

When using the quote function in a reply, quote only the part you are replying to and not the whole post. There is no need to fill topic pages with repeat posts in their entirety. Also, do not reply to another poster inside the quote tags referring to that poster; this makes it very difficult to read. Quote small amounts, and close those quotes with the [/quote] tag before typing your response.


No large images in signatures. Or unnecessarily large amounts of text. If a user asks you to change your signature because it's too long, please do so.

Avatars should be no larger than 120x120 pixels and should not exceed 30KiB (20720 bytes) in size. No distracting animations.

Don't bump your posts obsessively. Be patient. If you want to bump, try to add more information; it's possible others didn't understand what the post was about.

Don't abuse the report function. It's for rule violations only.

4. Legal Stuff
Don't violate copyright or talk about doing any illegal stuff. Not because we care, but because we don't want the server shut down. Definitely don't talk about/encourage doing anything violent or dangerous. That we do care about, so just don't.

This is a teenager and adult oriented site. As far as we know, all of our members are 13 or older (We do not ask, nor are we required to ask, user age on signup).
While all personal information sharing is discouraged, this is a particularly serious issue for children.
In accordance with U.S. and international law, you must be 13 years or older to use this site on your own. Hypothetically, if you are under 13 (if you are 12 or under), your parents must register an account for you and supervise your online activity (it must be an account your parents control -- children can not have their own accounts here), and you may not post or share any personal information.
This includes:
  • First and last name;
  • A home or other physical address including street name and name of a city or town; [Never do this]
  • Online contact information; [Your parents must sign up for you with their own contact information]
  • A screen or user name that functions as online contact information; [That means DON'T use the same username here and elsewhere]
  • A telephone number;
  • A social security number;
  • A persistent identifier that can be used to recognize a user over time and across different websites or online services;
  • A photograph, video, or audio file, where such file contains a child’s image or voice;
  • Geolocation information sufficient to identify street name and name of a city or town; or
  • Information concerning the child or the parents of that child that the operator collects online from the child and combines with an identifier described above.
If it comes to our attention that a child under 13 years of age is using this site and sharing private information, the personal information in question will be removed immediately, and private contact mechanisms disabled (i.e. no PMing, and no email). We do not provide a mechanism for parental consent to publishing personal information because this is functionally impossible for us to verify. This site is not targeted to users under 13, and the personal information content of children is simply not allowed even with parental consent. Any personal information believed to be shared by a child under 13 should be reported.

5. Deleting Your Account/Posts/etc/
Do not demand deletion of your account or posts. There is a limited window in which you may edit or delete your posts, after that they are permanent with the exception of admin discretion.
There are several reasons for this:
  • This is a discussion forum, and most discussions make no sense when half of the comments are removed. Content here is indexed as a resource for others, and it is inappropriate to devalue the effort and contributions of other members by making their arguments unreadable.
  • It is not possible for us to verify the ownership of the account and the credibility of the request. Because deletion can not be undone, we will not delete accounts since this serves no purpose beyond making you unable to access your account again (which you can already choose not to do), and deletion could be used maliciously against users who forget to log out on public computers or whose accounts have been otherwise accessed by unauthorized persons.
We strongly discourage posting personal information to begin with. If you have a privacy concern, you may ask (nicely) that personal information be removed (or username changed, though this does not affect quotes so may not be done if you have had many conversations and it is not practical to edit all of the replies). Remember that we are not obligated to do this if you are not under 13, but will usually do so (as long as it's practical to do) as long as you aren't a jerk about it. We are concerned about your privacy, but please also be respectful of our time and other forum members. It's best to just not post anything personal that you might not want on the internet.
If you have impulse control issues and can not help but post replies and would prefer to be unable to post, you may request to be banned (which can be undone if done in error).
Locked