CenTexTalk.com Rules

There is no charge for joining or using any part of this forum! We do ask that you abide by the rules and guidelines that are detailed below.

This is a community of central Texans, past and present. We hope that you will find CenTexTalk.com a place where it's okay to be yourself as long as you act with respect toward your fellow members, visitors, and the CenTexTalk.com administrators and moderators.

You are not expected to leave your personality at the door. There are going to be topics and discussions that will have heated debates. Please think before you post and re-read what you type before you post it. Keep your comments limited to the debate at hand and do not take things to a personal level between you and another member.

Given the real time nature of the forum, it is impossible for us to read in detail every message posted on the forum. If you come across any violations of rules and guidelines or have any problems navigating the site, do not hesitate to let us know through the CenTexTalk.com Contact Form. We'll be happy to address your concerns.

Here at CenTexTalk.com we want people to feel welcome and encourage everyone to participate in and enjoy the community while at the same time adhering to the following Guidelines and Rules:

Guidelines:

Be Welcoming: One of the hardest and most important tasks of running a forum is getting new users to join. When newcomers arrive, welcome them to our growing community. Help new members learn about how to find information and resources, save time, and how to get involved in the forum.

Be Cautious: Think before you post or speak: Do you really want to put your address or telephone number on a public discussion forum? We encourage you to keep personal information personal.

No Cross-Posting: With the exception of notices that benefit many people, please do not post the same discussion more than once on a discussion forum or on many forums. Duplicate discussions are frustrating and counterproductive for other members, especially for those whose time and energy is limited. Duplicate discussions will be deleted.

Private Messaging: is provided to the members of CenTexTalk.com as a service intended to allow for discreet conversations to take place between members. This privilege is not to be abused! Solicitation, spamming, or harassment of any kind is strictly forbidden. Any member receiving an inappropriate private message should forward that message to an Administrator or Moderator right away.

Rules

Rule 1: Respect for fellow Members is of utmost importance here. Always respect other members and their opinions, thoughts, and rights. Personal attacks, threats, baiting, flaming, harassment of others, trolling, taunting, bullying or other forms of disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. We encourage you to challenge others' points of view and opinions, but please do so respectfully and thoughtfully. Racial slurs, name calling, inappropriate language, or other un-acceptable content (at the discretion of the Staff) is not permitted.

Baiting - the intentional posting of inflammatory content to a public Internet discussion group, such as a forum, newsgroup or mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response.

Bullying - deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior that is intended to harm others.

Flaming - also known as bashing is hostile and insulting interaction toward forum users.

Personal attacks/insults – name calling, belittling, bringing family members into the discussion is prohibited.

Trolling/Taunting - defined as posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

Rule 2: Do not disrupt posting practices. Keep general posting etiquette in mind.

General forum posting etiquette is as follows:

Post threads in the proper forums. Moving threads is simple, if something is posted in the wrong forum, let us know, we’ll gladly move it. Don’t NOT post something of interest because you are not sure where to put it, we’ll move things if necessary.

Keep Thread Titles relevant and precise. Do not just choose the thread title to be "Help" or "Ideas". Choose more precise titles that best describe the topic you wish to discuss.

Stay on topic in threads. We ask that you keep all posts in a thread relevant to the subject. If you would like to change the subject, simply create a new thread. We do understand that threads tend to migrate to different subjects. If multiple, simultaneous discussions occur in a thread, the moderators will often split the thread.

Intense, passionate discussions often occur when discussing subjects regarding the education system, religion, or politics, etc. Such discussions are welcome but if they begin to take a brutal or personal turn, they will be closed and or deleted. Those who continually cause disruptions will be dealt with. Please approach these discussions with an open-mind and allow for others to express their opinions without fear of being attacked.

Rule 3: Do not carry disputes from one thread to another.

Rule 4: Swearing (bypassing the curse word filter), pornography, offensive text, adult content, or otherwise inappropriate (as deemed by Staff) material or discussion is not permitted.

Rule 5: No Copyrighted Material. Information copyrighted or owned by any individual or entity other than the member should not be posted on the discussion forums without the consent of the owner. If such an event occurs, the individual posting the information shall be held solely responsible. The owners of CenTexTalk.com shall not be held responsible for member-posted information that may violate copyright law.

Under Fair Use provisions you can legally post a small abstract of an article or perhaps the opening paragraph. Please only copy and paste an excerpt of the article, or a summary, and include a link to the rest of the article. Always place quote tags or use quotation marks around copy-and-pasted material. Always remember that members are liable for the content they submit to the site.

Please do not post only a link to an article. Please include at least, a synopsis of the linked article that you wish to discuss.

Rule 6: Email Spams/Forwards. Please refrain from posting email forwards. Most of them are untrue and most of us do everything we can to block these things from filling our email inboxes and we don’t want to see them here.

Rule 7: Criticism and "bashing" or rebelling against administrators and moderators is not permitted to be done in public. Every one of CenTexTalk.com’s Administration and Moderating team are volunteers who spend countless hours working to provide a friendly, well flowing forum and like all members here, they are not to be verbally abused in any way. If you have an issue with a staff member or their decisions, please discuss it with them through email or private messages. NOT ON THE OPEN FORUM.

Do not carry disputes with administrators or moderators to other areas of the forum, to include, but not limited to, the Shoutbox (chat room), Avatars, Signatures, the User’s Status.

Rule 8: If a message is deleted, do not repost it without permission.

Other Notes:

It is at the discretion of the moderating staff to deem any material or content as inappropriate. The Staff always have the right to edit or remove content, and may hold the user accountable.

If you ever desire to have your account deleted, we will not do so, but we will move you to an inactive user group: While in this group, you may login but you may not post, PM (Private Message), or use many other functions that a regular user can. If you decide that you would like to become active again, use the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the forum page.

If you ever desire to have all of your posts/threads deleted, we will not do so. Once you post material on the site, it becomes our property. We will delete individual posts on a case by case basis.

The management of CenTexTalk.com will not be responsible for members who post libelous comments about other users or members of the community.

If you see a post that contains material that offends you, or that does not adhere to the forum rules, report it. To report a post, click the Report button which is included at the bottom of every post on this forum.

Violations of the rules listed above will be dealt with on a case by case basis. Some of the tools at our disposal for dealing with disruptive users and rules violations are. (These methods are used at our discretion)

Editing the portion of the message that violates the rules.

Deleting the message that violates the rules.

Reducing disruptive users access to forum features.

Moderating the user who continually violates the rules.

Blocking the user from forums where they are most disruptive.

Temporary banning the disruptive user.

Permanently banning the user.