The Rules

[Cooley]

Here are the forum rules, in no particular order. This thread will be "sticky" and locked. If you don't like one of the rules, start your own thread about it in the "forum Governance" section.

This will be a "living document". Expect changes as necessary, though I'll try not to be flip about it.

- Try really hard to post stuff in an appropriate place; for example, don't just throw everything you post in "local" because it's the first button you see.

- no sock puppets. If I determine that you have two usernames, I will publicly mock you. If it's later determined that I was wrong, please feel free to publicly mock me. I will disable any extra usernames you create. If for some reason you *have* to have a new name, PM me about it and we'll disable the old one.

- posted articles must have a 'cite' when possible, and a link always. If people are nice enough to put stuff on the web, we don't want to steal it. Don't just go posting entire articles from, say, the local H-T. Post a paragraph or two with a link, summarizing if you wish.

- NSFW should be marked as such. "NSFW" means "Not Safe For Work" and pretty much means that the post is probably offensive to the tender-hearted. Generally, all nudity (including funny video sites with ads containing nakedness), excessive violence, anything loud, etc... should be marked "NSFW". I think we all know what's appropriate for the average office and what's not. If you click on a post marked "NSFW" and are then offended, I don't want to hear it.

- bandwidth-intensive should be marked as such. Be kind to our dial-up-using friends. Mark these "NSF56k" (Not Safe For 56k). The only exception is embedded videos, covered in the next item.

-Embedded (meaning, you watch them here instead of clicking a link) videos shall be in the "video" forum, and shall have [VIDEO] in the subject line. Dial-up users: please assume that anything marked [VIDEO] is not for you (unless you're a very, very patient soul).

- anything moderated will have an explanation as to why it was moderated, either via post or pm. Please feel free to berate me if I fail to explain why I moderated something.

- Nobody needs to be threatening other posters' jobs, unless that job is a political post that you're gonna vote them out of.

- We reserve the right to lock any thread that we determine has become (or was designed to be) a useless flame war (unless it's still funny).

- We reserve the right to lock any thread we determine to be a "dupe" (duplicate) of an existing thread. This does not apply if you're just trying to restart your thread that somebody else turned into a flame war which got locked.

- We reserve the right to lock any thread that I think is gonna get somebody sued. Do not say anything that will get you sued.

- we reserve the right to "split" any thread which has been "taken over", at our discretion. Sometimes, the conversation just strays; nobody cares about that, it's fun. Other times, people intentionally try to "flood" somebody's thread. Don't do that.

- Don't "stalk" people. For example, if you're in an argument over in "politics" about whose ideology is slightly less ignorant and your adversary posts "I have a truck for sale" in classifieds, do not follow them into the classifieds forum and say "Do not buy a truck from him; he kills babies and eats them" (unless, of course, the truck has been previously used for the procurement of food-grade babies).

- Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.