Please Note: The "Site News & Announcements" forum, located near the bottom of the board index page, is your one-stop shop for news and notices pertaining to the overall administration and management of the board. Users are encouraged to check it often. The FAQ is also a good place to find answers to general questions about how the board works and how to get things done on it.
An Obligatory Disclaimer: Unless expressly stated otherwise, views and opinions expressed in the Forum are not necessarily those of the forum administrators or the management of ScottCountyLiberals.com. All posts and their content are the responsibility of the persons who posted them.
Scott County Liberals & Friends is a growing, evolving community. The Administrators reserve the right to make reasonable and necessary changes to these rules should such needs arise.
Terms of Use: In posting material to the Scott County Liberals & Friends Discussion Forum, you agree to be bound by the Terms and Conditions to which you agreed when you registered for membership, as well as by the rules and guidelines detailed in the document you are now reading. Failure to abide by any of these rules may result in diminished Forum privileges or expulsion from the Forum.
Anonymity and Privacy: All users of the Forum should be free to enjoy, and are encouraged to cultivate, a reasonable expectation of anonymity and privacy if they so choose. Users who are careful and prudent with regard to what they choose to reveal about themselves should have no significant worry of being "found out", or of their identity becoming a matter of Forum record. Nothing short of a court order will ever cause the Forum Administrators to reveal any user's personal information (which is limited to an email address provided by the member at sign-up, and the IP address of the computer from which the member registered.) As you participate in the Forum, please be aware that it serves a relatively small community, and that it may sometimes be possible for one user to guess another user's identity. Any Forum user who publicly identifies another user by name, or posts such indicators of another user's identity that there can be no question as to who that person is, without that user's express permission, may be subject to immediate and permanent expulsion from the Forum. Any user who feels his or her privacy has been violated in this way should contact a Forum Administrator immediately.
Language and Conduct: In practical terms, SCL&F Forums should be considered a "PG-13" environment. While occasional "grown-up" words won't necessarily get you in trouble, please be judicious and sparing in their application. (If the sentence just doesn't work without the curse words, chances are it wasn't much good to begin with.) Excessive profanity and/or language of a particularly graphic or explicit nature may be subject to revision or deletion by Forum Administrators (see "Censorship", below).
Personal Attacks and Hate Speech: This Forum exists for the discussion of issues, not the denigration of character. While the Administrators encourage lively -- even challenging -- debate, personal attacks upon other users, unaccompanied by any kind of reasonable argument, will not be tolerated in the public forums. If the latest thing you can add to a topic is to call someone a name or "bash" them in some other way, then your part in the discussion is over.
Hate speech of any kind will not be tolerated. No member of this forum may use it to denigrate a person or group -- whether a member of this forum or not -- solely on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, country of origin, gender, sexual orientation, or creed. For example: Calling for the extermination of all Muslims is hate speech. A reasoned discussion of tensions between the Muslim world and the West, or a critique (with justifications) of the Islamic faith, is not hate speech.
Think before you generalize. Ask if you're unsure.
Editing and Censorship of Posts: While the SCL&F Administrators welcome and encourage all members to post freely and speak their minds, there may be cases (examples are given throughout this document) when the content of a given post is not appropriate for display in the Forum. In the event that a post must be edited or deleted for its content, a notice will be placed in the discussion to indicate the change whenever possible. An Administrator will also contact the original poster via private message to explain why the change was made. Censorship of this kind will always be a last resort, and will only be applied by Administrators when a rule has been flagrantly or inexcusably broken, or when careful consideration by the Administrators indicates that a given post may be libelous. Any user who feels his or her post has been needlessly, unfairly, or inappropriately edited is free to contact an Administrator via private message, though please bear in mind that maintaining a healthy community is an Administrator's prerogative and responsibility.
In the event that a mass administrative edit makes individual member notification unworkable, an Administrator will post a public explanation.
From time to time, Administrators may make simple changes to the appearance of posts (for example, to fix broken quotes or links, really wacky fonts, errors thrown by the Forum software itself, etc.), but not their content. This may be necessary in order to preserve the overall look and layout of the Forum. Edits of this kind may not always necessarily include a notification of the user. Users are encouraged to not take offense if they find that the look of their post has changed, and to rest assured that their posts will never be edited for content -- the words of a post -- without the user being notified.
General Guidelines:
- Before starting a new topic, please check the forums to see if a similar discussion already exists. You and other users may gain more by joining an active discussion than by trying to start a new one on the same subject.
The Forum is not a business directory. Please refrain from posting topics whose sole purpose is to advertise a commercial interest or to solicit someone to buy something. Discussing local and area businesses by name is fine (mere mention of a business does not constitute "advertising"). Announcing a special offer at your sister's salon or a big discount at your body shop is not fine. The Community Bulletin Board section of the Forum is a great place to announce events of community interest. It is not a Swap Shop.
Above all: read, contribute, and have fun!
