MISSION STATEMENT:

PoliticalForum.com functions as a public forum website open to all individuals of all political persuasions that is centered on the discussion of politics in general. All walks of life are welcome to join the discussions in the tradition of vigorous respectful debate. The purpose of rules and guidelines for the forum is to help create an environment that is inviting to as wide a spectrum of people as possible from all parts of the world, but that does not restrict the ability of users to express their political views, even if those views are inflammatory or unorthodox. In a world often filled with intense political turmoil and polarization of beliefs, PoliticalForum.com attempts to bring opposites together to relate their views and learn from one another.



Primary short listed rules:

(1) This internet bulletin board is viewable by anyone with an internet capable computer anywhere in the world. Please keep this in mind whenever posting. While it is nearly impossible to state any opinion without potentially offending someone, we encourage an open and informed debate of a very wide range of ideas and views. The following are a few guidelines we highly encourage our users to follow:

(2) The use of profanity is prohibited. We employ an automatic word censor to block offensive language. Using symbols to get past the word censor is prohibited. The practice of phonetically spelling or otherwise alternately spelling cursewords is likewise prohibited. The posting of nudity and other offensive images not associated with a true political topic is prohibited. Moderators are charged with enforcing this policy. Continued disregard towards this guideline may result in being banned from this board.

(3) It is very tempting to follow another user's train of thought beyond the scope of the debate. This is understandable. However, we highly encourage our users to respect the intent of the established thread and try to keep focused on the topic. Threads that diverge may be relocated to a more approriate category, or split into new discussions. Continuing to stray may result in user's post(s) being deleted or may encourage the thread to be locked early. Please create new threads for new topics.

(4) Avoid personal attacks. This is probably the most subjective of guidelines; however, approach it like this: ATTACK THE MESSAGE, NOT THE MESSENGER.
Many topics are emotionally charged. This passion for what one believes in should remain in the discourse. However, please refrain from attacking another user in a personal way. Personal attacks do not contribute to a debate. While you may attack a user's ideas, views, political affiliation, political party, political candidate, government, etc... you must not attack the poster personally. Those who engage in this may get a private warning, a public warning, or even have their posting deleted. Continued disregard towards this guideline may result in being banned from this board.

(5) No flame-bait threads or posts. Threads or posts where the sole intent (either by topic, title, images or language) is to elicit emotionally charged responses or personal attacks from others will be deleted. This especially goes for any form of hate speech. It is up to the moderators' discretion to determine whether or not a given post falls into a particular category. Continuing to start flame-bait threads and/or continuation of making flame-bait posts may lead to infractions and eventual banning.

(6) No offensive signature lines. Whenever users register, they have the ability to set up a signature line that gets posted with each post. All signature line must comply with all applicable Forum Rules and Guidelines. Flamebaiting in a signature is strictly prohibited. Additionally the use of quotations from other members in a signature is subject to the consent of the member being quoted. Signatures are not to be excessive in size which tend to detract from the posts on threads.

(7) Whenever starting a thread, give it some thought first. Try to make a decision in which category it would belong. Try to give it a title that describes its intent or its content. Try not to duplicate other threads that already exist. When in doubt, ask a moderator in a Private Message.



All Rules and Guidelines:

(1) Posts with any obscene, vulgar, or sexually-oriented language, including variations of common profanity are not allowed. Attempts to post profanity with letters missing or using alternate characters is also not allowed. Exclusions to the posting of profanity can be made by the a moderator or the admin on a case-by-case basis. Quoting of actual statements in the news may be excluded and maybe other appropriate situations, but generally this would be rare. Profanity in languages other than English are not allowed and may be restricted in the same way.

(2) Posting of obscene and/or offensive images/depictions as avatars or photos is not allowed. Obscene and/or offensive images/depictions, including nudity and/or sexual acts, are not allowed as attachments unless it is part of a valid political news story or event. If a post contains a relevant obscene and/or shocking image/depiction an appropriate warning should be made in the subject and the post.

(3) Users are not to harass other users, either in posts, by instant message or any other means. Derogatory namecalling outside the scope of anger and hostility should be directed toward the issue and not the person posting it. Continued harassment of anyone by any user is grounds for being banned.

(4) Namecalling and derogatory remarks of political and public figures that are not users of the forum is permitted as this may be an expression of an opinion and free speech by the poster; however, any threats that are considered potentially real or are of a violent nature will be taken seriously and will be reported to authorities. This includes threats directed towards public officials, including the President and Vice-President which is a violation of federal law.

(5) No posting of threads that are intended to just direct the user to another website without also providing a reasonable amount of text of a personal political opinion or relating to news on a political topic. Promotions of other websites are allowed in the Marketplace category. Your own personal or business URL is allowed in your signature with a small amount of text (signature length is limited and only one hyperlink it allowed).

(6) Double posts/threads are not allowed nor is creating threads in multiple categories with essentially the same text/meaning.

(7) No posts advertising any product or service (whether for individuals, profit or non-profit organizations) are allowed except in the Marketplace category. No advertising of illegal items or pornography is allowed whatsoever. The item should have at least some basic relevance to politics.

(8) Posting of hyperlinks is permitted (and preferred when quoting someone or something) but the post should contain some personal comment or introduction. Try to not post hyperlinks to sites that require registration, but if you do please try to warn the user above the hyperlink.

(9) No posting of excessive amounts of text not related to the thread, especially if it takes up a significant amount of space on the post. This includes using the "." (dot) or other characters to create line feeds to make the post be extra large or for visual effect. This also include using bold characters in excess such that the post takes up an unreasonable amount of space.

(10) When posting quotes by other authors or news agencies please give appropriate credit, preferably accompanied by a hyperlink to the original article. Very large articles should be posted as attachments preferably with a summary in the body of the post. All posts with such quotes must contain some type of comment by the user in the body of the post (subject and description do not count).

(11) Hyperlinking to websites that require user registration to view a page with the relevant information is discouraged. If you do post such hyperlinks, please put a notice that registration is required above the hyperlink.

(12) Multiple user accounts are not allowed, and are one of the few offenses that can lead to immediate and permanent banning.

(13) Please understand that this site is privately owned and operated. Moderators are not paid for their services. With that in mind, we ask that you refrain from posting complaints and negative feedback on the public forums as we have found this to be the least constructive form of criticism, and discourse like this never ends well.
Public discussion of any Mod actions, such as thread editing, thread removal, infractions, warnings and/or revocation of memberships is strictly prohibited. These decisions are made privately, communicated privately to the member in question, and will not be discussed with other members. If you are not pleased with the way this site is run or have an issue with one of the team, you are welcome to contact any member of the Mod Council, or the site owner. Posting about it in the forums and/or threatening to leave the site will not be tolerated. Any post in violation of this rule will be edited or removed without warning and membership to this site may be revoked.


Applications of moderation, and defined procedure in instances that previously created difficult and ambiguous situations:

(1) Off topic Chat: We will have pretty broad tolerance for things posted in Off-Topic chat. You still can't violate the biggies: trolling, swearing, etc. But we're willing to let generally pointless threads live there. If you're about to create a thread, think about the topic. If it has no substantive political content but is otherwise legal, put it in OT Chat. If we encounter such threads in other forums, we will either move them to OT (if we're in a good mood) or delete them (if we're not).

(2) Creating threads: We will be taking a hard line with new threads, to keep the board from drowning in substanceless threads. The point of the forum is *discussion*; threads that don't promote discussion will likely be deleted. In particular, the following types of threads risk being deleted without notice:

• One-liner threads

• Threads containing just videos with little or no commentary (it's the video version of a one-liner)

• Threads that do nothing but promote the poster's blog or other outside site.

• Threads that lack elaboration, links or other content that might actually lead to discussion.

• Duplicate threads. We'll merge threads, within reason. But if there are already six threads on a topic, we'll probably just delete the seventh rather than go through the effort of merging it. If you want to avoid that, use the search function to check whether a thread already exists before starting a new one.

(3) Personal attacks: Still not allowed, but there is a gray area to such things that simply cannot be parsed by a black and white rule, so we're giving up trying. If the mod thinks it's a personal attack, they'll delete or edit it. If they don't, they won't. If you simply refrain from personal attacks (which honestly shouldn't be that hard, people), you will never have a problem with this rule. If you insist on operating in that gray area, you will undoubtedly encounter inconsistent moderation. Don't expect mod sympathy if you do.

(4) Off-topic posts: We will allow a reasonable amount of thread drift and side conversations, as long as it's not a blatant attempt to derail a thread. Our goal is to keep a discussion moving in a cohesive manner, by promoting a format where a free exchange of ideas is both tolerated and encouraged. So we will try to be as hands-off as possible, while modding posts that interfere with that. That, again, is a subjective interpretation that will be up to each mod to decide, so do not expect absolute consistency on this point.

(5) Metaposts: There is one exception to the "off-topic post" rule: Posts that discuss how stupid the thread is will be deleted on sight. If you think the thread is stupid, DON'T POST IN IT. Ignore it and let it die.

(6) Chronic pointlessness: If we find ourselves constantly deleting/moving a user's threads because they violate the thread-creation rules listed above, we will eventually ban them to save ourselves time. We want thoughtful discussion, not "clever" one-liners.

(7) Trolls: We've tried to come up with a standard set of rules for dealing with trolls. It hasn't worked, in large part because trolls are often adept at working the margins of the rule. The result has been that trolls hang around far longer than they should, poisoning the discussion until they are finally banned.No more. A troll is now whatever a majority of the mod panel thinks it is. If a user is found to be a troll, they will be banned without regard to how many infractions they might have.

(8) User protection: In most cases, a permanent ban will only be imposed after a vote of the entire mod panel. We believe that will ensure faster elimination of trolls and bandwidth-wasters while protecting users from rogue moderation.

(9)Signatures: In order to keep signatures reasonable in size to prevent them from overpowering the posts in a thread the following is considered to be normally accepted criteria. Exceptions can be made based upon a specific request to the moderators providing a valid reason for an exception to these guidelines. The following is based upon the use of Arial font:

2 lines at size 3.
That would be this big.

3 Lines at size 2.
this would take up this
much space.

4 lines at size 1.
If you have a lot of text that you
want to include then this is the size which
you should use and this is how large it will be.


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