 PCMech Forums |
The PC Mech Forums are
a place for a person of any user level, to ask any technical question,
and get a civil and straightforward answer. The members and volunteer
staff try to help everyone that has a question. Unfortunately, there
are some users that ruin the overall experience for other members in
the forums. Below are the simple rules that members are required to
follow in order to provide for everyone's enjoyment of the PC Mech Forums.
1. Offensive Material
Do not post anything you would
not want a young child to see, or which you would not be comfortable
viewing at work. If you see such material on the forums, DO NOT REPLY
TO IT. Simply use the "Report This Post" link (the red triangle
with an exclamation point in it) and allow the moderator staff to deal
with it accordingly.
2. Flaming and Harassment
The moderator staff will not tolerate flaming, childish name-calling or other types of personal attacks on the forum. All members, as adults, are expected to be able to have civil discussions at all times, regardless of whether they agree or not. In the event a moderator steps into a thread to stop flaming, all members are expected to stop. Harassment is not allowed on the boards. Harassment can constitute any direct threat on a member, posting personal info about a member, posting any pictures of a member, etc. We don't care if a user's personal info can be found out through some other medium or another website. It will NOT be posted here. Stay out of people's personal lives. Any personal grudges against any other member are to be left at the door. Any conflict from outside of this forum which is brought into the forums will be handled swiftly and with a vengeance.
3. Sound Advice
Giving intentionally bad or
malicious advice to any user, for any reason, is prohibited. All must
keep in mind that this forum has people of all levels of experience,
and everybody must be able to count on the quality of advice given on
these forums.
4. Post Trickery
We won't put up with people
messing with the quality of the boards or tricking any users. Thread
titles must reflect the content of the post. We won't put up with any
trick HTML, including javascript, intentionally bad or misleading links,
or links to any sites which perform some malicious action to the user's
computer or floods the user's browser with pop-ups.
5. Please Stay On-Topic
This is a computer related
forum, so please keep conversations to technical topics. We do allow
non-technical topics in the General Discussion forum, but that said,
we still insist members stay away from political and religious debates.
These subjects, by nature, lead into heated debate which we do not want
on these forums.
6. The Watering Hole
We have a forum for political
discussions and other topics that are not allowed in the rest of the
forums. The rules in there are relaxed, but there are still lines
that must not be crossed. Participation requires a PC Mech Premium
Membership and an opt-in. Repeated rules violations will result
in your viewing and posting privileges in this forum being revoked,
and there will be no membership refunds given.
7. No Advertising / SPAM
Businesses are not allowed
to post advertisements of any form in these forums. Members are not
allowed to make posts with the sole purpose of advertising their own
or another website. Any form of SPAM will be deleted and the user account
banned.
8. Treatment of Moderators
Any form of moderator harassment
including insults, failing to delete a thread that you were asked to
delete, doing the opposite of something you were asked to do, reposting
a thread that was deleted, or protesting a ban may result in a ban.
If you complain about what you feel are shortcomings of the current
moderation team, either real or imaginary, you may be banned. If you
don't like it here, feel free to leave. The mods are here to do a job.
You will find the mods are easy-going people with "live, let live"
philosophies as long as the rules are complied with. But, part of the
etiquette here is to respect those with that responsibility. If you
feel a change of policy is in order or that a moderator should reconsider
something, always feel free to email or send a private message. We will
not argue or debate moderator action or policy in public.
9. Account Accountability
A user account is to be used by one person only. This does not mean "one person at a time". A user account being used by more than one person may be terminated.
Each person is limited to one
user account. If a user is found creating multiple accounts, those user
accounts may be terminated.
10. Zero Tolerance on
Piracy
NO WAREZ. NO SERIALS. NO CRACKS
/ CRACKING / ILLEGAL PROGRAMS. Anything that can be used in software
piracy or other illegal software activities will result in a ban. Same
goes for abusive programs like mailbombers, forum and usenet flooders
and email harvesting bots. This also includes unreleased products. Workarounds
which compromise security, bypass password protection, or otherwise
go to gain unauthorized access to private data or information is prohibited.
Links provided to locations that offer tutorials or tips for any of
these activities are also forbidden.
11. Image Rules
No illegal images are allowed.
No images showing an illegal activity are allowed. No porn. The above
rule applies: If it is not work or child-safe, don't post it. Please
post only ONE image per post, and we prefer that it be kept to a 640x480
pixel size or smaller. Do not leech images from other sites, please
upload them to a photo sharing site or to your hard drive and upload
them as attachments.
12. Signatures
Signatures must be kept clean
and of reasonable size. Any signature which contains anything potentially
offensive or which detracts from the quality of the forum will be edited
by the moderating staff. We will make all effort to notify you via PM
if we edit your signature. Sole decision on whether a signature is acceptable
lies with the moderator staff. Do not post any images in your signature.
If you restore your sig (un-do
the change the moderator made) after it has been edited by a member
of our staff, you will be subject to a ban.
Conclusion
If you do not agree to these
rules, you're free to no longer visit the PC Mech forums. If you do
not like these rules, please do not register an account; it will be
better for all parties involved. Remember: these are private forums
and, by signing up, you agree to abide by these rules. We reserve the
right to ban any user on our forums. That said, the entire point of
these rules is to help provide a good, informative atmosphere for all
members. We're not here to be drill sergeants or get off on an ego trip.
Our mods have one job and that is to keep the peace and allow people
who truly want to discuss the arena of personal computing or gain technical
support to do so.
Although the administrators and moderators will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of PC Media, Inc. or Jelsoft Enterprises Limited (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.
