Forum Rules (Must Read) [Update: 01/06/2009]

[AeonOracle]

This topic features the rules of the Integrated Resource Forums which all members here are expected to obey them to ensure that all members have a good experience in the Forums, and that peace and order are maintained at all times.

It is recommended that you read this post to familiarise yourself with the Forum Rules. The rules are categorised for ease of reading and clarity, and are subject to alteration.

1. Personal Account & Details
When you create an account on the Forum, you have sole responsibility for your account and to ensure that it is safe from other people. If you are with family or friends, please log out after you have finished using the Forums so that they cannot gain access to your account. If someone visits the Forums to break the rules, warnings and/or a ban will be issued to YOUR account.
DO NOT, under any circumstances, reveal your username and password to anyone, including moderators and administrators! We will not require you to give your password for your account should your account experience difficulties.
It is your responsibility to select as secure a password as possible for your account. If your password uses a mixture of small and upper-case letters, numbers, or even punctuation marks, your password will be more secure.
Also, if the url for a similar forum website says anything other than http://kesresource.org.uk/forum/index.phb or index.phb, don't enter your username and password; it is likely to be a fraudulent website designed to steal your username and password.
Also, if you include a link to your website, make sure the site is free from viruses, trojans, spyware or other types of malware, and that it does not contain any material that could be deemed as inappropriate; the section below covers all forms of content that are deemed inappropriate, but are not limited to these areas.
The websites that you are allowed to include a link to, in your account or any of your threads or posts include;
- Your personal webpage on social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook and Bebo
- Websites that you have created, that reflects your hobbies and interests
- You user profile on forums other than The Integrated Resource Forum, that reflects your hobbies and interests

The websites that you are NOT allowed to include a link to, in your account or any of your threads or posts include;
- Phishing, spam and scam websites, and sites that sell counterfeit goods and other pirated material
- Sites that facilitate, promote and encourage, criminal or terrorist activity
- Sites that contain hateful, violent or illegal content; especially content that incite racial or religious hatred, violent activity such as decapitations, and indecent images of children
- Sites that contain adult content

Bear in mind that moderators and administrators may have to check any links to websites for any inappropriate material; if we find any material that we believe is inappropriate, we may have to ask members to remove their links to sites.

2. Language, Discussion & Content
This Forum is rated as U, which means that parents, children and teachers can use this Forum, although other people who want to talk about the Integrated Resource and what its main purposes are can join in as well.
We will not tolerate any of the following behaviour on our forums, private messages and user profiles, avatars and signatures:
-Foul or inappropriate language - be aware that this forum has a censor system in place to catch any banned words which are not to be used under any circumstances. Any method of censor bypassing in post content, user information pages and topic titles, including but not limited to, misspelling, inserting spaces or symbols, transposing letters and using lookalike symbols will not be tolerated. For example, if the word "cake" is a banned word, the examples of bypassing that are allowed and not allowed are as follows (although "cake" is not on our list of banned words and so, is not a banned word, for the purposes of this example only, "cake" will be treated as a banned word);
Allowed
****
*@$#
[REMOVED]
[BLANK]
'scrub'
c-word
dessert
pudding

Not Allowed
c***
c**e
c*ke
c4k3
c/\|<3
-Offensive material - users are not allowed to post, or encourage other users to post material that are considered as offensive by nature. This includes, but not limited to, inciting hatred towards individuals or groups on grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, disability, nationality and/or gender; using vulgar, profane or explicit language; using libellous, defamatory, slanderous, threatening, harassing and/or blasphemous language/remarks/slurs; and posting, requesting or sharing material that are considered as obscene, pornographic, graphic or likely to incite hatred.
-Bullying or inciting bullying (also known as "flaming" and "trolling") - any posting of messages that are intended to annoy, insult or offend other users, directly or indirectly, whether individually or as a group will not be tolerated. Such messages include, but not limited to; name-calling, direct insults or orders, insinuations, insults towards friends or family, inciting other users to bully members, making misleading topic titles and/or messages, asking pointless questions, presenting false information about an individual or group as fact, and provoking other users to respond with any of the conduct mentioned in this part of the rules.
-Spam messages - any initiations of threads, private messages and posts which do not contribute anything to the Forum or are irrelevant to the current topic or discussion (whether on-topic or off-topic) are prohibited. Examples include, but not limited to; empty bodies, bodies with few words that are irrelevant to a topic or discussion, advertising, posts which clearly state that they are spam, and messages which are designed solely to raise post count or irritate a user.
-Illegal activities - any communications that violate or incite violations of laws will not be tolerated. This includes, but not limited to asking for or providing; illegal copies of copyrighted material, methods or circumventing copyright protection, reprints of material from websites, and methods of cheating in, or rigging online games, elections or other events.
-Inappropriate topics - topics or discussions about issues that are deemed to be inappropriate for discussions are not allowed. This includes, but not limited to; alcohol, sex, illegal substances and suicide.
-Disruptive behaviour - any conduct that disrupts the services provided for other users, whether intentional or not, will not be tolerated. This includes, but not limited to; large blank or content-free messages, "bumping" (posting into topics a long time after a message was posted into that topic), posting multiple similar messages or topics, post-counting and deliberately posting hard-to-read topic titles and/or messages in individual or multiple topics.
Moderators and administrators reserve the right to edit or remove at any time, messages that are deemed as inappropriate.

3. Other Inappropriate Conduct
- Registration abuse - any abuses of the registration feature will not be tolerated. This includes, but not limited to; setting up excessive numbers of accounts using the same computer/IP, incorporating expletives or offensive language into usernames while registering, and advertising by setting up accounts. Only one account can be registered to a computer or laptop, IP or domain; any extra accounts registered to the same machine will be removed. Users who are found to be abusing the registration service may be subject to an IP ban and/or have their accounts removed.
- Insubordination - whenever a moderator or administrator asks you to stop doing something, you must stop immediately. If you continue to misbehave, the moderators and administrations will take action to prevent such misbehaviour from occuring again.

4. Respect Other Users
Always treat other forum users with respect; this includes, among others, respecting other peoples' opinions even if you disagree with them, talking to people in a respectable manner and helping them with their queries. So at the end of the day, if you treat people with respect, others with treat you with respect.

5. And If You Think Someone Is Breaking The Rules...
Report the offending post by clicking on the inverted triangle with the exclamation mark and our moderators will deal with the situation. However, ONLY REPORT A POST IF YOU THINK IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO DO SO; misusing this feature wastes moderators' time, and may prevent them from monitoring the forum properly. Also, do not tell members directly that they are breaking the rules; this type of conduct is referred to as "backseat moderating" or "pseudo moderating", and many forums frown upon those who behave in this way. So if you see a post you think constitutes a rule-break, report it to our moderators, because backseat moderating will only serve to land you in just as much trouble as the person you are condemning for breaking the rules in the first place.

6. International Forum
The Integrated Resource Forum is an international forum which is based in the United Kingdom; anyone from around the world can become a member.
This Forum uses English as the primary language. If you are unable to speak English, we will communicate with you to the best of our ability. If English is not your primary language, but you are able to speak in English, try to speak English to the best of your ability.

7. Have Fun!
As long as you adhere to the Forum Rules and don't let anything bother you, we can assure you that you will have a great time posting in the Integrated Resource Forums!