Forum Rules

Braingle is a family friendly website and our forums are a place for positive discussions about a wide range of topics. Swearing, rudeness and other forms of abuse are not tolerated. If you don't like our rules, please post your comments someplace else. We will not listen to complaints about these rules.

These rules will be enforced by the site moderators. It is their job to keep these forums clean and friendly. Topics and comments may be locked, deleted or edited and members may be banned temporarily or permanently due to bad behavior. Our decision is final in these matters.

General Rules

• While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts.
• Discussions about illegal activities such as music piracy, drugs, or hacking are not allowed.
• Please refrain from posting meaningless threads, one word replies, non-sense posts, or the such.
• Multiple posting, repeat posting or meaningless posts just to increase your post count are not allowed.
• No cross posting. Post your message once, to the appropriate topic and nowhere else.
• Please try to stay on topic. Start a new topic if you have something else to say.
• Use a title that describes the content of your post.
• Don't use all caps or special characters to draw attention. Don't use excessive amounts of smilies.
• When replying to a comment, quote the minimum amount of text necessary for context. Often, no quote is needed.
• Before posting a question, please read the FAQ and search the forums for an answer.
• Before posting, please reread your post for spelling and grammar mistakes.
• If you are posting a picture, please make sure it is of a reasonable size (under 500 pixels per side is a good rule of thumb).
• Do not impersonate a moderator or editor.
• If you notice a problem that needs to be addressed, please PM a moderator.
• If a moderator posts specific rules for a forum or topic, they must be obeyed.
• Multiple accounts are not allowed.

No Profanity or Inappropriate Material

• This is a family site and profanity is strictly prohibited. This includes any material that is sexually explicit, derogatory, or discriminates on the basis of gender, age, race, religion, lifestyle, etc. Also prohibited is the use of foul language whether it uses alternate spellings, is placed in an acronym, or is censored. This includes offensively named accounts which may be deleted at any time. In other words, keep it PG.

No Spam

• Spam is the abuse of our forums by posting advertisements, links to unrelated websites, affiliate or referral links, or in general any post that is off-topic and is designed to benefit only yourself. Spamming is not allowed.

No Trolling or Flaming

• A troll is a person who makes comments designed to induce angry replies. A flame is a hostile message that constitutes a personal attack against another member or group. We don't like trolls or flamers.

Avatars

• An avatar is a little picture that will appear adjacent to your posts. Avatars of a sexual nature are not allowed. Animated GIFs should be used sparingly. You can edit your avatar here.

Signatures

• A signature is a short piece of text that is automatically added to the end of your posts. The maximum length of a signature is 250 characters. HTML formatting inside signatures is not allowed. All of the above rules apply to the content of your signature. You can edit your signature here.

Account Responsibility

• You are fully responsible for your own account and protection of your password. Statements such as "My friend/sister/brother/dog was using my account." are not acceptable as an explanation for the violation of any rule. If you share your account with someone and they break the rules, it will be treated the same as if you broke the rules yourself.

Other Rules

• It is impossible and impractical to list every rule possible, so use common sense. If asked by a moderator to stop or change a behavior or action, you should do so. You cannot claim that it was not stated in the rules. Moderators give their own time to keep the boards running smoothly. It is their job to keep the forums clean, so don't think that they're "out to get you". Additionally, an attack on a moderator or editor shows a particular lack of regard for the rules, and will get you banned rather quickly. Users will find their time on the board much more enjoyable when they follow the rules and address the moderators and all users politely.