GENERAL FORUM RULES

This section of the website is a MUST READ for every member of the Petshrimp.com forums. Every community, both online and offline, needs rules to function properly and stay focused on its goals. Participation in Petshrimp.com discussions requires following the community rules. Ignoring these rules will lead to warnings and possible banning, especially if rules are blatantly ignored.
Post Reply
Mustafa
Founder
Founder
Posts: 6057
Joined: Fri May 28, 2004 2:13 pm
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Contact:

GENERAL FORUM RULES

Post by Mustafa »

The following rules must be adhered to when participating in the Petshrimp.com forums. If rules are blatantly broken the rule breaker will be issued a warning or be banned from the forums at the discretion of the forum owner or moderators:

1. Offers of anything for sale (i.e. animals and/or goods) or inquiries about anything for sale (i.e. "wanted" ads/inquiries) are not allowed. This includes barter requests (i.e. I'll give you A if you give me B) or "free" offers of animals or goods. This is a discussion forum and not a marketplace.

2. Links to commercial websites are not allowed. If you need to post information from a commercial website, you can always cut and paste or describe the information in your own words.

3. Topics that have nothing to do with the intended purpose/topic of the forum are not allowed. I.e. do not post questions/topics about fish in the shrimp forum or questions/topics about shrimp in the crayfish forum etc.. There must be some relation to the topic of the forum in your question/discussion. This rule serves to keep the discussion focused.

4. Before posting any questions or comments you MUST perform a search in the forum AND check the information on the "Supershrimp" page AND read ALL of the articles in the "articles" section of this website. Many questions and topics have been discussed many times before or can be answered by reading the Supershrimp section, the articles, and performing searches in the forum. This rule prevents the same question from being asked over and over again. When performing a search, make sure that you click the "Display results as posts" radio button to make your search more focused and find the specific posts related to your search. Otherwise you will only get whole threads as results and have to look for the relevant posts. Yes, it can take a long time to perform effective searches, but the rewards are more than worth it (in addition to it being a rule).

5. You must use punctuation and capitalization in your posts. Reading posts without periods, commas and capitalization (i.e. the whole post is one huge sentence) is extremely difficult. Nobody should have to read a question 3 or more times just to understand it. Also, "internet slang" words such as "wud", "wat", "wot" (all 3=what), "da"(=the), "dis" (=this), "y" (=why), "u" (=you) and similar "teenager talk" are not allowed. This rule should not be regarded as an "english lesson" rule. The purpose of this rule is to keep the posts straightforward and easily understandable.

Although correct spelling is desirable, it is understood that typos can and will occur when typing posts online. Hence, you are NOT breaking this rule with your typos. Also, international users are encouraged to post in the Petshrimp.com forums, even if you think that your english is not "that great." Your input is appreciated. However, international or not, please make sure that you understand all the rules first before posting.

6. Do NOT join the forum and start critizing the site, the rules, the website owner, forum members etc. with your posts. Such posts do not belong into the forum and only disrupt the discussion and spread negativity. If you like the site, you stay. If you don't like it, you are free to leave, join another forum or create your own website/forum and do things "better." If you think you need to make suggestions, then you can write an email to the website owner. He may or may not take your suggestions into consideration. Rest assured that the website, the forum and the rules are the way they are for a reason. Violaters of this particular rule will get banned *immediately* without explanation and their posts/threads will be deleted.


More rules may be added in the future as necessary. Also, rules might change or be expanded. Hence, please make sure that you check these rules regularly.
Post Reply