The One Truth Forum Rules
SECTION A - GENERAL
1. REGISTRATION
- Access to our website is free. However, this does not mean that The One Truth would be a public forum; it is a private forum with public access.
- Membership of The One Truth is subject to a pre-registration process, and no one can post to the forums without having completed the registration. The candidate-member's IP address is visible to the moderator team as part of the registration process. This helps us in preventing the exploitation of the forum for commercial or other purposes not in agreement with our guidelines, and in taking precautions to ensure our members' privacy and safety.
- Membership is a privilege, not a right, and the administration holds the prerogative to deny access to whomever necessary in order to preserve the integrity of the community and the safety of its members.
- The administration considers the posts made on these forums too important for members to come back later and remove their posts again without a solid reason. Therefore, all posts made on the forums become the property of The One Truth. Members who later on return to posts made earlier in order to remove the contents of their posts by editing or otherwise obscuring them may see the original contents restored again by the staff if it is decided that the after-modifications negatively affect the readability of the threads these posts are contained within.
2. RESPECT
While it is only natural that members disagree with one another on account of certain subjects, The One Truth does demand of its members that they behave responsibly and treat one another with respect. We encourage our members to settle their differences in a positive and constructive way. It is always better to respectfully "agree to disagree" than to let differences of opinion escalate into a conflict.
3. SELF-PROMOTION
The One Truth is a community where information is shared and intelligent discourse is encouraged. It is however not a forum for anyone seeking to advertise or promote their own philosophies, websites, products or services. Links in a member's signature for websites offering commercial services or products are not permitted. The administration does however reserve the right to grant an exception to this rule under certain very specific circumstances.
4. TRANSPARENCY
The administration of The One Truth is under no obligation, at any time, to reveal to members what steps we have taken in terms of moderation. Out of respect for our member base, we will commonly post an announcement regarding any big changes we are planning on implementing, but any such announcement will be issued at the staff's convenience only. In the absence of any forthcoming announcement, all actions taken by the staff are determined not to warrant any explanation.
In most cases, members who would like information with regard to moderator intervention, or who have certain questions, are free to contact the staff by way of a private message. However, members who repeatedly attempt to elicit a public explanation from the staff on account of its moderation activities may receive a warning and/or be banned.
SECTION B - POSTING
1. SUBVERSIVE TOPICS
- Discussions involving drugs or other intoxicating substances, pornography or nudity, foul language, racial/sexual/national intolerance, hate speech of any kind, or the planning of politically subversive acts will not be tolerated. This is by no means a complete list, and the administration reserves the right to use its own judgement to determine whether any given topic will be allowed for discussion on our forums.
- Threads relating to suicide are prohibited due to legal liability. If you are feeling suicidal, then please immediately call your local suicide hotline and/or a trained professional for help.
2. PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS
- Private messages are not to be posted in public without the author's permission.
- If you receive any private messages which you deem inappropriate or problematic, then you may report these messages to the staff by way of the link at the bottom left of the message viewer ─ the Report link has the appearance of a little triangle with an exclamation mark inside of it. Upon clicking the Report link, you will get a pop-up in which you can offer further clarification on why you want to report the pertinent message. The staff will then receive your report along with a copy of the message.
3. DEAD TEXT
When replying to a thread by way of the Reply with Quotes link at the bottom right of a post, please quote only the previous poster's text which is essential to the reply, and delete any other and unnecessary text from the quoted section of your post. It only takes a few seconds of extra work, but it makes a world of difference in the quality and readability of your posts.
4. POSTS SUBJECT TO EDITING, DELETION OR RELOCATION
Individual posts or even entire threads may be subject to modification, deletion or relocation to another part of the forums by the staff in our efforts to uphold the guidelines and community spirit of The One Truth.
5. WORD CENSOR
The forums of The One Truth use a mindless word censor. It aims to eliminate rude words such as **** and **** in order to make this a more palatable place for everyone. Please do not utilize any methods to circumvent the word censor, including the posting of images which display these words, or videos which contain the words in either their titles or their thumbnails. Willful disregard of this rule will result in having your posts edited by the staff, or having other administrative action taken.
6. POSTING EXTERNAL MATERIAL
When sharing material from other websites on the forums, we request that you please do this in the form of summary paragraphs, supported with links to the external source(s). The posting of naked links without any summary text at all is not allowed, as most members do not have the time to blindly click them.
7. POSTING LINKS FOR DOWNLOADING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
Live links to where people can download copyrighted material in any shape or form are not allowed. Any such posts will be removed or edited. Members who willfully persist at posting such links will be banned.
8. EXAGGERATED USE OF TEXT FORMATTING
Excessive use of over-the-top attention-grabbing formats ─ such as (but not limited to) all-uppercase, very large fonts and/or alarmist and panicky "URGENT" headlines ─ is not permitted, and such text may be edited by the moderators.
Also, bear in mind that The One Truth supports multiple very different forum themes, and that the use of certain text colors may render your text near invisible to members who prefer using a specific theme for their reading experience.
SECTION C - PERSONAL BEHAVIOR
- Posts should not be directed at any specific individuals or witnesses unless a discussion has already been opened. If you have an issue with a particular member, then please click the Report link found at the lower left of their post.
- Ad hominem attacks ─ i.e. personal attacks where a member is singled out on purpose for the sake of casting derogatory remarks and/or other insults ─ are not permitted, and posts in which such action takes place will be immediately deleted with no explanation given. Furthermore, the member who posted such an attack may become subject to an infraction or other administrative action.
- Posts which are considered offensive and/or disrespectful will be moderated first, and their author(s) will normally receive a warning to adjust their offensive behavior long before the moderator team of The One Truth resorts to banning the offensive member(s), but the administration of The One Truth reserves the right to immediately ban any member depending on the circumstances if doing so is deemed necessary for the safety of the forums and the members.
- Avatar images which are found to be offensive or otherwise in violation of the guidelines will be removed by the moderators.
SECTION D - INFRACTIONS AND SUSPENSIONS
In most cases, a member who breaks a rule will not be banned immediately, but will instead receive warnings and/or infractions. An accumulation of infractions may cause one's membership to become temporarily suspended, but under certain conditions, infractions aren't even required in order for the staff to decide on a temporary suspension of a particular person's membership.
In extreme cases, members may even find themselves banned, both immediately and permanently, such as in the event of the following transgressions:
1. THREATS
Any threat made, whether against a staff member or another member of The One Truth, can earn the perpetrator an instant and permanent ban, and the posts in which the threats were made may be removed by the staff without any explanation given, including any and all posts in which the threat is being quoted or otherwise referenced. This is not limited to merely threats with physical violence, but also threats of a legal, social or metaphysical nature ─ even when it's intended as a joke.
2. TROLLING
A troll is someone who deliberately posts controversial, irrelevant, or otherwise disruptive messages with the intention of provoking other people into an emotional response. Members who engage in trolling may be immediately banned.
3. CLONING
Members who willfully create multiple accounts will have their IP address(es) banned.
4. SPAMMING AND/OR ADVERTISING
- Members who abuse the trust of The One Truth's community and administration by posting spam ─ i.e. unwelcome propagandistic messages or advertising ─ on the forums and/or via the private messaging system will be banned immediately. Under certain conditions, the administration of The One Truth may decide to contact the perpetrators' Internet Service Provider regarding the abuse. The harvesting of e-mail addresses acquired on the forums for the sake of spamming forum members privately off of the forums is equally forbidden and will be sanctioned in the same manner.
- Any discussion of commercial services or products, or of a website designed to sell services or products, is forbidden. Members' signatures may not contain any links pointing at commercial websites. The staff reserves the right to edit member signatures if so required, and in extreme cases, a member's signature may be disabled by the staff altogether.
5. IMPERSONATION
Any member found to be impersonating another member of The One Truth ─ staff or otherwise ─ will be banned immediately.
= REGISTRATION AGREEMENT =
By registering at The One Truth, you are considered and expected to be in agreement with, and acceptance of, the above guidelines.
The One Truth, © 2017
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