Tutorials - General > Forum Rules: In Depth

Tutorials & FAQ : General : Community Site Forum Rules: In Depth

Introduction
The PlusNet Community Site forums offer a valuable resource for feedback, discussion, help and interaction with PlusNet staff and other PlusNet users. Over the years the forums have built up a knowledgeable, welcoming and friendly community.

The Community Site Forums are open to customers of all PlusNet brands; FORCE9, Free-Online, Metronet and PlusNet. For brevity in this guide all references are to PlusNet, incorporating all vISP brands.

Customer feedback is important to PlusNet, who welcome all of it, be it positive or negative. The PlusNet Comms Team are on hand, mostly in the Feedback forum to answer queries and participate in the dialogue.


The forums are moderated by customers, namely James (James_H), Daniel (Assos), Bill (billbo), Jonathan (chillypenguin) and Roger (Rogerloxton). The moderators are not paid by PlusNet and volunteer their time freely. They do not get any special insight into what PlusNet are doing or when your ticket is going to be answered.
The role of the moderators is to ensure that the forums provide an enjoyable and informative experience for all. They also ensure that the Forum Guidelines and rules are followed. The moderators have the right to edit, censor, delete or otherwise modify any posted message.

If at anytime you have reason to question the actions of a moderator, in the first instance send a PM to the Moderator, if your issue still cannot be resolved then contact a member of the PlusNet Comms Team, who will discuss this with the moderators and make a final decision on your case.

The Rules of the forum
The purpose of this tutorial is to add further information to the existing guidelines that can be seen at
Forum Guidelines.

Forum Language
The official language to be used with postings on the forums is English. The Polish forum is for discussion in Polish only. No other language is to be used on the forums.

Arguments
There is a fine line between discussion and argument which is at times hard to define. In general a discussion becomes an argument when the postings become personal and if this starts to become obvious then the Moderators will take necessary action which may include removal or locking of posts.

Trolling
A troll is a person who posts inflammatory messages, to disrupt the discussion or to upset its participants. The word, or its derivative, "trolling", is also used to describe such messages or the act of posting them. This behavior will not be tolerated.

Personal attacks
These are usually caused by discussions turning into serious arguments as mentioned above. Please think before posting anything that would be defined as this sort of attack. For example "Username is an idiot" Personal attacks are not welcome on these forums and will be dealt with firmly.

Impoliteness toward forum staff
This is when someone impolitely argues against any of the forum staff. (Forum staff include PlusNet staff and Moderators.) An example would be: “How dare you lock that thread you stupid moderator!”
However, saying something like “Could you please unlock my thread, because I feel there was no need for it to be locked.” would be perfectly fine.

Use of inappropriate language
The use of swear words, or disguised swear words, in a post is not allowed on the forums. Any attempt to avoid the swear filter will be dealt with.

Cross Posting
We do not allow 'cross posting' where a user posts the same text in more than one forum. This wastes resources as forum users have to read posts twice. It also causes confusion to the original poster as they may well find that replies are disjointed over 2 or more threads.

Posts/threads in a totally wrong place
Please try and check that the topic you are starting is in the correct section of the forums. Moderators will move posts that are obviously in the wrong section.

Advertising and Spamming
Forum users are not permitted to post advertisements or commercial solicitations on the forums. This includes offering goods or services for sale. However, there is no problem with users posting links to their web sites in signatures or posts, provided the posts are materially useful and are not simply seeking to promote their products (e.g. recommending themselves for every query).
The advertising or offering for sale of your own personal items is permitted in the for sale forum.

Posting inappropriate material
Remember that these forums can be viewed by all ages and not just adults. Sexual, Racist Items or links to explicit material will be removed and if this is repeated then action will be taken against the poster.

Illegal file sharing
P2P (or peer-to-peer) software is not illegal in itself, nor is sharing files over it. What is illegal is the sharing of copyrighted files - over P2P or not. Therefore, discussions about P2P software in general are allowed on these forums... However,discussions about or links to sites distributing copyright material are not allowed.

Off Topic Posts (OT)
It is inevitable that threads in forums can veer off course from the original topic. Rather than drag a thread off topic, you should start a new thread in the appropriate forum and post a link in the original thread. Please note that reasonable deviations from a topic's starting point are allowed, if discussions on the topic's original subject have finished.

User removal of a moderators note
If a moderator leaves a note in a post, this must not be removed. They are left so the forum community knows what has happened to the post, and why the moderator has carried out any action. Hence, we treat this unofficial removal very seriously.

Contact Us ticket posting
The posting of Contact Us tickets is permitted but the CS Agents name must be removed, unless prior permission has been given by the agent in question.

Posting of Personal Details
Without the express permission of the user are not to be posted on the forums. This includes the content of PM's (personal forum messages) or emails received from moderators or staff.

All CAPS titles/posts
These can be annoying not only because in general "netiquette" they represent shouting, but the letters are also harder for the human brain to distinguish, thus making them harder to read. Therefore, posting in all caps is not permitted.

Signature Images
Certain signature images that are available for use on the Internet reveal information like your IP Address and Browser. These are not allowed on the forums as some more inexperienced users feel that these are in some way breaching their security and privacy.

Oversize avatars and signatures:
The limits for Avatar sizes are stated at the foot of the "Profile" page where you set up the Avatar. At this time the limits on these forums are 80 x 80 pixels and a maximum file size of 10K
Signatures should be similarly treated and if image based then try and adhere to a size similar to that of the Avatar rules.
Text based signatures should be no more than 5 lines of text.

In general oversized signatures are annoying and can sometimes be larger than the message in the post.
Avatars that are oversized will be removed and signatures that are obviously too large will be treated similarly.

Too many emoticons
Some people get over-enthusiastic with emotions. There should be no need for more than two or three emoticons together in a post.


"Rubbish" posting
Some people think it is amusing to post in "rubbish" language... i.e. using odd characters instead of letters or even letters in no particular order. This is not permitted.

Bumping of posts
"Bumping" is the act of adding to a thread just to get your topic back to the top of the list in a forum and should not be done.
Users who keep bumping there topics face action that may include the locking of the topic and / or removal of forum access.

Banned members
If a poster is banned from posting or accessing the forums that ban includes using another members account or log on details to access the forums or asking another member to post on their behalf. This action could have consequences for the other forum member.
A ban will usually be for a minimum of 48 hours while the case is considered by the Moderators and PlusNet staff. Following that it may be removed or extended depending upon the circumstances.
If the user then gets banned again it is more than likely possible that this next ban will be for an extended period of time and could even could be permanent.

Other removal of forum access
Users with free accounts do not have full access to the forums and users who downgrade to a "free" account will have full access removed.
There is a forum for those with free or dial-up accounts to join the discussion.(Free Dialup & Guest Forum)

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Original Article by: gadgetboy - Edited by: sallyandjames