Several incidents in the past have led us (the Global Moderators Team) to the conclusion that there is need for more detailed board rules. Please don't feel intimidated by our new rules which have been made to increase transparency for the whole moderating process.
1. We keep our board rules up to date
- a. The rules on this board may be revised to clarify existing paragraphs or even add new ones as a reaction to new developments on the board or concerning legal issues.
b. Board rule changes will be announced.
2. Your registration / your account
- a. We allow only one account per person.
b. You must activate your registration immediately; accounts that are displayed "non active" three days after registration may be deleted without further notice.
c. No Garland impersonators! Anyone impersonating Judy Garland on the board will be subject to warnings and account suspension.
3. Forum rules
- a. Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Please read the forum descriptions before posting. Users constantly posting to the wrong forum may be given a warning.
b. Users should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
c. Users should not act as "back seat moderators". If they note an issue which contravenes the board policy they are welcome to bring it to the attention of a member of the Global Moderator Team. Please use the "report post" feature to report posts. Do not respond to such topics yourself. Members who constantly "act" as moderators may be warned.
d. Users should remember that this forum is aimed at a general audience. Posting pornographic or generally offensive text, links and images (and the list goes on) will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
e. Users are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media (and the list goes on). Users posting copyrighted material will receive a warning and their posting will be removed.
f. Users should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That means users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or coloured text (and the list goes on). Users are asked not to SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! or ?) in topic titles or posts. Users constantly ignoring this may be warned.
g. Users should use an appropriate, descriptive title when posting a new topic. Examples of bad titles include: "Look at this !!!", "I have a problem" and "My new vid". Examples of good titles include: "Quotes you like" or "E-mail notification not working".
h. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes one word and smilie postings, postings that are only there to increase your post count as well as postings advertising goods or similar sites or boards. Trying to recruit administrative members (e.g. moderators) for your own projects is not appreciated and is also considered spam. Users posting spam may be warned and their posting removed. At the moment an exception is made for certain games, while rather elaborate discussion should still be considered the main event here.
i. Topic locks (a thread has been locked by a member of the Global Moderator team due to a violation of board rules in this thread, inappropriately heated discussion and the list goes on) - temporary as well as permanent ones - must not be circumvented in any way. This includes posting new topics to continue the old one without board staff permission.
j. The administrator and the members of the Global Moderator team reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. is up to team members and not users.
k. The above forum rules where applicable also apply to private messaging.
l. Any abuse of board features subject to revocation may lead to actual revocation of that particular feature (e.g. private messaging).
4. Signatures
- a. Signatures may contain up to five lines of text (of small or normal size) and / or an image up to the width of 500px and height of 150px and a maximum of 100 kB (100000 Bytes) size. Valid combinations include: one maximum size image (or several smaller images adding up to the maximum) and one line of small text; one image (or several smaller images adding up) up to the height of 100px and three lines of small size text or two lines of normal size text; one image (or several smaller images adding up) up to the height of 50px and four lines of small size text or three lines of normal size text; no image and five lines of small size or normal size text. Blank lines can be inserted as well, but they add up to the maximum limit like regular lines with text do.
b. Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as in posts.
c. Please ensure that signature images respect other user's and site's bandwidth. That means that you have to upload them to your own webspace or a webhoster for use on the forum. Please also ensure that your hosting has a consistently high availability and speed. Images on slow servers may slow down the forum.
d. Links in signatures are permitted to a maximum of four unique pages or sites. You may not include links to sites illegally providing copyrighted material, porn and political, racist, religious or other hate sites. Links are included in signatur size limits.
e. Users constantly violating the rules may be warned and subject to signature privilege revocation.
5. Avatars
- a. Users are permitted to use the gallery avatars provided by the forum. Using avatars reserved for board staff is not permitted and may lead to a warning.
b. Users constantly switching to board staff avatars may be subject to avatar privilege revocation.
c. Users may request the upload of custom avatars in the appropriate thread. Features like linking to remote avatars or avatar upload are not available right now, but might be available in the future.
6. Linking offsite and advertising
- a. Users may link to other interesting websites and forums focused on different stars and / or subjects.
b. Users may link to other forums and groups focusing on Judy Garland for discussion purposes.
c. Users are not permitted to try to lure away members from this forum to their own projects, escpecially forums and groups focusing on Judy Garland.
d. Advertising goods or collector's items for sale is permitted in the appropriate section of the board and nowhere else. 'Collector's Corner' is a place for trade between collectors and usually no place to sell rather professional goods. The Judy Garland Message Board does not take any responsibility for trades made on the board.
e. Registering with the only purpose or main purpose to advertise your commerce or Judy group, forum or website and without participating in any discussion (this includes posting a few alibi posts) is not permitted.
f. Trade promotion via your profile is not permitted. This includes links in your signature and links in the 'website' field of your profile.
g. Any user violating the rules will receive a warning. Postings or links colliding with the rules may be removed.
7. Copyrighted material
- a. Posting links to make copyrighted material of any kind available publicly (in a non-legal way) is not permitted.
b. Selling pirated copies of copyrighted material is not permitted.
c. Making such copies available publicly - even for free - is not permitted.
d. Linking to websites where such copies can be bought is not permitted. This includes giving hints about where to find such copies.
e. The rules above cover cds, dvds and any other media or (digital) formats.
f. Material in the public domain is excluded.
g. Posting links to any harmful content (viruses, malicious software) is strictly forbidden.
h. Users violating the rules may be warned.
8. Policing
- a. The Judy Garland Message Board (also referred to as: JGMB, J.G.M.B. and J.G. Message Board) operates on a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offences in a three month period. If a user receives a fourth warning a temporary ban of between 1 to 7 days will be put in place. Warnings expire after 90 days. Please keep in mind that you'll keep all warnings that haven't expired (except the fourth one leading to your ban) when coming back from such a short time ban. You can keep track of your warnings in your user control panel under 'Your warning level'.
b. Aside from this standard procedure the Global Moderators team reserves the right to use bans or account suspensions of a different length. Due to continued rule violation, severe violation of rules or very heated and personal discussion moderators may decide for 'cool off periods' that go from weeks to months.
c. Arguing with team members after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed three strikes a temporary ban will be put in place as stated above.
d. Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact the Global Moderators team leader. If he feels you have been treated badly he will remove a warning.
e. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban and registering a new e-mail account to evade an e-mail ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
f. An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.
g. Users constantly and severely violating board rules might be subject to a permanent ban. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. Permanent bans must not be circumvented by any method (e.g. the methods mentioned above). Any new accounts made by banned users will by shut down as soon as there's enough evidence. While the Judy Garland Message Board may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurence.
h. Staff decisions will not be discussed in public, but only between staff members.
Sincerely
Your JGMB staff
