The rules are the rules - EVERYONE PLEASE READ

Everybody here is expected to:

* abide by them

* not try to manipulate them to get others in trouble

* not read more into them than what's actually there

I'll expect the mod team either to help me with this or to step aside. I'll expect the members here not to go hammering the report button every time someone calls them a name.

I'm happy to take the site offline again if people cannot stop making this place into an embarrassment.

Here are the rules you're expected to follow:

As the name implies, NewsFix is a forum for the sharing and discussion of news.

It is not a place to carry out personal quarrels with other members, nor a place to discuss other forums, nor a place for posting hate speech against minority groups.

Thus, the first guideline is that a post should, in the spirit of a news forum, be of interest to anyone looking in the category in which it's placed. It follows that replies to such posts should be of potential interest to anyone looking in.

It is accepted that discussions will become heated and that insults will be swapped between members, but lines of common decency and propriety should not be crossed:

New topics that are obviously created to insult or provoke other members are not acceptable (action or discipline subject to moderator discretion).

Likewise, posts that contain racist, homophobic, sexist or other offensive slurs, or that "dox" another member, are unacceptable, and those who create such posts are subject to discipline including permanent banning. In addition, avatars or signatures that contain images or text deemed to be offensive to any ethnic, religious or national group, or to people of any gender identity or sexual orientation, by the administrative team may be removed, and members may be subjected to any disciplinary action.

Posts that include personal details about a particular member in abusive fashion are not allowed, and members who abusively post personal information about others may be subject to administrative action, including a permanent ban, at the administrators' discretion.

Members deemed by administrators to be exclusively or semi-exclusively engaged in harassing other members or disrupting the forum in general are subject to disciplinary action, including a permanent ban.

More recent addendum/clarification:

* No combative language that incorporates personal details from a fellow member's real life - period.

* No combative language that incorporates allegations from other forums or websites. I could say that on www.lifesappingforum.com back in 2007, Veya admitted he secretly films people pooping. That wouldn't be fair, because nobody could verify that for themselves. So no references to other forums when engaged in verbal warfare.

* No verbal warfare that incorporates offensive slurs based on race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, etc. As always, stuff like this will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and if you feel this has been done to you, you should PM one of the admins. And for the love of all things holy, provide a link! None of this "so-and-so called me a frogturd in that one thread ..."

* You are expected to participate in a manner that promotes debate, not fighting. That doesn't mean that we expect there to be no fighting. But members who routinely turn a majority of the threads in which they're participating into slinging matches will be considered a nuisance and subjected to temporary bans, over and over again if necessary, until they figure out how to stop doing that, or a permanent ban.

* You are expected to participate in a manner that would tend to make other people want to sign up, not make existing members want to leave. Anybody deliberately disrupting this site out of malice toward any member will be subjected to temporary or permanent bans.

Just to add, anybody who constantly pesters the admins with complaints about other members that aren't actual rules violations is now subject to moderator action as well.

When you participate here, you don't have the right to not be insulted or offended. But it's also not anything-goes.

LOCKED

I suggest some forum members might like to reacquaint with these rules again.

Bumped again.