Board-wide Policies

This document is designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members here at www.nationalcanine.com. Please read it and become familiar with it, it's terms are retroactive and agreed by team and group members.

Forum rules

1. Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions before posting. Users consistently posting to the wrong forum may be given a warning (see policing below). #

2. Members 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. #

3. Members may not insult or degrade any other person, dog, or organization. This includes linking to material that does so. Any attempt to do so will be erased and the member shall be warned.

4. Members are asked to not act as "back seat moderators". If members note an issue which contravenes something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it to the attention of the webmaster. Only do this if a moderator has not replied within 6 hours. Do not respond to such topics yourself. Members who consistenly "act" as moderators may be warned. #

5. Members should remember this board is aimed at a general audience. Posting pornographic or generally offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning. #

6. Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users re-printing material without permision will receive a warning and their post will be removed. #

7. Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites. The use of inline ([IMG][/IMG]) image tags pointing to data stored on third party systems for which the user has not received permission to link to may be removed. #

8. Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or coloured text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned. #

9. Members should use an appropriate, descriptive title when posting a new topic. Examples of bad titles include; "Help me!", "I'm stuck!", "I've got an error!", etc. Examples of good titles include; "Getting an TABLE FULL error upon login", "Cannot restore a backup", etc. #

10. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering hosting services (charged and free), installation services, etc. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed. See specific item on spam and 3rd party linking for more information. #

11. Members are asked to not disclose to any 3rd party, board, or list any vulnerabilities in NCA.com before first notifying the developers. You should submit all finds to our webmaster. Time should be allowed for us, at least 3 working days wherever possible, to respond. #

12. The moderators reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to moderators and not users. #

13. The above forum rules where applicable also apply to private messaging. Abuse of the private messaging system may lead to warnings (as above) and/or the revokation of private messaging. #

Policing

1. NCA.com operates a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offences in a three month period. If the need arises for a fourth warning a temporary ban will be put in place of between 1 to 7 days.

2. Arguing with moderators 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 above.

3. 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, registering a new email account of evade an email ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.

4. An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact moderators personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.

5. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While NCA.com may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurence.