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ChurchTalk Site Guidelines
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1. Multiple Accounts
1.1 Members are permitted to have only one account each. If you forget your login details or wish to change your user name, email ChurchTalk for help, please do not simply re-register. Anyone found using multiple accounts will be warned and have all additional accounts deleted. Further violations of this rule will result in the member being banned.

2. Unacceptable Content
2.1 The use of inappropriate or offensive language is not permitted in these forums.
2.2 Unacceptable language includes, but is not limited to, any language or content that is sexually oriented, sexually suggestive or abusive, pornographic, harassing, defamatory, libelous, vulgar, obscene, insulting, threatening, profane, hateful, or that contains racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable material of any kind.
2.3 Posting or referencing sexually explicit images or other offensive content.
2.4 Using asterisks or other symbols instead of the actual letters in an offensive word is still considered a violation if the vulgarity is discernible.

3. Copyrighted or Trademarked Materials
3.1 It is illegal to post any content that is copyrighted or trademarked, unless you hold the copyright or trademark. Any material protected by copyright may not be posted in the message boards without the express permission of the author or owner of the copyright on that material. This includes reproducing the full text of news stories, articles, etc.
3.2 It is acceptable to provide a link to copyrighted material, to post brief excerpts, or to paraphrase other works, though we do strongly encourage you to cite the original source whenever possible. This is purely to protect ChurchTalk and yourself from potential copyright infringement.

4. Advertising
4.1 ChurchTalk does not allow members to post advertisements of any kind either in the forums, blogs, or anywhere else where members can publish content on the website or the chat rooms.
4.2 If you have a commercial product or service to sell, and would like to bring it to the attention of the ChurchTalk membership, please contact admin@ChurchTalk.com.
4.3 Advertising includes, but is not limited to: posting the URL of your commercial web site; offering for sale (or a free trial of) your product and/or service; posting references to, excerpts from, or details of your product and/or service; submitting a post with minimal content that, even in the absence of explicit references towards your product and/or service, is clearly designed to act as a lure towards it; posting your Email address or asking members to contact you for details of your product and/or service. ("Your" in the instances above includes any commercial connection between the vendor ("you") and the product and/or service in question).
4.4 Exceptions:
a. Substantial content that derives from or is connected to a commercial product (e.g extracts from a subscription-only newsletter) may be permitted provided that the content is deemed useful to the community by the moderators and provided that there is absolutely no direct reference to its commercial nature.
b. Members with no connection to commercial products and/or services may of course mention them where relevant.
c. Vendors may answer specific questions that relate to an aspect of their product and/or service, provided that they do not use their response as a means of promoting it.
4.5 Members who feel that a vendor is acting inappropriately or in an underhand manner with respect to these guidelines should alert a moderator and state their reasons. Members who feel that a post is not useful to the community and merely a lure to attract customers should report it for moderators' consideration and action.
4.6 The Private Mail system must not be used to advertise products or solicit trade.
4.7 Members found infringing these guidelines will receive a warning and a subsequent ban if they continue to do so.

5. Piracy and Unlawful Activities
5.1 This forum is not a place to violate any laws or to discuss illegal activities. This type of activity includes, but is not limited to, advocating or asking for information regarding software piracy, sharing or distributing viruses, licenses, registration information, software keys, "cracks," or other information designed to do harm to or allow unlawful access to any computer hardware, software, networks, or any other systems.

6. Posting Guidelines
6.1 Each forum has a different topic, so what is appropriate in one forum or thread may not be appropriate in another. Take some time to find a forum and topic which best fits the subject matter of your new message. 6.2 Browse a topic first and/or use the search facility to see if your question has already been asked or answered by someone else.
6.3 Do not start threads if:
- You are simply responding to another thread that has been locked/deleted by a moderator.
- You are asking why a previous thread was locked/deleted by a moderator.
- You solely want to complain about the behavior of forum participants or content. In doing so, you are only creating another pointless thread.
6.4 Do not make a post for the sole use of increasing your post count - also known as "post padding." An example is a reply simply stating "Yes" or "No", unless you have been specifically asked to respond in this way.
6.5 Posting Images: Forum members are allowed to post images subject to copyright restrictions. However, please do not include any images of a sexual or offensive nature. If you are uncertain if an image is acceptable or not, please just post a link to the image with a warning that it goes to a page that some may find offensive. Any links to clearly offensive or pornographic materials will be removed immediately.
6.6 Please don't pretend to be an expert if you aren't one. Humility is better than arrogance. It is fine to not know something or to be a beginner. Beginners masquerading as experts or who repeatedly give advice to others hurt the forum as novices may not yet be able to tell who is actually an expert, and who merely thinks he is one.
6.7 Posts or threads which knowingly lead to overly strong negative and emotional responses (‘trolling’) are not allowed.
6.8 Avoid spamming. This is defined as posting forum messages that offer no significant value to the topic. Most of these kinds of posts are just single-word posts that have no meaning or value whatsoever.
6.9 Keep your posts related to the topic of the thread. Irrelevant posts, particularly those which are intended to take the thread completely off topic will be moved to a new thread, or may be removed altogether.
6.10 Please keep your posts as constructive as possible and avoid making a post that adds little or no value to the discussion, for example "That's so cool." Poor grammar, spelling and misleading titles, make it harder to read the forums.
6.11 Please do not double post (two posts in a row). If you do need to amend a post, please do so by using the edit button next to your original post.
6.12 Do not post the same message more than once, in different forums.
6.13 Do not "shout" online (using all CAPITAL LETTERS). It's considered bad net etiquette, makes other members uncomfortable, and is difficult to read.
6.14 If you wish to complain about the content of a post, please use the 'Report Bad Post' exclamation mark button at the bottom left of the offending post.
6.15 Do not post for the purpose of linking through to another page on an external website eg. 'for more information'.

7. Managing User Content
7.1 Members of these forums are solely responsible for all content they post on our site. ChurchTalk shall have the right, but not the obligation, to correct any errors or omissions in any content, as it may determine at its sole discretion. ChurchTalk further reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to delete or remove any user content from the site and to deny the access of any member to all or part of this site, at any time for any reason without prior notice or liability.

8. Mentioning other Web sites
8.1 It is fine to mention, link to, or discuss other Web sites that are of interest to our users, as long as they don't violate our other guidelines. But please don't use our community to generate traffic for another OS community. This goes against basic "etiquette." We'll delete posts that, in our judgment, mention or link to our competitors for the sole purpose of encouraging our users to participate elsewhere.

9. Signature Rules
9.1 Signatures should not be excessively long.
9.2 It is not permitted to use the signatures to advertise. Members may include details of their website and profession in their personal profiles.

10. Moderators
10.1 The moderators are site members who freely give their time to ensure that discussions are friendly and civilized and conducted in accordance with the site’s rules. The forums could not function without them and their efforts should be appreciated by all who use the site.
10.2 Please remember the moderators are volunteers. Try not to make their tasks even more time consuming by seeking to draw them into debate on the implementation of the rules in any particular case. Any thread which appears to be going down this route will be closed and/or removed by the site administrators.

11. User Names
11.1 Members must not register with a User Name that advertises a website eg. ending with .com, .co.uk etc.
11.2 Members should never use an email address (or part of) as their User Name, to ensure their privacy and comply with 11.1 above.

12. Violations of these Rules
12.1 Any breach of the above rules will result in the member being suspended for 7 days, although depending on the circumstances and at the moderators’ discretion, any action may be preceded by a warning.
12.2 Any further violation within 6 months will result in a permanent ban from the website.
12.3 Any member subject to a suspension will be permitted to read the forums, but not post.
12.4 In exceptional circumstances, and at the discretion of the site moderators, members may be immediately and permanently banned. Such circumstances include, but are not limited to, sexual harassment, personal abuse towards another member, racist comments or blatant advertising.