FORUM RULES - PLEASE READ - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 01, 2014, 12:59:08 pm
content: Copied from the signup user agreement, and placed here for reference:The RulesI hate rules, but unfortunately we have to have some for this forum:1) Play nice with the other nerds2)No personal attacks. This is the biggest rule on this forum. If you don't follow it, you are not welcome here.3) Conduct yourself as you would in a public place. If you wouldn't swear like a drunken sailor in public, try not to do it here either. Young hobbyists may be on this forum too, there is no age limit here.4) Don't take things too seriously, chill out, life is short, have a laugh.5) This is an electronics forum, so try to stay on-topic. We understand that threads drift off-topic, but try not to start deliberately and grossly off-topic stuff.There are a couple of pet topics that always get out of control on forums, namely, religion, politics, guns, war, conspiracy theories, and the latest Current Thing that's happening or being championed by the public. They are not welcome here. This includes inside signatures and profile bios. This isn't Twitter where you virtue signal to everyone with your flags, emoticons, and hashtags.Those who come here to mostly only contribute non-electronics related material are not welcome. There are other forums for that stuff, this is not one of them.6) No attaching of commercial copyrighted material is allowed. i.e product firmware files for hacks.7) Moderators reserve the right to remove any potentially dangerous and/or potentially illegal information or instructions.8 ) No duplicate or "sock puppet" accounts will be tolerated.9) No accounts impersonating other people will be allowed.10) No spam allowed, or accounts set up to primarily promote your business or services. Related businesses are welcome here to provide technical support for your products though.11) We allow a custom "Personal Text" to appear below your profile, please do not abuse this. It is not for advertising your pet political, social, religious or similar causes with hashtags or phrases. A good example might be for use by a company employee to say who they work for. Moderators reserve the right to edit or remove this text.12) We allow custom signatures below your post, and these allow links and HTML fotmatting, please do not abuse this. See rule #11. A good example would be linking to your personal website. Moderators reserve the right to edit or remove this text.Understand that many people, from many countries, many cultures, and many languages use this forum. The meanings of words and the way people communicate variesenormously. If you are offended by a remark, don't just assume the poster meant it to be offensive. Assuming that they didn't mean any offense is always a good first step.In a public forum you have no rightNOTto be offended by something. If you are offended by something someone said, and it wasn't directed at you, sad day for you, move on, there are more important things in life.Moderation:1) Moderators reserve the right to delete any post deemed not in the best interest of the forum community.Posts do not vanish from the forum for technical reasons, so if your post vanishes then you can safely assume that it has been deleted by a moderator. This is very rare though.The moderator may chose to inform you by private message if this is done, but this is not always the case.Note that this action is not taken lightly. To have a post deleted here you really need to have said something really dangerous, illegal, or completely off-topic or inflammatory, or just doing it persistently, in which case you almost certainly already knew that.2) Moderators reserve the right to edit any post, same as above. An example would be a personal attack in a post or illegal or dangerous material within otherwise useful content.Where possible the moderator will keep the useful content intact. But it's rare that we have to edit posts. This will be obvious from the "edit by" part.3) Deleted posts are kept in a separate area and can be restored if required. Edited posts are NOT recoverable.The above being said,moderation on this forum israre!, and people rarely get banned from this forum.How rare? less than 1 in 1000 posts are bad enough to get deleted or edited, and that's impressive for a forum of this size.There are very few moderators here, and they can't read all the posts. In fact they can't even read 1/10th the posts. So moderation here is mostly based on user reports. If you think a post is questionable then use the report button. But please, no storms in a tea cup.You have no right NOT to be offended by something someone says.If you don't understand this, read it again until it sinks in.In the rare circumstances when posts are deleted or edited it isnot because a moderator disagrees with you, it is because you broke the rules or it's harmful to the community in some way. Almost certainly a personal attack or off-topic post. Very occasionally, obviously dangerous technical information may be removed.Different options are welcomed and actively encouraged on this forum, and free speech is important, provided you play by the rules.Don't take troll bait, and if you don't like someone or are offended by something someone has said, just ignore them. Life is too short, really.When in doubt, keep it technical.The goal for this forum is for it to be essentially self moderated, try to lead by example. Post moderation will only happen when absolutely necessary.If you think a thread is heading off-topic, then don't complain, take the initiative and bring it back on-topic yourself, lead by example!The main rule is NO PERSONAL ATTACKS, they will not be tolerated here. If you can't follow that simple rule, you are not welcome here.PrivacyYour privacy on this forum is important should you choose to exercise it.The majority of users however choose to either use their real name and/or real email address, and this in encouraged, as it can help build your public online reputation.Any information you provide on the forum that is not publicly accessible will remain private. Only the moderators and administrators can access it, and will only do so for the purposes of administration.That being said, this is not a bank website, it's a public community forum.Whilst reasonable efforts are taken to ensue security of the forum and its database, it is not guaranteed that the forum or database cannot be hacked. The administrators are not security experts, and a standard install of Simple Machines Forum software is in place here. Whilst the forum software is kept up to date, and best efforts are made to fix any vulnerabilities if they arise, no additional security features have been added.Your private information will only be revealed to a third party upon a suitable court order, or official police request.Your private or public information will not be on-sold or used for any other purpose than that which is required in operating the forum.Your IP address and time and date are logged when you view and/or post to this forum, this is a standard feature of the Simple Machines Forum software. This "metadata" information will only be revealed to a third party upon a suitable court order, or official police request.Removal of Data:You are free to delete or edit your own posts at any time. However, once someone has quoted your text (or it's archived by another website), you can't remove that, and only under exceptional circumstance will moderators remove it for you. This is at the discretion of the forum owner.Basically, whilst you are allowed to withdraw your own posts, please be aware that it may have already been copied and duplicated elsewhere.That is always the risk of posting on the Internet, and this forum is no different.By posting on this public forum you are effectively giving up ownership of the text you wrote - it becomes public domain - people are free to quote it for perpetuity on this forum and other websites, bots are free to archive it and make it available in searches, and the forum owner is free to archive it and restore it if desired. You have no right to demand that what you wrote be removed from all parts of this forum and other people's posts. If you don't like this, don't post to a public forum like this.Some other points:- Administrators and moderators cannot see or retrieve your password, and they do not need it in order to access your account. Don't sent it to them!- Administrators and moderators cannot read or access your personal messages to other members.- The forum software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.- Please note that with each post, your IP address is recorded, in the event that you need to be banned from this forum or your ISP contacted. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.- Open sharing of ideas and content is important. Links to and promotion of other forums and content IS ENCOURAGED! (this isn't a jealously protected forum, unlike some others)Enjoy the forum.Dave.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 24, 2015, 12:28:19 pm
content: 24th Oct 2015 - Updated and reworded policy about post and data removal to emphasise that you have no right to demand removal of your publicly quoted text from other people's messages. This is now it's own section. No different to before, just better emphasised.11/5/2020 - Added a no-spam rule because some idiot PCB spammer kicked up a real stink it wasn't in the rules.21/8/2022 - Added rules #11 and #12 about personal profile text and signatures. Added extra stuff to rule #5 about off-topic stuff.