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

1. 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 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 a member of the Moderator Team. Please use the “post report” feature to report posts. Do not respond to such topics yourself. Members who constantly “act” as moderators may be warned.
      
      
   4. 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.
      
      
   5. Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users linking to or asking for information or re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and their post will be removed.
      
      
   6. 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.
      
      
   7. 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 colored 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.
      
      
   8. 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; "Question about stage 3 of the program?", "Can I enter the program more than once?", etc.
      
      
   9. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering hosting services (charged and free), installation services, solicitation etc. Recruiting members for your own projects (moderators, designers, professional MOD work, etc.) is not permitted and is also considered spam. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed. See specific item on spam and 3rd party linking for more information.
      
      
   10. Members are asked to not disclose to any 3rd party, board, or list any vulnerabilities in phpBB before first notifying the developers. You should submit all finds to our security tracker. Time should be allowed for us, at least 3 working days wherever possible, to respond.
       
       
   11. The moderating, support and other teams 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 Team Members and not users.
       
       
   12. Private messaging is not allowed on this forum. Attachments are not allowed on this forum. Avitars are not allowed to be stored on this server. No exceptions.
       
       

2. Signatures

   1. Signatures may contain up to five lines of text (of small or normal size) and/or one image, valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 60px high, 468px wide and 6kB (6000 Bytes) in size. Signitures may not contain an image.
      
      
   2. Text sizes should be between 75% and 100% (small and normal).
      
      
   3. Links in signatures are permitted to a maximum of four unique pages or sites. DonationNetwork Team Members allowed additional links to aid in rendering support for DonationNetwork. Such links may only be to approved material. Linked sites may be commercial in nature. You may not include links in a way which suggests you offer official support, software, etc. for other companies. You may not link to  porn or political, racist or other similar hate sites.
      
      
   4. Users abusing these rules will be warned and or banned from the forum.
      
      

3. Avatars

   1. Avatars are not allowed at this time.
      
      

4. Policing

   1. DonationNetwork operates a two strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of two times for any and all offences in a three month period. If the need arises for a third warning you will be removed from the forum.
      
      
   2. Arguing with team members after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed two strikes a temporary ban will be put in place.
      
      
   3. Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact the relevant team leader, e.g. if warned by a moderator you should contact the Moderator team leader. If they feel you were treated badly they remove a warning.
      
      
   4. 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.
      
      
   5. An exception to the two 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.
      
      
   6. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While DonationNetwork may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence.
      
      

Forum rules were provided by phpbb along with the powering the DonationNetwork Forum.