GKRU Community rules

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

Rules sections

General rules

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).
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.
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. Only do this if a moderator team member has not replied within 6 hours. Do not respond to such topics yourself. Members who consistently "act" as moderators may be warned.
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.
Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users linking to or asking for information on warez, crackz, etc. or re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and their post will be removed.
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.
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.
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 problem!", etc. Examples of good titles include; "Manco 485LXT Brake Adjustment", "Yerf-Dog 3202 steering locked up", etc.
Members are welcome to use this forum for normal bulletin board "Q&A practices". Users posting in the forum are subject by Moderators or Admin any punishable sequence deemed necessary including Points & Kash penalties and even banishment.
Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering hosting services (charged and free), repair services, solicitation etc. Recruiting of any sort (including moderators, admins), be it for paid or unpaid jobs, is not permitted either. Users posting Spam will be warned and their post removed. See specific item on Spam and 3rd party linking for more information.
Members are asked to not disclose to any 3rd party, board, or list any vulnerabilities in forum site before first notifying the admin. You should submit all finds to our admin (Kj). Time should be allowed for us, at least 3 working days wherever possible, to respond.
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.
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 revocation of private messaging.

Signatures

Signatures may contain up to five lines (one line being that displayed on a browser opened to 800px width) 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 no more than 25kB (25,000 Bytes) in size. Signatures containing an image this large may also include one line of small size text. Signatures containing an image of 30px high may include up to three lines of small size text or two lines of normal size text. Images of 15px height or less may allow up to three lines of normal size text or four lines of small size text. Animated images are not allowed.
Text sizes should be between 75% and 100% (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons, and so forth.
Links in signatures are not permitted. Go-Karts-R-us Team members are allowed additional links to aid in rendering support for the forum. Such links may only be to gokartsrus.com/* or approved material. Linked sites may not be commercial in nature. You may not include links in a way which suggests you offer official support, service, etc. for related items to the forum. You may not link to warez, porn or political, racist or other similar hate sites. Links are included in signature size limits.
Users abusing these rules will be warned and possibly bannishment for non-conformance members.

Avatars

Users are permitted to utilize a gallery avatar or to upload one of their own. User defined avatars are to be no larger than 100 pixels square, if the uploaded avatar is larger it will be resized to a maximum 100pxl width/height. Avatars can contain no image which attempts to portray the user as having an official status here (e.g. mimicking ranks or copying avatars of team members), may not exceed 10kB (10,000 Bytes) in filesize and have a consistently high availability (i.e. links to images on slow servers or those prone to failure may be removed).
Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, and so forth.
Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges

Bumping

If the author or follow-up poster posts on top of another post previously made by that user it is considered "Post Bumping".
Confusion is not an excuse! If you posted a reply and it is the last post standing DO NOT REPLY to it! Simply edit your prior post to include the information you wish to add or update. It is a good idea that you note *update* or *edit* before the new info so readers know you have added information that they may wish to answer to.
If you see one of your posts with a bumpost symbol on the lower post (the add-on post that you should have not made) you may have received a penalty in Kash or Points, these are warnings and if continue bumping occurs by you we will be forced to ban you.

Outside Linking

Go-Karts-R-us no longer provides a general fora or other solution for users to promote their sites. Users may not promote their sites through their own posts (as per Rules 4.1 & 4.2). Such posting constitutes spam and may lead to a warning. Users who wish to use abuse the forum for his/her benefit will be warned then immediately banned on 3rd offense. Seriously!
The author or follow-up poster resumes all responsibility of their posting content as well as links or website directly posted within their post or thread.
General linking (within posts) to other sites is generally not permitted. Exceptions may be made where links are being offered in a "support context" for non-GKRU related questions. Acceptable support contexts may include (but are not limited to): problems with non-site related items. Unacceptable linking includes and direct advertising or promoting of a site within the content of the forum

Policing

GoKartsRus.com/go-kart_forum/ operates a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offenses 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.
Arguing with team members 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.
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. If you feel their decision is also unfair you may contact a Group member, primarily SHS` or theFinn. Their decision is final. Contacting group members over warning matters should be done so as a very last resort ... group members do not want to be bothered unless vital.
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.
An exception to the three 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.
Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While GKRU may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence.