Administration

1. You do not need to register to read the forums. You do need to register in order to post, however.


2. If you are not familiar with threaded discussions like this, please take some time to familiarize yourself with them. In particular, replies are conventionally made directly to the message to which you are replying, not to the last reply only.


3. Please respect the individual forum charters by posting relevant topics. The Open Forum is designed to be a catch-all for topics of general interest that are not associated with one of the more specific forums. The administrators reserve the right to move topics to more applicable forums as necessary.


4. Users may edit their own posts; administrators may do so to correct faulty HTML only. Edits are noted by date, time, and login name in the original message. A reason for the edit is customarily attached by the editor. You may view the edit history of a post as well, making it useless to attempt to change your stance retroactively. ;-)


5. IWETHEY is a benign autocracy, with actual intervention kept to an absolute minium. Please do not make the mistake of presuming this is democratically run. Having said that, though, the administrators do generally regard the wishes of the majority and implement them where suitable.

Behaviour

1. These are professional forums. Participants are expected to conduct themselves as professionals. Emotions will run at times, and that fact is understood, but some restraint is expected. This means that from time to time you may have to deliberately turn your back on something offensive or incorrect and leave it.


2. Please do not be put off by the familiarity the regulars exhibit towards one another. This type of behaviour is normal in a caring community, even in an IT-based one. For the same reason, please be tolerant of the posting quirks of some people. You will undoubtedly have your own.


3. The profanity censor feature has been disabled on this board, but please keep profanity out of the subject lines. The "Flame ON!" forum is exempt from this rule.


4. Personal, violent imagery and rhetoric will not be tolerated. Violators will be (and have been) banned. Less confrontational but still disruptive behaviour may also be dealt with by the administrators. Such behaviour is not to be encouraged by others. If you feel it necessary to lambaste someone, please use the "Flame ON!" forum.
   
5. Obvious spam (weight-loss ads, MakeMoneyFast! schemes, and the like) will be deleted without warning, and the originating login ID will be banned. Posts from non-neutral parties regarding their own products on materials relevant to forum discussion (software, IT periodicals, etc.) will be considered on an ad-hoc basis. In other words, if a question comes up and you sell a product that solves the problem, post it. Do not, however, simply spam the forums with off-topic advertisements, relevant to computers or not.


6. "Drop-in" troublemakers who visit for the sole purpose of disrupting the forums or harassing the members will have their posts moved to the "Flame ON!" forum.


7. Almost anything goes (other than spam or personally-directed violent imagery) in the "Flame ON!" forum.