All members familiarize yourselves: ENTMOOT RULES

[Sister Golden Hair]

Apparently, it seems that people don't care to read Entmoots rules when they register, especially those that like to flame in this forum. So, I have made it a little easier for all of you to become familiar with the posting policies. Now, there will be no excuse for anyone to not be aware of the rules. The staff at Entmoot welcomes any questions or comments you may have. Please read the rules and follow them, newbies, and senior members alike.

Entmoot Rules

Welcome to Entmoot, the official discussion board of The Tolkien Trail! We sincerely hope that you enjoy your stay here. Entmoot is a thriving community of over a thousand members. You must register in order to post. Registration is free. To register, you must agree to the following rules:

Trolling (posting with the sole intent of causing trouble or insulting), spamming/flooding (posting the same messages over and over again or in multiple forums) and flaming (insulting) are not permitted. Advertising other sites is not allowed either, except for in one designated thread. If it pertains to the discussion, you can post a link; we just don't want you to start a thread merely to advertise your site, since this clutters up the board, and we're not paying for Entmoot to provide free exposure for your site.

Keep in mind that we have many children, some under 13, posting here. Thus, keeping profanity and inappropriate content to a minimum would be appreciated. Vulgar usernames will be changed. Think of the board being rated a PG-13, the rating given to the LotR movies.

Don't insult people. If you are just joking around, make sure you include a smiley so that the person knows it; that person might otherwise interpret it as a personal attack. Remember that sarcasm is hard to detect from text.

The administrators and moderators of Entmoot reserve the right to close/edit/delete any post made on this board, for any reason. All posts reflect the views of the author, and are not necessarily the opinions of the staff of Entmoot, the Tolkien Trail, or Jelsoft (makers of vBulletin). We make all attempts to remove objectionable content, but we cannot be held responsible for the comments of others.

New users should introduce themselves in the Official Welcome Thread, and not start their own introduction thread. Threads proclaiming the status of your title are only allowed at the Elven Lord (500 posts) level, if attained 45 days or more after initial registration. (This is to discourage spamming). Members reaching the Elven Lord level are also entitled to a custom title.

If you wish to contact an individual member of the board, please use the Private Message (PM) feature instead of posting. If you have a complaint about another member or disagree with the actions of a moderator, PM the appropriate moderator. If no response is received within a timely manner, you should contact other admins/mods, and not post your grievances on the board.

Before starting a thread, browse previous threads or use the search feature (located at the top of the board) to see if the topic has been touched recently. If it has been discussed in the past 4 pages of the forum, or the past six months, use the original topic. Redundant threads will be closed, in order to avoid having members repeat themselves unnecessarily. Some of those threads may be long, but if you want people to read your messages, you should have the courtesy to read theirs.

Threads asking questions already answered in the Entmoot FAQ will be closed, so please check there first. If you have another question about the technical aspects of the board, please contact an administrator via PM.

Depending on the severity of the offense, one or more punishments may be administered. A warning will be given out to minor offenders. The next steps are 24-hour bans, 48-hour bans, week-long bans, permanent banning, and as a last resort, IP banning. However, we may move directly to IP banning depending on the circumstances. We ban people, not usernames, so if you troll using one username, all the other usernames posting from your computer may also be banned.

We reserve the right to change these rules whenever we deem necessary; it is your responsibility to keep up with (and adhere to) the latest version. When the rules are changed, an announcement will be made.

Revision history: v 1.0, December 1999; v 2.0, May 1st, 2001; v 2.1, August 10th, 2001; v 2.5, June 15th, 2002.

Hit the Agree button if you agree, and make sure you remain familiar with the rules - ignorance is no excuse.