NORTHERN IRELAND CHARTER

Black Swan

Welcome to new and experienced Politics posters. This forum is for the serious discussion of Northern Ireland politics. Certain standards of discussion and debate are expected, and will be enforced. Your posts must contribute to the discussion, not derail it or drag it into mob chanting. If you wish to banter a bit, consider posting in the Politics Café, where more free expression and humour are allowed.

We will not tolerate soapboxing. If you are here to "shout everyone down" with your opinions, we will see you as a negative contributor to the forum and will take appropriate action. Needlessly repeating the same position in a thread over-and-over again is a form of soapboxing.

Please remember that we are not a blog, news feed, announcement, or cut-and-paste forum. If you are not willing to discuss what you post, then please don't post it. If a quoted article is available online, please supply a link to the article and discuss it, rather than quoting most or all of it verbatim. Short quotes to support your discussion points are permitted, but not lengthy ones.

Posting a link to a video hosted elsewhere does not constitute discussion. It's OK to link to a video, but it should be accompanied by a detailed summary of its contents in terms of how it supports your discussion of the thread topic. Humourous vids should be reserved for the Politics Café.

Deliberately misleading posts or posters aiming to spread misinformation will be sanctioned. We do not expect posters to be experts in all areas, however, the onus is on all posters to fact check their information. If a poster is corrected, or information corrected in a thread, any poster who continues to relate misinformation as fact will be sanctioned.

This forum is subject to all the guidelines contained within the boards.ie Terms of Use, FAQ, and discussion standards. Specific guidelines include:

• No advertising, shilling, spamming, or pornography (including links). Do not advertise your party or special interest group in posts.
• No personal abuse, or getting too personal, (i.e., challenge the post, not the poster). Don't guess the identity or ask personal questions that would reveal the identity of a poster.
• No suggesting, advocating, or celebrating violence or criminality (including links that advocate such).
• No abusive or inflammatory discrimination based upon race, gender, religion, ethnicity, or nationality (including links).
• No allegations of trollery in-thread. It's another form of personal attack. No trolling or feeding the trolls (including no excuses for joining a flaming match).
• No text-speak or posting in a language other than English (except with translation). No smiley face only posts. All posts must include discussion of the thread topic.
• No re-registering to avoid a ban. Duplicate accounts without prior Admin approval violate Terms, and may all be banned when discovered on this forum.
• No backseat modding. If you feel a post violates this Charter, click the report button [!] in the lower left hand corner of their post, and state your reasons in the report window provided when it opens.
• No in-thread discussion of moderation. If you need clarification of this Charter, or wish to discuss actions taken that pertain to violations, PM the moderator.

Keep your language civil, particularly when referring to other posters and people in the public eye. Using unsavoury and profane language does not add to your argument. The following words (including variations) are not permitted: scum, scumbag, beards, crusties, teabagger, unwashed hippies, zanu-FF, sheeple, and zionazis. This is not an exhaustive list. Moderator discretion remains.

There is a Discussion of the Rules thread in the Politics forum for recommending improvements to this charter and forum. This charter is subject to change, so review it often before posting.