Limerick Forum Charter [read before posting]

Clareman

Welcome to the Limerick forum on boards.ie. This forum is for discussion on any matter Limerick-related. If you have come to this forum for the first time then you will need to register with boards.ie before you can post.

We regard the Boards.ie posting guidelines as the rules of the Mid West Forums and ask that all posters adhere closely to them. Posts that transgress these guidelines may be subject to action by the forum moderators, as outlined below. The golden rule is simple. Be civil to other posters. It's common sense, and we find it works quite well. (This encompasses much of what was laid out in the original forum charter, which can still be viewed here.)

Site-wide rules apply here, including the following bullet-pointed list. Breaking these rules WILL result in a site-ban.

• Spam (posting messages for the purpose of advertising products/events/surveys, etc) is not welcome here. Similarly, shilling is forbidden.
• Do not post links to illegal MP3s or warez websites.
• Do not post pornographic images or links to websites containing pornographic content.
• Do not ask for or answer requests for illegal items (Drugs, fireworks, etc)

Moderators will not actively police the forum. However, action will be taken on any posts we feel are in breach of the rules. We should be able to rely on other users here to use the "Report Post" function. () Please use this for any post that you feel may require the attention of a moderator. All reported posts are checked out, usually within a few hours.

Quote:

This is used to report a post that needs to be brought to the attention of a forum moderator. Please say briefly why you reported this post, and the relevant moderators will consider if the post warrants any further action. All reported posts are recorded, reviewed and considered.

Thank you for helping to make boards.ie a better place.
(Some guidelines on when and why to report a post are available here.)

In addition to the rules, we recognise that this forum have a large number of experienced members who help make this forum what it is. As such, a certain level of banter is to be expected, as well as helpful advice, personal experience, criticism, critique and the odd joke. Off-topic/friendly chats are best kept to the Random Waffle thread. If a string of conversational posts takes a thread completely off-topic, the posts will more than likely be moved to that thread or deleted.

If you wish to question any action taken, then follow the instructions set out in the post below entitled "Dispute Resolution Procedure". Questioning moderator decisions in thread will be deleted, repeated violations of this and the user will be banned as such action takes a thread off topic. That said, general forum-wide feedback will be welcomed in a stickied thread at the top of the forum. Communication between regular posters and the mod team is essential for giving the posters what they want, and we'll be happy to take on board constructive, helpful feedback from users.

Remember to use the search function to see if your question has been asked before. Please do not perform thread necromancy! Any thread which has been "brought back from the dead" for no valid reason will be locked. New questions in an old thread may be merged into dedicated, new thread if appropriate.

Also remember boards.ie is a big site. If your thread is more relevant to another forum, it may well be moved there.

Please don't post phone numbers (especially mobiles) and e-mail addresses here folks - you don't know who is going to have access to them. If you're offering a service/product, or seeking it - you need to post on www.adverts.ie, not here.

This list is not exhaustive, so use common sense. If in doubt, send a PM to a mod.

Clareman, Kess73, Mr. G, yop
The Mid-West Mods

Clareman

Be civil to one another.

This is the first rule of all the Midwest forums, as well as the first rule for the entire boards.ie site, for a good reason. Most directly, it means no flaming, no trolling, no personal abuse and no bad language. By anyone. To anyone. More generally, it means that this board is for discussion, not hurling abuse at others. If you think someone is wrong, you're perfectly free to tell them so. You are not perfectly free to call them an idiot. Yes, we know passions run high on some topics, and we know it's sometimes hard to resist the urge to call someone an asshat. But we'd like to remind you - this is an internet forum. You can take a few minutes to write up a civil answer explaining why the other person is wrong. And if you do so, maybe you'll change their mind; or, more likely, you could change the minds of the ten undecided folks who are also reading here, but just not posting.

First offence here may result in a temporary ban. We're really not joking about this rule folks.

Clareman

What if the rules are broken?

In the event that someone breaks one of the rules above, the specific sanction that will be taken will largely depend on the context. There are several kinds of sanction which moderators may use (along with editing or deletion of posts):

1. A private word by PM with the poster to point out the problem and try to resolve it.
2. A public note in the thread itself (often referred to as a Mod Notice or a Mod Warning) pointing out the problem and requiring that it be resolved.
3. A Warning for the poster.
4. An Infraction for the poster.
5. A ban from the forum for the poster, either temporarily or permanently.

Keep in mind that these options should not be taken as a set, progressive elevation. A moderator may use his/her discretion when taking action on the forum.

There are some general questions you may have as a new user. Feel free to PM any moderator if you have questions you cannot find an answer to in the Frequently Asked Questions list.

Clareman

Dispute Resolution Procedure.

If you disagree with the action of a moderator, do not get into an argument in the forum about it. That will more than likely result in warnings, infractions or bans. The appropriate procedure is to do the following, in this order:

1. If you have an issue with a ban or infraction, the first thing you should always do is PM the Mod(s) of the forum and ask for clarification on what’s happened. Please don’t expect an answer straight away, Mods are volunteers and are not always in a position to deal with your issue. Give it at least a day.
2. If you don’t feel satisfied with the answer, or if you haven’t had an answer in more than 2 days, you should start a new thread here in the Dispute Resolution Forum. When you start this thread, please state what forum you have an issue with, provide links to the thread if applicable (you can get the link by logging out if you’ve been banned from the forum).
3. A CMod will then investigate and discuss with you and the Mod(s) involved. They may invite the Mod(s) or any other members involved to post on the thread to clarify things.
4. After these discussions, the CMod will post their decision.
5. If you feel that the outcome to this is unsatisfactory, you may request an Admin to look things over.

An Admin’s decision is final.

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Private message conversations in relation to the topic at hand may be published in the Dispute Resolution Forum during the process of resolving an outstanding issue.

Clareman

Survey/Event/Offer?

As clarified in the site-wide Terms of Use, when you sign up to post here

You agree NOT to use Boards.ie to:

* post irrelevant Material, repeatedly post the same or similar Material or otherwise impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on the Boards.ie servers or infrastructure
* post any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising, promotional content, 'junk mail', 'spam', 'chain letters', 'pyramid schemes', or any other form of commercial publicity

That said, a compromise can often be arranged, simply by sending a polite PM to any of the forum moderators.
Also worth keeping in mind are these guidelines, as explained by one of the site Administrators:

When it comes to surveys we do ask that people ask the mods permission. The reason is that we don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry foisting whatever survey they like on our users. The mods can decide how relevant it is to their users because they know what the users of their forums want to read and see.

In many cases the survey is allowed, in others it's not. Just because YOU think it's relevant does not mean it is. Also, if we allowed everyone to post surveys then pretty soon we'd have to change the site title to postyoursurveyhere.ie. You've no idea how many we delete every day. If we left them there then our users would leave the site. We'd rather lose someone who parasitised the site with (sometimes useless, poorly thought-out) surveys than genuine users interested in contributing to discussion.