Forum Rules

Forum Rules and Guidelines

We strive to make our forums a place where everyone feels welcome. In order to do this, we have to enforce a few guidelines. If you read them over and try to understand why they exist, we're sure you'll agree with the fact that they are necessary. If you post in our forums, please comply with the following guidelines; 

You agree, through your use of the Arbtalk forum, that you will comply with the posting guidelines outlined in this agreement. You also agree not to post in violation of any International or UK law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this website. You also agree by submitting or uploading any materials to our forums, you represent and warrant that you are the owner of such materials and by that action grant Arbtalk a perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable, nonexclusive right and license to use and reproduce any such material for display on the site or a derivative created from the site

While the administrators and moderators of Arbtalk forums will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or webmasters (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this forum, any related websites to this forum, its staff, and its subsidiaries. The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint for legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum.

When registering, you must provide a valid e-mail address in order to be approved or to e-mail your password should that be necessary. (Changing your password or e-mail address automatically forces our software to e-mail it to you for verification.) Your IP address must not be hidden/masked. If you are hiding behind an IP Address your account will be deleted without any questions. Your E-mail addresses will be blocked from view to protect your privacy, but will be available to the administration. You can elect to receive e-mails in your personal settings. To prevent abuse, members are allowed only one registered account per person [exceptions apply with permission]. In the case that you lose your password and cannot retrieve it automatically, please use the “I Forgot my Password” link or contact us with your login details; we will reset your password for you. Please DO NOT create a new account. Any duplicate accounts we discover may be merged together or may be deleted without warning. 

You have the ability, as you register, to choose your username. We advise that you keep the name appropriate. With this user account you agree to never give your password out to another person except an administrator, for your protection and for validity reasons. You also agree to NEVER use another person's account for any reason. We also HIGHLY recommend you use a complex and unique password for your account, to prevent account theft. 

After you register and login to this forum, you will be able to fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present clean and accurate information. Any information the forum owner or staff determines to be inaccurate or vulgar in nature will be removed, with or without prior notice. Appropriate sanctions may be applicable. Users may upload custom avatars that are in good taste. Avatars may not be larger than 200x400 pixels, or larger than 15k in size. Avatars of an advertising nature are prohibited. Arbtalk reserves the right to alter or remove any avatar that does not meet these requirements. 

Please note that the site's software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.


Posting Guidelines:

We strive to make our forums a place where everyone feels welcome. In order to do this, we have a few guidelines … we ask that you comply with these guidelines if you elect to post in our forums.

1. Arbtalk is a privately owned website and reserves the right to remove or restrict any user without notice. Additionally, unwelcome are persons with political or controversial agendas, and persons who use the forums to link to, or promote, other websites and/or products without express permission. 

2. Posts may not contain unnecessary profanity, be sexually explicit, or be in such poor taste as to offend even a truck driver. Automatic censoring will pick up the most offensive swear words and replace them with asterisks. You, however, are not allowed to space out swear words, replace one character in a swear word with an asterisk, or use any alternative spelling to avoid the auto-censor.

3. No obscene/adult material. This means you are not allowed to post links to such pictures, sounds, animations, etc. Do not post adult or sexually oriented material or links to sites containing such material. Arbtalk is a family-oriented website and as such we make every effort that the content is suitable for everyone. You may not place links to your personal, business, or any other website for profit that you are involved with without prior consent from the Administration of Arbtalk. If you do your account can be terminated and banned without notice or warning.

4. No attacks, insults, or flames** - be it on someone's person, religious beliefs, race, national background, sexual orientation, or whatever. This is VERY important. If you have a problem with somebody, do not flame them on our website. Take it somewhere else. No flaming of ANY kind is welcome here. The quickest way to get banned from our website is to break this rule. This includes public posts, group posts, private messages or contact methods supplied by the member of this site.
** On the Internet, flaming is giving someone a verbal lashing in public. Often this is on a Usenet newsgroup but it could be on a Web forum or perhaps even as e-mail with copies to a distribution list. Unless in response to some rather obvious flamebait, flaming is poor netiquette. Certain issues tend to provoke emphatically stated responses, but flaming is often directed at a self-appointed expert rather than at the issues or information itself and is sometimes directed at unwitting but opinionated newbies who appear in a newsgroup.

5. Read an entire thread before posting to be sure you are posting on-topic. Posting something unrelated to the original post is called being off-topic. While this is permitted somewhat as long as it develops out of the original post and remains at least vaguely connected to the issue, starting to post about something completely unrelated to it is not allowed. In such a case you should open a new thread for it, if needed. If you feel the need to converse further about something unrelated with someone you can either PM or e-mail them. Posts and threads remain the property of Arbtalk. If your post belongs in another forum or on a new thread, put it there, please. Otherwise staff may move your post.

6. No cross posting across different topics and/or forums. Do not post the same message in multiple threads or forums. Make one post, either a reply or a new thread, in the proper forum, and no more. Once you get a reply to that, feel free to post more on that subject. But under no circumstances are you allowed to go opening multiple threads about the same thing, anywhere. Hijacking other people's posts to get answers to something unrelated to the original topic is not allowed either. If you feel that a general announcement needs to be made please request that the Moderator do so.

7. Moderators volunteer their time and deserve all the respect that you may offer. From time to time a Moderator may need to edit, move, or delete a post or an entire thread. Moderators function as an extension of the Administrators of this site and have policies that they must adhere to. If you feel that a decision has been made arbitrarily you may contact the Administrator privately for clarification. Publicly or otherwise denouncing the actions of a Moderator or Administrator is inappropriate and unacceptable.

8. Users may not attempt to place Moderators or Administrators on their ignore lists, or deny receiving e-mail messages from Administrators. Doing so is grounds for immediate suspension of posting privileges, or removal from this site.

9. Advertisements or solicitation of funds of any type including signature links are not permitted without the prior approval of Arbtalk. If you have a product, service, or appeal that you would like to promote, advertise, or plea, please contact the Administration for approval and assistance.

10. Links to other sites with questionable content are not permitted and will be removed without notice.

11. Please do not post private/personal information about people you know without asking their permission first. This includes posting the contents of E-mails or Private Messages without getting permission from the sender.

12. When posting in any of our forums, chat rooms or when sending private messages, please do NOT use all CAPS since that is considered yelling and can be offensive.

13. Please refrain from commenting on products you have not owned or used (at great length). Please keep any negative comments regarding any products that you do have experience with constructive. 

14. Posting pictures of other peoples work with the intent to discredit(even if just to show examples of poor tree work), is not permitted at arbtalk.

15. Arbtalk is not to be used as a soapbox or platform to persistently push a particular set of political or ethical viewpoints onto the members. We welcome debate and acknowledge that this will often include forthright and rigorous discussions on a wide range of subjects but we will act to curtail proselytising, link dumping and deliberate derailment where the apparent aim is solely to deliver an individuals pet polemic, particularly one that has been raised before.

The above rules will be enforced at the sites discretion.

Please enjoy your on-line experience here at Arbtalk. As you may see from the above, our few guidelines are simply common-sense. 

Please note that for security reasons each action you use on this website your IP address is recorded, such as posting, sending private messages, chatting, etc. as is in any for the protection of the website in the event you should be banned from this website or your ISP contacted for illegal activity. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

Although the administrators and moderators of Arbtalk will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of Arbtalk, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.

Arbtalk regularly updates all its software to the most recent, secure releases, but it remains the responsibility of the visitor to ensure their own system is protected and free from viruses.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise in violation of any laws.

The owners of Arbtalk reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason without prior warning.