UNIVERSAL RULES:

1. Everyone is welcome. Every opinion is welcome. Therefore, do not "de-invite" anyone or suggest that they go elsewhere. Please do not do this via e-mail or private message, either.
2. Do not post faux moderator comments. To this end, do not use red-colored font. Any message falsely portrayed as being from a moderator will be deleted.
3. Do not make mention of anything that allegedly transpired or is transpiring via the chat room or via private message that the source him- or herself has not overtly made public. People who communicate behind-the-scenes obviously intend their communications to remain behind-the-scenes. Any post on the board itself making reference to such things will be deleted.
4. Do not "derail" threads or otherwise insert commentary that has nothing to do with a thread's opening post.
5. If you wish to start a thread having nothing to do with Mormonism, do so only in the Off-Topic Forum. That's what it's there for.
6. "Cross-posting" from other message boards is allowed. Feel free. If you do this--or if you just mention content hosted at another site--always provide a link to that content so people can find out just what it is you're talking about.
7. Do not reveal personal or "in real life" information about any poster on this site that he or she has not explicitly revealed here. This includes avoiding mention of his/her actual first or last name, even if he or she has made it available on some other website.* This also includes information harvested from Facebook.
8. Do not make threats or take actions to disrupt the smooth operation of this message board, either through hacking, spamming, frivolous complaints, lawsuits against the board or its moderators, or any other means. Please do not do this via e-mail or private message, either.
9. Do not make threats or take actions to cause another member to feel harassed or fearful for his or her safety "in real life." Please do not do this via e-mail or private message, either.
10. Moderators and administrators will follow the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. Try to see things from their point of view.

RULES FOR THE CELESTIAL FORUM:

1. Keep all communications "Rated G."
2. No personal attacks allowed whatsoever. This includes personal attacks against a person's family members.
3. No disrespectful communications allowed. Address the ideas, not the person who posts them.
4. No swear words allowed. Not only does this mean to avoid the "F" and "S" words and any of their many variants, it also means to avoid lesser bad words such as "bitch," "piss," "ass," etc. Altering the spelling or substituting a symbol for a character does not give you a free pass to disregard this rule.
5. No specific temple content allowed.

RULES FOR THE TERRESTRIAL FORUM AND THE OFF-TOPIC FORUM:

1. Keep all communications "Rated PG" to "Rated PG-13" or better.
2. No blatant or otherwise obvious personal attacks allowed. This includes personal attacks against a person's family members.
3. Do not use the "F" or "S" words or any of their many variants. Altering the spelling or substituting a symbol for a character does not give you a free pass to disregard this rule.
4. No specific temple content allowed.

RULES FOR THE TELESTIAL FORUM:

1. Keep all communications "Rated R" to "Rated NC-17" or better. In other words, no blatantly pornographic words or images.
2. No personal attacks against a person's family members.

All rules are subject to change or clarification as the need arises.

*See this post for further clarification of Universal Rule #7 and the penalties for violating it.

OTHER HELPFUL THREADS

The following aren't rules, but they nevertheless contain helpful information to make your experience here at MormonDiscussions.com more rewarding:

• 15 habits of highly effective message board users (How to become a fantastic poster)
  
• Technical support F.A.Q.
  
• How to turn off the "auto-correct" and "smilie" features
  
• Temporary forum to use if this site goes offline (I suggest bookmarking this)

Dr. Shades,

What guidelines do you use to close threads? I was trying to get some inter-board discussion going (I thought you said those were encourated) and the thread was closed.

What's up with that?

Mark

I and only I decide when to close threads. My guidelines are mine. It's not important that you know. Suffice it to say: Don't be stupid.

I'm sorry for causing trouble, Keene. I didn't know it was against the rules to post a link. I read the rules before I posted and I saw the "board wars are encouraged" statement in the rules. I didn't mean to cause trouble. Sorry.

Board wars are okay, posting links are okay, posting links to illegal information, typosquatting, and other illegal activity is not. It's not against the rules, per say, but it is against the law. Users are responsible for their own posts. Now, whether it was you who created the site or not, I've yet to determine. Posting the link, if it was an innocent maneuver, is okay. Creating the site was the bad move.

Edit: I've looked up all the information for the user Mrs Robbins -- You're safe. The posting of that link was an innocent maneuver by a known common poster. However, whoever created that site is still under scrutiny.

Also, Although it's not against the rules, I'd rather "Sock Puppets" (as they've been called recently) or Mule accounts not be created. It slows the server down and will end up causing more maintenance to be required, ultimately costing more money. I can understand the need to use them for privacy's sake, but don't go overboard.

Dr Shades, I reviewed the forum rules I don't see where they prohibit it. Maybe you could explane why your MAD. The pictures I have posted are not slanderous, are not vulgar. They accurately portrey the subject shown. These are images that are readily available on the internet. The images portrey things that occur every day all over the world, except of coarse on Sunday. Maybe the rules need to be updated and made more MAD like, it that what you want?

I'm just guessing at Shades thinking but I assume this is his reasoning:

Some of the posters here would find that image very offensive. Those types of images may be easy to find but that doesn't mean they are appropriate here. Bestiality is easy to find too but we wouldn't let someone have that in his or her signature either.

It's about respecting others beliefs. Using that picture in a post in the Terrestrial forums in the interest of discussion would be one thing, but using it in your signature just seems inflammatory.

If I’m wrong, I’m sure Shades will correct me.

Negative is 100% correct. Those are my feelings entirely.

Most if not all of our Mormon friends hold such things to be sacred and don't wish to see them outside of the temple itself. So, since the Terrestrial Forum isn't an "anything goes" forum, they don't belong here.

Since they aren't pornographic, post them to your heart's delight in the Telestial Forum. Just not anywhere else is all.

As an addendum to the above, if you want to "go the extra mile" and become one of the truly great posters around here, then follow the additional instructions on this page.

UPDATE: All rules completely revamped and overhauled in preparation for the Great Moderatorial Experiment, effective December 01, 2008.

Any chance to get some limitations on the potentially endless re-hashing of the whole Goodk/DCP/Rcrocket fiasco from earlier this year? Maybe it could get its own little sub-forum (and wiki for the uninitiated)? I see the potential for threads to go into a death spiral whenever it comes up, and when topics get endlessly re-hashed on a board, people get bored and end up leaving.

That may be a little too hard to objectively define, I think.

Rules governing personal attacks within the Terrestrial Forum updated on 01/31/09 to reflect the policies outlined in this thread.

UPDATE: Addendum, in italics, added to the first sentence of Universal Rule #3.

That is sooooo MADB.

Didn't you yourself advocate thread closures at one point?

Even so, only Keene closes threads, and he's almost NEVER around.

So you're safe.

I seem to recall advocating that people stop calling each other "douche bag" in the Terrestial forum.....

I just registered an account here, and I'm ticked that I couldn't use a gmail acount to sign up, and that I can't change my email address to a gmail account.

Gmail is my only permanent email address (my ISP or Job may change from time to time), I don't want to have to rely on one of my potentially transitory email addys to be my primary address anywhere.

Why is Gmail banned?

That doesn't answer the question.


Trust me, I feel your pain.

The reason it's banned is because I was getting deluged by spam-bots and porn-bots. It was taking a significant amount of time every day just to keep up with deleting them all.

Since the vast majority of them registered via gmail, it was easiest to just disallow gmail and be rid of most of them.

I apologize for any inconvenience.

Update for 03/09/10: Clarifying sentences added to Universal Rule #6, Celestial Rule #4, and Terrestrial Rule #3.

Update for 07/07/10: New rule added, see Universal Rule #7. (The previous Rule #7 has been bumped up and is now Universal Rule #8.)