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| Posting Guidelines | ||||||||||||||
| v1.13 - updated December 14, 2008
I. User conduct & Posting Policy The BMW MOA Forum is a benefit extended to you by our private motorcycling club. The goal is to improve the membership experience through increased communication, fellowship, and inclusiveness. It is a place for our community to come together. Here we share roads and rides, talk about upcoming events, give advice on tech issues, even just shoot the breeze on topics not even related to motorcycles. What we don’t do is attack each other or act in a way that would bring discredit to us as individuals or our association as a whole. We cannot encourage enough the use of simple common sense – if you wouldn’t say it or show a photo of it over breakfast with newly-met friends and bystanders at a neat old diner on some amazingly off-the-beaten-track scenic road, then don’t say it, show it or link to it here. Hot buttons OK, the above is vague. We know that. We intended that, we’d rather folks rely on common sense than look to a long list of specific rules. Because many of us have bosses, spouses, even kids looking over our shoulders as we read the boards, think of them as your audience. That said, it never hurts to make a few things quite plain. 1. Flaming/personal attacks. Just don’t do it. Clever quips and snappy retorts are part of any conversation; we mean the ill-intended, vicious personal attack. 2. Vulgar language, photos or links. You know what we mean – if it is something you wouldn’t want your significant other, grandparents, children, judge, boss or prospective employer looking over your shoulder to see, don’t write, show it or link to it. And remember that something you write in the privacy of our home is now available for the whole world to see. 3 Trolling. Trolling is intentionally baiting members by posting inflammatory subject matter, then arguing just for "fun." Moderators will use their judgment and if they observe trolling will handle it with warnings, suspensions, etc as laid out in the "Concerns and Complaints" section. 4. Creating a hostile environment. Our membership is a diverse community in terms of race, gender, and religion. Items offensive to, or that create an unfriendly environment for various people will be removed by the moderators with an explanation. 5. SPAM. Except in the Member Opportunities area, creating posts consisting solely of advertisements, links, or other commercial content is prohibited. Such posts will either be doghoused or removed by a moderator without any explanation required, and an infraction may be given. Member Opportunities is a forum area where club members can inform the membership about events, services or products that are of specific interest to the community because they are BMW, motorcycle or BMW MOA member related. This is not intended as a space for repetitive posting or advertising of monthy, weekly or daily events, nor for classified ads (please use the Flea Market). Members will be limited to single threads concerning one topic not defined as SPAM. This content will be handled at the discretion of the moderation team. Code of conduct The code of conduct began as a long list of bad behaviors, since abandoned for a single, 2-word line: Play nice. It is simple and easy to remember. If your aim is to irritate, to insult, to shock or just generally annoy – please find some other sand box to play in (and there are lots!) Banned topics or topics that lead to flame wars? As winter sets in and snow gathers round our trusty steeds conversations naturally start to wander. As we look out the window and see snow and sleet instead of sun the frustrations of not riding often set in. Over the years (and many winters) we’ve pretty much been able to identify some things that inevitably start flame wars, breed ill will, and just in general make people act in ways they’d never have believed themselves capable (and yes, that is meant in the bad way.) Below are a few of these topics: 1. Religion and abortion
These topics are banned on the forum. If they come up anywhere, the poster will be subject to sanction. Moderation, enforcement and management of threads The moderators for each forum will be the arbiter of this code. They have been chosen because they have good judgment and are expected to exercise it to maintain the forums as an inclusive experience that fosters community. Cause for editing a post
Cause for deleting a post
Cause for deleting a Thread
Cause for editing a poll
Cause for deleting a poll
Sig lines and other publicly visible info As the world changes we are working to adapt the forum to be increasingly useful for members. We have been through much debate and a couple different implementations; these are the current rules. Your sig line can contain a maximum of 4 lines, including line spaces, and 300 characters. You are welcome to include links, format it as you like and change the font, color and size of text. We are limiting the maximum text size to 3 (the default size is 2). You cannot embed images or objects from the internet (eg, YouTube video frames), but you can link to them. The content of sig lines is governed by the general site guidelines (so no personal attacks, obscenities, political statements, SPAM, religion, etc.) These rules also apply to other ephemera such as avatars, location info, custom user title and any other fields visible with postings or in the public profile area. Concerns & Complaints Moderators are all volunteers, they are not perfect and as often as folks turn a bright line quite grey there will be moderation results that seem inconsistent. If you have a complaint or feel you’ve been treated unfairly just drop a line to the Forum Liaison at liaison@bmwmoa.org (it will help to have a complete explanation of your thoughts with links to specific threads and posts.) If you see a posting that you feel is inappropriate and want to bring it to the moderation team's attention, please do not try to do this by posting in the thread. Instead, at the bottom left of every posting is a blue exclamation mark II. Suspension of posting privileges. The BMW MOA is a large and diverse family. We have Members from all over the world, from all age groups, from all walks of life. Each brings a unique and valuable perspective. Because of this we don’t take suspending posting privileges lightly. We are also serious about maintaining a friendly and fraternal atmosphere, and if a user threatens that with violations of these posting guidelines, they can (and most likely will) have their posting privileges suspended. The forum software provides a facility called infractions. The basic idea is that moderators can issue an infraction against a user that violates the posting guidelines. Infractions can build up points, and when the points total reaches certain levels, the user is automatically banned. The length of time a ban lasts depends on how many points the user has acquired. The points also expire after a while, so a user's point total will tend to return to zero. You can view your own history and status by clicking on the User CP link at the top of every forum page. Only you and the moderators can see this information. It is possible to become permanently banned from the forum when enough points are acquired in a short enough period. The user will remain banned until such a time as the BMW MOA Board of Directors, acting on a petition by the banned user for the probationary return of posting privileges, approves of the probationary lifting of the suspension. The point totals that lead to banning, and the length of a ban, are subject to occasional revision. Currently, they are:
Moderators have complete freedom to assign points and their expiration length. Typically, they are assigned according to perceived severity of the infraction, between 2 and 5 points, lasting for 1-2 months. Users with a history of infractions or who egregiously violate the guidelines can receive a greater number of points with longer expiration times. III. Who is Behind the Curtain Moderators
Please feel free to ping any moderator at any time with any questions – please remember though that any and all questions, comments and/or complaints involving a moderator’s actions should be directed to the Forum Liaison. Qualifications
Selection / nomination process
Moderator Code of conduct
The Forum Liaison
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| Your Forum Moderation Team |
| The BMW MOA Forums are run by a volunteer staff. These volunteers often devote a significant number of hours a week to ensure that the forums are up and running and continue to be the friendly community that we’ve built since 1997. Their job is to keep the discussion inside the lines. They do not always read every single post, so if you see something that violates our rules or guidelines, please report the post. There is a "report post" button on the left-hand side of the screen that will ask you to explain the problem and it will email the moderator immediately.
Click here to see a current list of Moderators. This page is also available from the "View Forum Leaders" link at the bottom of the forum main page. You can also see who the moderators are for a particular subforum by looking at the bottom of that subforum's main page. In addition to these moderators, several people, including paid staff, keep the forum running smoothly. They include: Josh Metzger – jdmetzger
Luis Roth – Semper_Fi
Scott Conary – Knary
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| User Maintenance |
| This section contains lots of information about maintaining your own user profile, avatars and browsing options etc. |
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| General Forum Usage |
. Click on this button and write a short statement indicating the problem you perceive with the post. This will be sent to the moderator(s) in charge of this area of the forum and they will look in on it. Please have some patience, as the moderators are volunteers and it may take a while before they have an opportunity to check it out.