Below is a list of the general rules and guidelines of what the site administrators of CowTownDance consider appropriate and inappropriate behavior.  Reading them should give you a good idea about what actions and behavior will not be tolerated by the site moderators and administrators.

Note that these rules are subject to change at any time with or without notice.  Also note that these rules are only meant as a guideline.  The moderators and administrators of CowTownDance reserve the right to issue warnings or bannings to troublesome users, to remove or edit any posts which are inappropriate for the site, or to make any other administrative or editorial changes as necessary.  It is left at the sole discretion of the moderators and administrators of CowTownDance to decide what kind of behavior, activity, or posts are deemed inappropriate, as well as to decide what actions or measures are necessary to correct the situation and prevent it from occurring again.

Finally, it should be noted that the purpose of these rules and guidelines are to provide a respectful, congenial, legal, fair, informative, and fun online environment for everyone to participate in.  CowTownDance’s administrators and moderators will do their best to let the community operate and evolve on its own, with minimal intervention.

Last Updated: September 15, 2005

Forum rules

1. Posts in the forums are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions and the individual forum rules (found as the first “sticky” post in each forum) before posting. Posts found in inappropriate forums may be moved without noticed.  Users consistently posting to the wrong forum may be given a warning
2. Members should always post in a way that is respectful of other users. “Flaming” or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated.  While debate and discussion are fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or intentionally inflammatory posts.
3. Members should remember that this board is aimed at a general audience. Posting of pornographic, illegal, illegally obtained, profane, or generally offensive text, images, links, etc., will not be tolerated.  Such posts will be deleted with or without notice.
4. Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites. The use of inline ([IMG][/IMG]) image tags pointing to data stored on third party systems for which the user has not received permission to link to may be removed.
5. Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is, users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or coloured text, etc. Similarly users should not write in all upper case text or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned.
6. Members should use an appropriate, descriptive title when posting a new topic. Examples of bad titles include; "Help me!", "I'm stuck!", or "I've got an error!"  Examples of good titles include, "Getting an TABLE FULL error upon login" and "Cannot restore a backup".
7. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. As a general rule-of-thumb, messages posted in the forums that are meant to advertise a product or service, or to solicit members is not permitted.  The exceptions are announcements in the news forums for upcoming dance related events, and messages about items for sale in the buy-and-sell forum.  If in doubt, ask a moderator or site administrator about what is and isn’t acceptable before posting solicitous messages.
8. Do not cross post.  That is, do not post the same message in more than one forum.  The exception to this is for news announcements or dance venue descriptions which fit well into more than one category.
9. Please refrain from posting meaningless threads, one word (or short) non-sense posts, and the like.

Asking For Help In the forums

1. Read up before asking! There is a lot of useful information and instructions on the FAQ section.
2. Use the search function to search the Help & Support forum for what you’re looking for.  There’s a good chance that someone else will have already asked your question.

User Signatures

1. Signatures may contain up to two lines (one line being that displayed on a browser opened to 800px width) of text (of small or normal size).  Text sizes should be between 9 and 12 (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, appropriateness, and so forth.
2. Links in signatures are permitted to a maximum of one unique page or site.  Linked sites may be commercial in nature, but again, must conform the degree of decency and appropriateness excepted elsewhere on the site.   Furthermore, commercial sites linked to in signatures must be dance related.

Avatars

1. Users are permitted to upload or link to an image for use as their avatar (subject to previous points on misuse of bandwidth). User defined avatars are to be no larger than 80 pixels square, must not contain animation, must not attempt to portray the user as having an official status here, must not exceed 6kB (~6000 Bytes) in filesize, and must have a consistently high availability (i.e. links to images on slow servers or those prone to failure may be removed).
2. Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency and appropriateness.
3. Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges

General Website Concerns

1. Members discovering any site vulnerabilities are asked to contact a moderator or administrator privately.  That is, these vulnerabilities should not be posted publicly.  Any such post will be deleted with or without notice.  Any user caught attempting to exploit any discovered vulnerability will be permanently banned from the site.
2. Multiple registrations per individual are prohibited and are grounds for immediate account deletion.

Private Messages

1. Private messages are meant to be used as a private communications medium between members of the community that do not want to share email addresses.  Please use the messaging system appropriately.
2. Sending private messages to users to advertise or solicit any products or services will not be tolerated.  The site administrators encourage you to report any of such incidences to them.

News Items & Events Calendar

1. The news forums (with the exception of the General Community News forum) and events calendar have restricted access. Only dance venue operators/organizers are allowed to post news items or events in the calendar. If you are a dance venue operator/organizer, and you would like access to post to the events calendar, contact the site administrator.
2. Post only one announcement per event. In other words, don't post reminder or reapeated messages about an event for which you've already posted an announcement.
3. New announcements should be created as new posts in the forum, not as replies to earlier messages.
4. Remember that messages posted in this forum will be distributed to all subscribers via email. This list could potentially become very large. Be sure to double check your information (dates & times, location, completeness, spelling, etc.) before you post!
5. If your announcement needs revision after it has been posted, decide whether or not a new email notification to the community is required. If it is, post a reply to the original message. If it is not, simply edit the original message.
6. Classes or workshops that require participants to register at the beginning should not be made repeating events in the site calendar. Such events should be listed only given a single entry in the calendar with a single date and time. The announcements description can give details as to how long the class will continue.
7. Values entered in the duration fields should indicate how long an individual session will normally take. This includes weekend workshops and the like; in the case of such workshops, enter them as repeating events in the calendar spanning 2 or 3 days. The values for duration should be entered as the typical length of an individual session at the workshop.

Policing

1. CowTownDance generally operates on a three strike policy. Users breaking any of the above rules will be given a written warning, via email and/or private message.  Users committing a second violation of the rules will be given a written warning, and will temporarily be banned from the site.  Users committing a third violation will be warned, and may be banned from the site permanently.
2. Arguing with moderators or administrators after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning, and potentially a banning.
3.  Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact the relevant moderator or administrator.
4. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account of evade an email ban, etc.  Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
5. An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate and permanent ban.  Similarly, moderators and administrators reserve the right to give any user a warning or temporary ban, based on a user’s observed behavior.
6. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While administrators may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time, this is a rare occurrence.