Newbies Please Read

First and formost READ the forum rules! They may be boring, but it is important you abide by them. The remainder of this post assumes you have read them.

Sigs

Just an extra note on personal signatures. Images contained in personal signatures that break the forum rules will be replaced by "The Sig Police" graphic. If you find this graphic in your sig it is because your existing image broke the forum rules.



Also on the topic of links in personal signatures. Hyperlinks are allowed in personal signatures, but only to other pages on this website. We don't like people posting just to advertise their websites constantly, thus links to external websites are not allowed in personal signatures. Use your common sense, 'smart-ass' links to posts that are advertising other websites or competing websites to our own (ie 'other' politics discussion forums) are equivalent to posting advertisement links in ones sig, and thus are prohibited. Also, do not use text sizes larger than the forums 'normal' text size in personal signatures.

In order to prevent misquotes, out of context and selective quoting you may only place quotes by other users of this discussion board in your personal signature if they have given you permission to do so.

Avatars:

Avatars must be a 100x100pixel black and white, non-animated portrait of a person. Avatars are also required to be a photograph whenever possible. There may be small concessions for persons who were not alive in the age of photography, but these are rare.

Taboo stuff

Generally speaking we are very relaxed about people's views. Be they liberal, conservative communist etc, but promotion of hate ideologies is not allowed. Common sense will tell you that such things are phohibited by the forum rules, but just to state it explicitly: Nazis and any hate ideologies will not be tolerated.



In the past, we have had problems of people trying to actually organise armed militias/paramilitary groups on our forums. While we welcome the discussion of military history, tactics, and militaria, due to the world's current political climate, we cannot allow any posts to remain on the website that can be construed as violently subversive to ANY existing government. Plan your coups elsewhere!

Invariably, the topic of child pornography and paedophilia may come up. While objective discussion on that issue is allowed, any posts that could be seen by a third party as "pro-paedophilia" are prohibited.

Quoting

When using the function to quote someone do not just quote their entire post and then write a reply, everyone can see what they just wrote already. Instead only quote the parts of their post that your are specifically refering too/responding to.

Named quotes can be achieved by using the following code"


Above all do not quote someone elses entire post including their quoting someone else. I have seen some terrible posts like this:



Emotion icons

Feel free to use them, but do not make entire posts out of them. Such posts are considered spam. For example this is a post someone actually made:



All I can say is:

One Line Posts (aka One-Liners/The Bane of Our Existence)

Once upon a time in a forum far away, we came up with the maxim "One line. One bullet." That pretty much sums up our feeling about one line posts. For those blissfully uninitiated, a one-liner is a post that conveys NO ACTUAL relevence to the topic at hand. It is usually short, useless, and often contains random profanity. For example:



Whereas a more appropriate version might go like this:



Don't get us wrong, brevity may be the soul of wit, but you have to make sure that if your posts are going to be brief, they must contain wit, or at very least some semblance of intelligent thought.

As this is a forum for adults (or at very least mature individuals) to discuss politics; immature, one-line posts will not be tolerated! Don't be surprised if any of yours disappear. Chances are if you think it's a crappy one-liner, it probably is. Might want to stop before you click that "submit" button and rethink it. Most particularly in forums in the Issues and Ideologies sections (note: one liners are generally acceptable in the Gorkiy Park forum).



Post Content/Formatting

Once again, we have to stress the fact that this is a forum for adults to discuss politics. As such, crap like ALL CAPITALS, RaNdOM cApITalZ, and l33+ 5p34K (l0llzzz) will not be tolerated. As moderators, we don't have time to retype all your posts in normal text, so your posts will probably just get deleted. This applies to the titles of messages too.

And because it's a forum for adult discussion, make sure that your posts contain some semblance of cohesion and comprehensiveness. It often helps to reread your message before you post it. Try to keep the swearing to a minimum, and certainly DON'T WRITE LIKE THIS!

Hyperlinking

If you are making a new topic who's main purpose is to make people aware of a link to another website that is not specifically relevant to any of the other forums on our board then post it in Gorkiy Park.

Links to porn, warez, illegal content (by British or US law) and 'other' political discussion forums are prohibited.

Acknowledging Sources

Oftentime on a forum like this you will post information that is not going to be common knowledge, especially if it's something that you "just found on CNN, omg!!". If you are going to post something like this, make sure that you acknowledge it properly. Nobody is going to take you seriously unless you back your facts up with some proof (especially if your stuff is far-fetched). Acceptable proof includes a legitimate URL or a book title and (preferrably) author, and not "my friend told me!" or "I looked it up in an encyclopaedia!"

You will also have to remember that the internet is a BIG, scary place, and a lot of the information you may find out there isn't going to be legitimate. It's up to you to make that judgement for yourself, but one would hope that this site doesn't end up flooded with bogus news items. We're striving for accuracy and legitimacy to spark interesting and entertaining debate, not "Hitler found living on Mars!".

WRT double logins

If the admin staff come across two accounts from the same IP address both can and will be deleted or banned without prior notice. In the event of two people using the same computer, the admin must be notified before the second account can be made. In the event of a ban resulting from a dynamic IP cycling, whereby two people on the same ISP have, at some point, the same IP, the ban may be appealed directly to the admin.

Any attempt to circumvent a previous ban will result in an immediate ban by the administration without any notification whatsoever.

Additional Newbie Frequently Asked Questions

(For more FAQs see here)

Who ARE you people?

Just a group of people from all over the world who enjoy discussing politics in a mature, legitimate manner. Our members hold the whole gamut of political views, from far left, to far right. We welcome everybody provided they agree to comport themselves with a certain level of maturity. It's free and fun. Join in!

What is the "X% Corrupt" below people's names?

It's a joke. The more one posts on the forum the more "corrupt" they become. After making 2000 posts one becomes "Absolutely Corrupt".

What's with that forum called "Gorkiy Park"?

That is our general off-topic discussion forum. The name is one that the admins hold near and dear to their hearts, as it was the name of the off-topic discussion forum on several other boards of which they were a big part. These boards now no longer exist, but the name lives on as a small piece of nostalgia.

Although Gorkiy Park is the off topic forum please try to keep it reasonably tidy. Questions about specific users should be sent via private message rather than posted as new topics in Gorkiy Park.

What is a cross-post?

Cross posting is posting the same message in more than one forum. It gets on everyone's nerves so do not do it. Post a message ONCE only and place it in the most relevant forum.

I don't like [InsertModeratorHere]; will you do something about him/her?

The moderators at politicsforum.org have the freedom to moderate their individual forums in a manner of their own choosing, as long as it is concurrent with the Forum Rules: http://www.politicsforum.org/documents/forum_rules.php. If you have a legitimate, specific complaint about the actions of a moderator, and find that you can not first resolve it by talking via PM with the moderator in question, it should be sent directly to an Administrator via PM or posted in The Basement forum.

Who is Big Brother?

Big Brother is watching you.

What does O.R.G. mean?
"Official Rightist Greetings". Only the user Goranhammer is allowed to greet new users using just an abbreviation - It's the law.

Can I be a forum moderator?

No.

Can I be an Administrator?

No.

What is the process for appointing Moderators and Administrators?
This question cannot be answered because there is no policy for selecting moderators.

If you still have a question about the politics forum that you cannot find an answer to you can ask in The Basement.

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