Below are the Eccie Guidelines. Please be aware that you are responsible for following the guidelines and that violating them can and will result in an infraction being given.
Typically warnings are given starting with a request that the thread remain on track, then a PM, an infraction warning, and then the actual infraction being given.
Members are responsible for knowing the guidelines and if they chose to ignore them, or the warnings issued by the MODS, then points will be issued which could result in a temporary or longer ban from board participation!
This applies to both hobbyists and providers!
The RTM lets Moderators know if there is an issue! If there is a specific concern PM the MODS but know that we are not on the site 24/7 and will get back to you or address issues as quickly as we can!
The board is designed for entertainment and sharing. It is not a Forum where disrespect or abuses will be tolerated!
DD
(The following guidelines are not listed in any order of importance or priority. Members are free to 'copy and paste' any part of these guidelines into other areas or into posts which may answer a question or address an issue brought up by another member)
#1 - Avoid cases of unprovoked rudeness to others. No place for it here. Yes, with the dynamic nature of the threads and topics, tempers will flare and things will become heated from time to time. You may often encounter individuals who become passionate or emotional when expressing one's opinion or point of view. That's all understood and perfectly acceptable within reason…….but, start slamming or bashing another member and be met with consequences.
#2 - Derogatory racial remarks are simply unacceptable, period. Disrespect another's ethnic background and you will most certainly regret it.
#3 - Disrespect to others, IN GENERAL, will be considered an item of low tolerance, especially when posting in our coed forums. Follow the Golden Rule and treat others as you wish to be treated yourself. This applies to fellow members as well as staff. We do not require that you have respect for us, but we do require that you treat us respectfully in the public forums. If you feel the need to vent, gripe, or blow off some steam regarding a staff member's action or decision, we ask that you keep it private. Email, RTM, or the PM system would be the appropriate avenue to take in such cases. In cases where you would like to request additional clarity about a staff decision, you are free to pursue an answer in either a public forum or private means of communication. If handled publicly, post your inquiry in a respectful manner.
#4 - Blatant insults or hostility toward another member will be met with staff intervention. This applies to using our coed forums for name calling, personal attacks, or vulgar slang terms to describe fellow members. If you have legitimate concerns about another member here, share them tactfully in the appropriate private forums or with staff.
#5 - Outing or threats of outing are taken seriously. Membership here is anonymous and for the privacy of our members it will remain that way. That means any effort or attempt to connect a person's real world information to their username on this board will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. This includes real names, employment, medical info, addresses past or present, images, criminal or driving record, etc. We expect everyone who participates here to respect and go to great lengths to protect the anonymity and privacy of one another. Reckless disregard or accidental outing will also be taken very seriously.
#6 - Respect the topics presented by those who start a thread. Attempts to derail a thread or change it's direction is referred to as thread hijack and will be discouraged. Attempts to guide a thread in the right direction are appreciated, while responses to posts which hijack a thread are not.
#7 - Threats of violence or physical harm will not be tolerated under any circumstances. There is no place for that on this board.
#8 - Misuse of our Private Messaging system will result in consequences. You are not to spam members using the PM system. You are not to send invitations to other sites using our PM system. You are not to harass others using our PM system.
#9 - No form of private communications between members are to be posted in our forums. This includes the contents of emails, PMs, IMs, private chat logs, privately shared images, etc. This is an invasion of another's privacy and will not be allowed.
#10 - Topics regarding children, and certain images depicting children are not material for an adult-themed board. You must be at least 18 years of age to register and participate here, and along those lines, our subject matter is to surround individuals of the proper age range. Any mention or reference to underage sex is strictly forbidden and may result in loss of your posting privileges.
#11 - Review "Quacking" , a term which describes openly proclaiming falsehood in reply to a review, will be strongly discouraged by our staff. If you believe a review to be false, use the RTM function to report it to your local staff.
#13 - In our review forums, be mindful of the 'maturity' of threads you are posting to, ie. the date of the last item posted. We ask that you refrain from posting to a review in which the last post was made 30 or more days ago. Some exceptions may apply if you are providing relevant, valuable or updated information about the provider, but as a general rule of thumb, this can best be accomplished by writing a new review altogether and avoiding the bumping of old ones. This applies to our review forums, in particular, as discussion threads are often allowed to flow for an unspecified length of time.
#14 - Our moderating staff monitors the forums with the goal of keeping threads on track and on topic. Occasionally we may issue specific instructions or direction to a poster and we ask that you respect those instructions and follow them. Disregarding a moderator's written instruction or repeating a violation for which you have been warned will most certainly result in penalty.
#15 - There is no place in our forums for the general discussion or speculation of illicit drug use. This is to be considered a forbidden topic and mention of it will be removed.
#16 - Posting about/Speculating about another person's medical condition is strictly forbidden. If a member encounters a medical issue and would like to get feedback from others or share it with the community, this would be allowed, but under no circumstances is a member to discuss or state anything about another member in this regard, unless it is in response to a question posed by that member.
#17 - "Cyber Stalking" is a term that refers to the act of following another member around online. This may include persistent PMing of the other party, repeated ISOs about the other party, or excessive bumping of reviews or posting in threads about the other individual, whether it be positive or negative information posted. In any of these cases, whether staff deems that the behavior has crossed the line into cyber-stalking, or the "stalked" party complains to staff about the alleged behavior, staff will take the necessary steps to make it stop. Please avoid becoming involved in this type of conduct.
#18 - Multiple handles are not permitted, unless in certain circumstances are expressly approved by staff in advance on a case-by-case basis. Action will be taken in cases where staff finds multiple handles are being used for deceptive reasons, to carry out an agenda (promotion or trashing of another), or to return to the board following a previous suspension or ban.
#19 - Account security is of the utmost importance. You are responsible for your account and only your account. You are not to allow any other individual access to your account unless you have received prior approval from staff. This will be considered on a case-by-case basis, but must be approved prior to releasing access to another party.
#20 - The men and women of our board each have their respective private areas in which secure content is posted and a greater freedom of expression allowed. Each member is responsible for keeping the information in any of the private secure areas (Men's Lounge, Provider Powder Room, The Rest of the Story, posts which have been tagged as private) 100% restricted to the members who are intended to have access to that material. Revealing ANY content which was posted in one of the men's or women's private sections of the board will result in penalty, up to and including loss of your access to these areas. Full cooperation may result in a less severe penalty, and each violation will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Repeated infractions will impact the severity of punishment.
#21 - Ladies, please respect our Provider Ad Posting guidelines, posted in each of the Ad posting forums. We welcome you to take advantage of every Advertising forum available, but please ensure you are posting in the right location, and that you are following the appropriate posting frequency...which is currently 1 ad per week in your choice of 5 city forums or subdivisions.
#22 - ECCIE Staff will go to great lengths to avoid editing, deleting, or censoring our members posts or threads...unless absolutely necessary. Forbidden topics such as underage sex, illicit drugs, bestiality, revealing personal info, medical speculation, or images not in compliance will be removed from public view. Controversial, troublesome, or objectionable posts may draw staff attention or in some cases disciplinary action, but the offending post will not be removed from the view of our membership in any but the most extreme cases. Often times you will find directions, footnotes, or other guidance from staff edited INTO posts which draw our attention. These are for the purpose of educating the readers of what is and what is not acceptable as well as informing others about how these issues have been dealt with. Members are encouraged to RTM posts which include rule infractions or objectionable material if it appears that staff has not already becomed involved with the thread or post in particular.
Note: Staff will consider a request from the original poster to remove a thread/post they have made provided it was recently posted and not replied to. As a general rule, staff will not consider such requests once a thread or post has been visible for at least 4 hours or received 2 or more replies. In these cases, a request from the OP to lock the thread is more appropriate and will receive consideration.
#23 - Each member's signature line is an extension of their ability to express their personality to others online. We offer a relaxed and flexible set of guidelines for our members and staff to follow regarding maintenance of their signature area. In short, you are allowed 15 lines of text, space, and images. You may include colored text or larger font sizes, and you may include images that do not exceed 60 pixels in height. Limit font size to "5." Images or larger-than-default text will be counted as 3 of your 15 lines allowed, so please consider this when constructing your signature area. Additionally, you may include links and other items of contact info, but avoid mentioning specifics regarding acronyms, services, or rates. We also ask that you refrain from including links to or mention of competing websites.
#24 - Disputed reviews will not be removed by staff unless the request is made by the thread starter. In situations such as this, the proper protocol for addressing a review in question is to post a rebuttal to the review in that city forum's coed discussions area. Staff will be happy to do some basic investigation to confirm the validity of such reviews, however removal will only take place when requested by the thread-starter or in extreme cases where it has been proven false, there is an admission by the reviewer that the review is indeed false, or the reviewer failed to cooperate with staff's efforts to confirm validity. In cases where a reviewer is found to have posted a review of a session which did not take place, or posted blatantly false information within a review, the reviewer will be subject to disciplinary action at the discretion of staff, which could lead to loss of posting privileges. Along those same lines, if the reviewed party is found to be making false or inaccurate claims to staff in an attempt to trigger staff action against a reviewer or the removal of a review, that party will also be subject to consequences, up to or including temporary or permanent loss of account access. These measures exist to preserve the integrity of the information posted in our review forums, and will be taken when these circumstances exist.
#25 - The Provider Verification process on ECCIE is intended to be a minimally-invasive method to reasonably ensure that a provider who has been enabled to advertise on ECCIE is a legit provider, and not a cash 'n' dash, bait 'n' switch, or other security risk to the community. It is NOT intended to be a guarantee of your safety and it is NOT intended to be a guarantee of good service. All of our members, male or female, are responsible to take steps to protect their own safety when participating in the p4p environment. In any case where a member feels their own safety has been compromised by another member here, please promptly report to staff so swift action can be considered, and taken if necessary.
#26 - False advertising will not be permitted on ECCIE. If you utilize our forums, Showcase, or other advertising features, we ask that your tactics are straight-forward and accurate. If you choose to use images in your advertising, we require that the subject of the images are in fact you. Cases of alleged "false advertising" whether it be through inaccurate images or with text, should be reported to staff by the members using the RTM function. Investigation and appropriate actions will be taken, which may include removal of the false material and could possibly result in loss of ad-posting privileges.
#27 - ECCIE policy regarding the discussion of competing websites is intended to exhibit a straight-forward and simple approach. We do not disallow mention of other sites here at ECCIE, however we ask that you limit those discussions to the "Other Hobby Sites" thread located in the Member Suggestions and Feedback forum. This is the area that we have designated as being an appropriate outlet for these types of discussions. Posts of this nature made in other forums throughout the board will be merged into this location. If you find these types of posts in your local forums, please use the RTM function to report them to staff.
#28 - At any time, you may ask to cancel/disable your account here for any reason, or "guest" your account for security reasons. Please submit your request to the staff and include the reason for the request so we may better assist you. In cases where you are asking for your posts or threads to be removed, you will need to submit a list of URL links to the posts you have specified for removal. We will attempt to assist in these cases, but please understand that this process takes time, and due to the amount of work involved, no timeframe or deadline will be given for completion of this task. Additionally, should you wish to return to the board under a different username at a later date, this must be done only after first making contact with staff and receiving staff blessing. (in some cases, a 90-day grace period will be assessed before issuing a new account) At that point, we will be be happy to assist you with the transition.
#29 - Verified Providers who use the Showcase feature or advertise in our forums are not entitled to a no-review policy. Should circumstances arise which require or prompt you to request a no-review policy on ECCIE, please understand that enforcement of this policy also results in revoking of your showcase or ad-posting privileges. Ladies who have chosen a no-review policy on ECCIE may still post and create threads in any of the non-advertising forums on the board and will still have access to the girls-only areas of the board.
#30 - ECCIE does not, in any way, sponsor or represent social events, meet and greets, or similar activities. On occasion, events may be announced here by our members, however, ECCIE is not associated with or responsible for such events. We are not involved with any related aspects, such as guest selection, screening, or hosting. Should members of our volunteer staff choose to participate in such an event, it should be understood that their personal involvement is of their own choice and responsibility, and in no way connected to their duties here on staff. If you are the host of one of these events, we will allow for ONE "announcement" post to inform the membership, which will be immediately locked to prevent further public discussions regarding the event.
#31 - Often times in the hobby arena, members may display a tendency towards bringing their conflicts with other members to the board. This will be strongly discouraged and swift effort will be made to put it to rest. Additionally, staff will make every effort to stay uninvolved in conflicts and disputes between members off the board except in such cases where the board becomes directly affected.
#32 - On occasion, we may lose a valuable member of our community as a result of an unexpected accident, natural causes, or other various circumstances. The grieving process when these situations arise is often difficult and ECCIE has established a procedure to follow in such cases to protect the memory and more importantly the anonymity of our deceased member. A brief announcement will be made to inform the membership and honor the deceased member's contributions here without revealing any circumstances that may jeopardize the privacy of any of the parties involved. It will be immediately locked, and no further discussion allowed.
#33 - We ask that all members who participate here acquaint themselves with these guidelines and familiarize themselves with the location of the RTM button (white triangle with exclamation point, outlined in red) Our staff are not on duty 24/7 and unfortunately are not always readily available to right the ship, put out fires, or address rule violations when they occur. We need to work together, staff and members, to maintain a comfortable atmosphere in the forums. It is vital that you bring inappropriate posts to the attention of staff using the RTM function when it appears that a staff member has not yet become involved. This will greatly help in our mission to provide the ideal environment for our members to interact with one another.