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Valued Poster
Join Date: Apr 9, 2013
Posts: 654
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Pause and read
Ok ladies and gents we still don't know who our new Mod will be, but I appreciate Biomed and it looks like Wakeup keeping an eye on things. No one wants to have a negative interaction with a mod, and I imagine they don't want to issue warnings, points, or bans, but they have to in order for the community to work.
So let's take 10 to 15 minutes to do the following:
1. Read the guidelines. When is the last time you read them? Never, when you first joined 2 years ago, last year? Doesn't matter re-read them. Get to know them they are what make the community work.
2. If you don't understand PM a mod or RESPECTFULLY post your question in questions for the staff. My guess is they would much rather educate than discipline.
3. If I follow Wakeup's post in Alerts if you get disciplined with a warning, please don't get mad. If you think "well it wasn't that way before", it don't matter. You may not even like it or agree with it, but please respect it. Get clarification and use it to LEARN. No one likes a smack on the wrist, but better that than a ban.
Let's work on being part of the solution, not part of the problem.
I have pasted the guidelines here for easy access:
ECCIE General Conduct Guidelines
ECCIE Staff would like everyone who participates here to enjoy a welcome atmosphere where freedom of expression is placed at the forefront of our values to uphold within the community. The diverse thoughts and opinions expressed directly contribute to membership growth and participation, so above all, ECCIE Staff will do our best to facilitate free-flowing discussion with occasional staff guidance and minimal intervention.
ECCIE has rapidly become a gigantic community with incredible daily traffic, new posts, and reviews. It's our goal that each segment of our membership feel comfortable sharing, expressing themselves, and exchanging useful information throughout the forums. To achieve this with any level of success or consistency, our membership is asked to abide by some very basic guidelines of conduct. Please take a moment to look them over. They are straight-forward, very simple, and can more than likely be described as 'common sense'
Our staff is here to assist you and to help you to get the most from your experience here at ECCIE. Those who conduct themselves in accordance with our guidelines should experience little to no direct interaction with our staff other than to guide you in the right direction when you're in need. It's also our goal to prevent members who adhere to our guidelines from becoming distracted by those who do not. In keeping with this, we are committed to guiding the flow of discussions and preventing disruptions when they exist. We hope to avoid disciplinary actions against our members, but we also understand their necessity when warnings or written directions have proven ineffective or disregarded. In such cases, we will use progressive measures (warning point system) with the intent of correcting inappropriate behaviors and educating our members on acceptable conduct.
We appreciate the membership's efforts in keeping with the intended use of our forums. Simply put, following our guidelines will keep your account in good standing and will help to enhance the ECCIE experience for you and for those around you.
(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 - Membership here is entirely 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 or elsewhere will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. This includes real first or last 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, as will posts deemed by staff to be a 'threat of outing'. In other words, posts which simply imply knowledge of personal details beyond one's public fictional persona or what has been revealed in writing on this board will be dealt with using the same strong measures as actual outing of one's personal information.
#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.
#12 - 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.
#13 - 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.
#14 - 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.
#15 - 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.
#16 - "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.
#17 - 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.
#18 - 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.
#19 - 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, Women's 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.
#20 - Our Weekly Update forums in each of the Metro Locations may be used by our Upgraded Female Accounts to share photos and update your friends and other members of the community much like would be done on any social network. (We must stress that solicitation is not permitted in our forums. Any posts which offer or imply an exchange of sexual services for money will be removed and the offending member will be warned.)
#21 - 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.
#22 - 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.
#23 - 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.
#24 - Age verification exists on ECCIE Worldwide. Our female members must be 21 or older to participate in our forums, and as such will be asked to provide proof in the form of government-issued photo identification (drivers license, ID cards, passport) To qualify for an upgraded female account you will be asked to provide additional information. Ask a member of the staff for further details.
#25 - 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.
#26 - 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.
#27 - Often times in online communities, 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.
#28 - 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.
#29 - 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.
You will find various other items of policy and procedure which address a variety of topics placed in various forums across the board. Please pay attention to the stickied threads in each of the forums you visit to prepare yourself for the guidelines which may exist for that forum in particular. What you see here are the basic fundamentals. If each of us commits ourselves to abiding by the basic posted guidelines provided, our community will continue to grow and thrive. As the saying goes, you get out of something what you put into it. In that respect, we ask that each individual member, including our staff, to display a common respect for those around you and make yourself aware and familiar with the guidelines set forth for the community.
Thanks in advance,
ECCIE Staff
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