Forum Rules of All-Scorpion-Archives (Please read BEFORE posting)

[GS]

#1 Be friendly
Do not attack, degrade, insult or otherwise belittle fellow members with your comments. Misunderstandings should be solved in a civil manner. If the ASA Staff judges your behaviour to be indicative of malice, you will bear the consequences.
Needless to say, any content that is offensive, hateful, racist, sexist, discriminatory, obscene, vulgar or in violation of local or international laws, will NOT be tolerated.

#2 No adult content
This kind of falls under the previous rule. Do NOT post ANY adult content. No swearing, no pornography and no drug talk. "Hidden" swearing (omitting/adding or replacing a letter, i.e: Shite; F***) will be considered swearing. There are alternative ways of expressing yourself, while keeping the forum "family-friendly".

#3 NO Gore content
This forum has a no-Gore policy.
This includes any gore that may in form of photos or video, both in regular posts or in your banner or avatar image.
Feel free to post any feeding videos, but if there is any gore (subject to ASA Staff's judgment), your post/thread will be deleted and you will be penalized in accordance with the established "Consequences of breaking rules".

#4 NO explicit posting of verts/inverts eating vertebrates
If you have a pet that feeds on vertebrates (such as a snake, monitor lizard, etc.) you are allowed to post their feeding images/videos BUT they MUST be inserted in a spoiler. Not everybody want to see a mouse or a hamster being eaten, and we must respect that.
Any feeding video/image containing a vertebrate other than a specifically bred feeder (such as a mouse, rat, hamster, etc.) will be immediately deleted and you will be penalized. NO posts containing Cats, Dogs etc. as feeders will be tolerated in this forum.
The "No Gore" rule applies for all feeding content.

#5 No "Forum-Wars"
While you may frequent other forums related to our hobbies or you may even have your own, no forum comparisons, contests or bad-mouthing is allowed.
However, you are allowed to link to another forum in your signature or profile page.

#6 No spamming or self-promotion
These forums define spam as unsolicited advertisement for goods, services and/or other web sites or posts with little, no or completely unrelated content.
Spamming also includes sending private messages to a large number of different users.
Posting appropriately in the classifieds is OK, but do not flood the forums with links to your site or product, or try to self-promote your website, business or forums etc. Doing so will just give you a permanent BAN to the forums.

#7 No Public ranting about the forum or the management
If you have an issue with the forum, its staff or the way it's being managed, bring it to the attention of the Admins in a private message. Do NOT start public threads to vent or otherwise provoke.

#8 No thread-jacking or Offtopic
Stay on the original topic of threads. If you have something unrelated to say, start a new thread.

#9 No grave-digging
If a thread is more than ONE month old (please refer to the last post being made in that thread), do not post on it and have it bumped up to the top. Please leave it be (unless you are the original poster with updated information). If you have some questions pertaining to that "old" thread, please pm/ email the Original Poster(OP) or you may start a new thread. Posts that are made against this rule will be removed and points may be issued to the member's account.

#10 No netspeak/unreadable grammar, and keep the language used, in English
Not only is netspeak hard to read, it's almost indecipherable for some of our international members. As a basic courtesy to others and to ensure readability of the messages here, do not use netspeak/ SMS lingo or slang in your posts here. (No more "dis" for This, "da" for The, "w/e" for whatever, "w8" for wait etc

This is an international forum, please stick to english as the only language used here. If we find messages that are not in-line with this requirement we will delete them immediately. Let's try to keep the community open to everyone.

#11 Posting in appropriate forums
Replying/ posting in multiple threads asking about buying/adopting someone's scorpions or asking every Tom, Dick, and Harry if they sell/trade/give ____ species is rude and doesn't contribute to the hobby. If you're looking to buy a species, please post a "WTB" ad in the classifieds. That's what they're there for. Posts that do not adhere to this will be deleted.

#12 Discussing illegal behavior
We are always open for discussion on many topics, even if not directly related to the hobby. However, NO discussions that could be interpreted as suggesting, encouraging, or supporting illegal behavior will be allowed in the forum.
ANY discussion on drug use (no matter if it is legal in your country or not), illegal traffic of animals or any other legally sensitive matter will be immediately deleted and the posters will be penalized.

#13 Multiple-user accounts
Under no circumstances is an account to be used by more than one person. If your brother / sister / spouse / significant other / cousin / uncle / niece / Pandinus spp. wants to use the forum, then he / she / it can set up another account.

#14 PMs
Abusive or spam-like PMs will not be tolerated. If you want to promote / sell something, use the appropriate forums. If someone doesn't reply back, your PM probably went through, but the recipient has chosen not to respond. Deal with it.

#15 No fake ages allowed
Under no circumstances is the usage of fake age allowed in your profile, no matter how funny you think it might be.
Members with suspicious/absurd age (eg. 102; 666 etc.) will be automatically banned/deleted.

#16 Do NOT type in capital letters
If it's for a word within the sentence to emphasize the importance, it is fine.
However, do not type your entire post or thread-title in capital letters. E.g. CAPITAL LETTERS ARE REGARDED AS 'SHOUTING' AT OTHERS.

#17 Making a post
If you have something to add within 30 minutes of your previous post, and there are no replies, use the Edit button.

#18 Signatures
Banners are allowed; maximum size is 500 pixels by 75 pixels.
Animations are allowed only if in banners and not "excessively annoying" (i.e., strobe-light effects, something that may cause seizures, etc.) -- animated emotes outisde of banners are OK.
No more than five lines of text of a reasonable size (14 point max), including spaces.
Links are fine, including links to other forums, but no "mature content" links or shock sites.
No TyPiNg LiKe ThIs 'CaUsE iT's A pAiN tO rEaD.

Anything larger than these outlines, please put in "spoiler" tags.

[ spoiler = " insert description here " ] signature [ / spoiler ], but omitting the spaces.

#19 Do not post links to The ScorpionFiles and the like.
ScorpionFiles, among others, are good sources of information when doing research on a certain species, however, by replying to scorpion queries with a link out to scorpion files, it is a lazy and unfriendly way to treat newbies.

This also applies to any posts like "just Google it". It is not very friendly, and forwarding a newcomer to google does not contribute to the forum.

#20 NO Useless Posts
Do NOT feel obliged to reply to every single post/thread to show your active participation, OR in order to get your post-count and "Rank" up faster. If you have nothing constructive to comment on, it is better to not post them at all, then to have all threads filled posts like: "Ok” , “Will do” , “Congrats" , "Good!" , "Sweet!" , or with a “smiley” and so on. Users breaking this rule may have their post-count and Rank lowered by the Admin Team. Consecutive infractions will be treated as per the Consequences of Breaking Rules.


Consequences of breaking the rules
Every time a post is in direct violation of our rules, the post will be edited and the poster will be given a "point" and notified of this fact.  Staff are not above the rules and are also subject to points if they violate them.  At certain point levels, infractions will be issued.

3 points: five-day forum suspension
6 points: two-week forum suspension
9 points: in the event someone receives a third infraction (i.e., a ninth point), the staff will discuss the situation and decide on an appropriate course of action on a case-by-case basis, from a longer suspension up to a permanent ban of the forum.

Note: The above serves only as a general guideline. On rare occasion, an offender may immediately receive the maximum infraction (leading from a longer suspension up to a permanent ban of the forum), depending on the seriousness of his/her rule breaking (as decided by the Admin Board). Generally, be nice to others and respect the rules of the forum, and hopefully, no one will receive any infractions.

[Team ASA]

New rules, effective from 01.02.2014
 
#19 Do not post links to The ScorpionFiles and the like.
ScorpionFiles, among others, are good sources of information when doing research on a certain species, however, by replying to scorpion queries with a link out to scorpion files, it is a lazy and unfriendly way to treat newbies.

This also applies to any posts like "just Google it". It is not very friendly, and forwarding a newcomer to google does not contribute to the forum.
 
#20 NO Useless Posts
Do NOT feel obliged to reply to every single post/thread to show your active participation, OR in order to get your post-count and "Rank" up faster. If you have nothing constructive to comment on, it is better to not post them at all, then to have all threads filled posts like: "Ok” , “Will do” , “Congrats" , "Good!" , "Sweet!" , or with a “smiley” and so on. Users breaking this rule may have their post-count and Rank lowered by the Admin Team. Consecutive infractions will be treated as per the Consequences of Breaking Rules.