Guidelines
We have implemented the following guide for using our community forums. This guide is designed to strike a balance between the main goal of our forums, providing support, and keeping the relaxed and welcoming atmosphere of our community which has made our services so popular.
The Golden Rules
- Personal threats will result in a permanent and immediate ban. There is zero tolerance for this type of behavior.
- We reserve the right to remove any topics we deem inappropriate or disruptive to our community. Please note that, from time to time, topics may be removed for being inappropriate even though your individual post in that topic may have been perfectly fine. Please do not feel this reflects badly on you.
- Having fun is good, we like fun. There are several general forums for non-Hawks related topics. Please keep it positive and polite. We do not censor opinions or ideas on our forums but we do take action against posts and/or topics that could cause unrest in the community beyond a civil and polite disagreement.
- You may not make personal attacks on other users or staff members either in public forums or private messages.
- You may not use profanity. It is unprofessional and offensive and will not be tolerated. We have word filters in place for the most vulgar terms. Circumventing those word filters will result in punitive action.
- We reserve the right to ban any member who violates our guidelines or disrupts our community. We will be fair and provide warning in most cases.
- If you have an issue concerning our services, policies, or staff, please use a personal contact method such as a private message or email to a staff member. All moderators, administrators, and support staff are highlighted in the active members list. We take serious complaints to heart and will do our best to address them.
Violation of any of these rules will result in consequences determined on a case-by-case basis.
- There will be no use of profanity.
- There will be no racial, ethnic, gender based insults or any other personal discrimination.
- There will be no posts meant to offend or hurt any other member, in a manner which is offensive or inflammatory.
- Spamming is not permitted; please keep all your posts as constructive as possible.
- Pornography, Warez, or any other illegal transactions may NOT be linked in any shape or form.
- All posts are property of the poster. This forum and all web sites owned in conjunction with this forum have the right to request alteration or deletion of any offensive post. Posts may be deleted for any reasons the forum administrators deem reasonable.
- Users may not argue a moderators decision publicly. Any and all complaints directed at a moderator must first address the moderator in question via PM. If the problem can not be resolved, then the moderator and user must send their positions to the forum admin. The forum admin will make or change any and/or all final decisions.
- Pictures may be posted as long as they are not explicit or offensive. If you plan to post more than one image, or the topic is based on graphics, please link the images rather than screening.
- Signatures may contain images, but may not be any larger than 600x150. If your signature is larger than the allotted size given, you will be requested by a moderator to resize your image. Please also keep text signatures under 5 lines. Failing to append with a moderator will result in the removal of your signature.
- Please keep foul language to a minimum, any excessive un-called for language will be removed and you will receive a final warning.
- Remember to post in the correct forum. Take your time to look at other topics and see where your topic should go. If your topic is placed in the wrong forum, it will be moved by a moderator.
- If a topic is recognized as being posted in the wrong forum, or if the post is a violation of our guidelines then please contact a moderator either via PM or the 'report post to moderator' feature; please do not respond publicly to the member - a member of staff will do what is required upon contact. Any person/s who attempt to present themselves as a Moderator by posting negatively to a member's topic (which has been posted in error and requires locking or moving to another forum) will be sent a PM warning and placed into moderation queue upon further actions.
- Any impersonation of a user from these forums, in any mode of communication, is strictly prohibited and will result in a banning.
- Linked and locked topics are pruned regularly to reduce page clutter. If you have a question about where your topic went, please PM a Moderator or Administrator before starting a new topic asking where it went, or posting a duplicate of the original topic. We will be happy to provide you with a link to the new location, or a reason why it was locked and/or removed.
- You may have one username on the board at any one time. If you wish to change your name, you can do so through the Change Display Name option in your user control panel. We reserve the right to merge or delete multiple accounts.