Forum Rules - Please read prior to posting in the forums... Thanks!

[Sonnie]

ZERO TOLERANCE FORUM RULES!

This site is rated E for Everyone!

Most forums have rules... however these rules are seldom enforced in most other forums. All rules will be strictly enforced here at the Shack! Unfortunately we cannot please everyone with all the various decisions that we have to make... however, we still have to make those decisions. As far as the rules are concerned, we have made these decisions... like them or not... this is how it will be. If you cannot comply - say goodbye.



Our ZERO TOLERANCE Forum Rules:

• OUR #1 RULE: Read the Rules!
  
  
• Please follow all rules and guidelines that may be posted in other areas of the forum. Again, all rules are strictly enforced.
  
  
• Members (other than active staff members) are only allowed to have one account. Multiple accounts will be deleted.
  
  "New Members" are restricted as follows:

• No Private Messaging Allowed (Other than the Welcome PM.)
• No Custom Avatar Allowed
• No Profile Picture Allowed
• No Signature Allowed
• Cannot View Quick Links
• Cannot View Members List
• Cannot View Who's Online
• Cannot Email Members
• Cannot Post in Classifieds
• View Only Image Gallery

These restrictions are lifted once you have 10 posts.

YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE UPDATED WITHIN AN HOUR AFTER YOUR 10TH POST.

Restrictions are immediately lifted for donating members.

These restrictions are necessary for various reasons. We appreciate your patience and understanding.


Our rules are in place so that we can uphold the highest of moral and ethical standards with integrity and accuracy. The quickest way to be exterminated from this forum is to break these rules. We have absolutely Zero Tolerance!

• Please be polite, courteous and respectful of other members, as well as all products and services discussed. There is no need to be condescending or overly critical, not everyone will be as smart as the next person. If you can help, please do so, but remember, we all start learning somewhere and none of us are perfect. If you are the home theater, audio or video aficionado king daddy audiophile, we are glad to have you around, but please be humble and considerate to those of less fortunate knowledge.
  
  
• Obviously with this being a home theater forum, we are here to discuss home theater and topics related to home theater, except in areas otherwise specified. Please stay on topic with the thread title and keep topics in the appropriate forum. Do not post off topic in the home theater areas. We have an area for off topic threads and posts. Please do not hijack or steal someone else's thread... start a new thread if your post is not on the topic of the original thread. Political and religious discussions are sensitive and generally end up creating arguments and flame wars, therefore we must ask that we avoid discussions related to these two issues. If you wish to discuss these topics, please make them private.
  
  We certainly care about all of our members and want to support them during their times of need, therefore we have created a Care Chapel for those who wish to participate... if you do not wish to participate, simply avoid that area. This is not an area for "pushing religion” onto others, nor does it mean we are against religion, it just means the forum is not intended for this use. If you wish to talk religion, drop me a line and I will cheerfully chat with you about it.
  
  
• It is our endeavor to provide accurate and truthful information at Home Theater Shack. There are loads of false and misleading information available in other similar forums. If you are interested in such, please go there and do not bring it here... you will not survive for long. We simply do not support snake oil. Several of our staff members are educated and trained on certain audio and video topics. If we believe a member is providing false information and/or arguing with credible and proven evidence, we will do all we can to courteously and politely educate that member. However, we will NOT allow that member to continue to post the false information and we will not allow an argument against credible evidence to continue. If the member persist, the member will cease to exist as a member of this forum. We do not have a problem with members disagreeing with opinions and things that have not been proven with factual and/or credible evidence.
  
  
• Personal attacks of any nature are strictly prohibited. These forums are no place for negativity of any kind. We are here to discuss home theater, audio and video related topics. Let's make friends and have fun while doing so... and be different than the typical home theater forum.
  
  
• When discussing products, please keep in mind that what is best to you may not be the best to everyone else. Pushing what you own in every thread will not be tolerated. Recommending what you own is absolutely fine, but do not troll just to push what you own.
  
  
• One of the responsibilities of our staff members is to uphold these forum rules with Zero Tolerance for infractions. Under no circumstances are members to publicly reproach our staff by calling our status into question. If you have a beef with a staff member because your thread, post, avatar or signature was deleted or edited, the first thing to do is read these rules again to determine why. If you broke the rules, no further explanation is needed. If you feel you did not infringe on the rules, then you may contact a staff member to express your concerns... if we are in error we will rectify the error in whatever means we deem appropriate. Whatever you do, DO NOT make derogatory or sarcastic posts towards our staff and do not publicly call into question our decisions. This will result in you being permanently banned.
  
  
• From time to time difficult decisions have to be made and certain members may be banned. DO NOT publicly question our decisions. We are not required to explain our decisions, however, you may ask a staff member via PM if you would like to know what happened to a particular member. We may or may not oblige you with an explanation. It will depend on the circumstances surrounding our decision to ban that member. In some cases our staff is prohibited from discussing our decision.
  
  
• If we learn that a member is defaming this forum, forum staff or members of this forum, that member will be banned permanently.
  
  
• Links to other home theater forums and other topics related to home theater are acceptable to an extent. DO NOT start a new thread for the purpose of posting a link to another source that will cause our members to be taken away from our site. If permissible, you may post the information that you are linking to and give credit to where the original information is posted. We realize we are not the only home theater forum on the net and we will never corner all the users of the same. However, blatant abuse of this rule will not be tolerated. If it appears you are advertising another forum, the link, post, and/or thread may be deleted and this may be done without notice to the offender.
  
  
• Please do not cross posts (duplicate posts) between two or more forums. If you are uncertain about where a thread or post should be placed, ask us, we will try to help you decide. Do not post the same or similar question in two different threads in order to draw more attention to your question.
  
  
• Please use proper grammar and spelling to the best of your ability. We do not mind slang to an extent. IE (Internet Explorer) offers ieSpell which highlights words in any message box as you type... a right click will give you suggestions for misspelled words. Firefox 2.0 comes standard with spell check. It's fabulous! So please check your spelling before submitting a post. As much as possible, use correct grammar when posting. For example, use you instead of u. We do have acceptable acronyms you may use... see the Glossary. Please do not use ALL CAPS or all lower case in thread titles and posts... use capital letters when appropriate. The main thing we are looking to prevent is sloppiness.
  
  
• Signatures should be no more than 10 lines maximum. This includes empty/blank lines and images, however images alone cannot exceed 75 pixels high by 600 pixels wide. 15 pixels of an image will count towards 1 line of text, therefore a max image height of 75 pixels will count for 5 lines of your signature. We also prefer you list your equipment in your profile and not your signature, but if you make the text small enough and keep the list to a minimum, we will accept it. Links to outside forums, manufacturers, dealers and/or their respective products are not allowed in your signature, except as noted below. Animated images are not allowed in your signature.
  
  
• All photos and images need to be posted in the proper manner and proper size. If you are linking to photos from other image storing facilities, such as Photobucket, ImageShack, etc., other photos in your portfolio may not include any images that would be prohibited in this forum, otherwise, you may not link to them. You are more than welcome to upload them to our Image Gallery or as an attachment.
  
  
• Maximum resolution for the width of images posted in the forum is 1024 pixels. All others will be resized or deleted. If you use a screen resolution width less than 1280, when viewing images wider than about 800 pixels, your screen may go into what we often call widescreen mode. Widescreen mode requires you to scroll the screen left or right in order to view the entire image. You can prevent this by going to your UserCP Edit Options page to the Thread Display section under Maximum Width and change the setting to 800. Any images will be resized to 800 pixels wide... or you can set the maximum width you would like. When viewing an image that has been resized you will have the option to click on the bar above the image and have it changed back to the original size.
  
  
• Do not post email addresses in the forum for public view, especially if it is not your own. Spambots will pick these up too easy.
  
  
• Our PM (Private Messaging) system and our email system is for our administrators, moderators and active members. Active members are those members who have a minimum of 10 posts and post on a regular basis. If you abuse our contact systems, you will be banned.
  
  DO NOT PM or EMAIL the staff, manufacturer reps, dealer reps or other members and ask them questions that can and should be answered in the forum. Please be considerate! If we allowed members to bypass the forum help and use the PM and email systems, the recipients would be flooded and hardly be able to respond, much less participate in the forums and help others in the traditional manner.
  
  
• ABSOLUTELY NO vulgar or obscene language, no cursing, not even mild profanity is allowed... even acronyms for profane language are to be avoided... we want to be squeaky clean! If it resembles a bad word, do not include it in your thread or post, use another word. We will attempt to use asterisks (***) to censor most vulgar, profane and/or swear words, but the system may not catch all of them. If you see asterisks in your post, it means you have slipped... we expect you to edit it out or we will do it for you without notice.
  
  Swearing is absolutely prohibited and this includes using words like "Lord" or "God" in vain... as well as phrases like "Oh My God", "Good Lord", "Holy Jesus", etc. Acronyms, synonyms and euphemisms are not to be used to replace swear words... for example, O-M-G is an acronym for Oh My God, d-a-r-n is a euphemism for d-a-m-n, Gosh is a euphemism for God. Please avoid these, as we do not wish to cause anyone any offense. We do not censor the words "God" or "Hell" because they are used in many movie titles, however, we will not allow them to be used to swear or in a profane manner.
  
  Some members will undoubtedly claim that our language rules are too strict, however, the rules are necessary to overcome some members claiming certain words are no worse than others... but more importantly to uphold our mission of having the highest moral and ethical standards. Therefore, we will not allow any, not even what many would consider mild and/or questionable. Remember... if we allow one person to slide then we have defeated the purpose of the rules. Generally members will be warned for the first offense and may be banned for repetitive non-compliance.... however, we reserve the right to edit and/or delete any post we believe may be inappropriate and we may do this without notice to the offender.
  
  These language rules, as in all rules, applies to all areas of the forums including usernames and titles. If we believe a username is questionable and provocative, we reserve the right to delete it without notice to the user. Be smart and play it safe, do not tempt us. These are all strictly prohibited and adherence will be strictly enforced. There are absolutely no exceptions!
  
  
• We can not emphasize enough the importance of keeping the bickering, arguing, flaming, bashing... "and things like these" ... away from here. Provoking and eliciting threads, posts and links that might create issues are also prohibited. If you and another member (or members) have issues with one another, DO NOT bring those issues to this forum. It will absolutely not be tolerated.
  
  HOLLERING, spamming, slamming, trolling, arguing, bashing, trashing, rudeness, flaming, name calling, fighting, punching, kicking, sexual innuendo and sexual oriented content ARE ALL STRICTLY PROHIBITED!
  
  
• NO bashing of manufacturers and/or products will be tolerated. You may explain that you prefer product A over product B and justify your differences, but do not deliberately bash a product just because you do not like it or just because you had a bad experience with it. Others may own that product and may be offended that you are bashing and trashing their choice of products. If you have a beef with a manufacturer, take it up with them outside of these forums, and/or take the whining and complaining somewhere else. Having a problem with a product and asking for help with it is fine, but do not bash the manufacturer and/or the product while doing so. We do have a Manufacturers Service and Support forum for helping individuals resolve issues, but be sure you read the guidelines for that forum prior to posting.
  
  Similarly, if you have issues with another forum or website, please take it up with them on their turf rather than bashing them here at the Shack.
  
  
• There will be absolutely no pornography or immodest pictures of any kind, no babe pictures (not even with spoiler tags), which includes any pictures of men or women not fully clothed from the neck down. Do no post pictures of men or women in bathing suits or women in lingerie. We forbid words and phrases related to the same... there should be absolutely no discussion related to the adult industry in any way what so ever. Do not use the phrase "adult industry" or "p-o-r-n" in your threads or posts. Do not post links to any site that might in any way be deemed inappropriate. This is a home theater forum, let's keep it that way. Members may be banned for non-compliance and this may be without notice to the offender. It is our intentions to run an extremely respectable home theater forum.
  
  
• There is to be no discussion of boot-legging material or illegal file sharing or any software that contributes to the same. File sharing is NOT permitted. Please do not post links to illegal downloads.
  
  
• No advertising of any kind, unless you are a sponsor... other than what is permitted in the Classifieds forum, and you must adhere to the Classified Posting Rules therein. You are welcome to post prices of products or services that are on topic to a thread. You may also request best prices found for a product from other members. We do not even mind links to where you can find products for sale provided it is in response to a request for pricing. However, if it appears to be advertising, we will edit or delete it at our discretion. If you would like to advertise, you may request a price for our extremely low-cost advertising via the Contact Us link.
  
  
• Special deals and group buys will be posted in our Specials and Group Buys forum and must be posted by an administrator of the forum. As mentioned above, you are permitted to post a price of a product in response to someone looking for a price on a particular product, however, new threads and posts for the specific purpose of promoting a product is not allowed by anyone other than an administrator. Specials and group buys are generally reserved for our paying advertisers and sponsors as well as our affiliates. Most sponsors will have a banner in our header and/or footer area of the forum. Affiliates will generally have a small banner at the very bottom of the forum pages.
  
  Currently our sponsors are:
  
  SVSound
  GIK Acoustics
  Ultimate Home Entertainment
  Fi Audio
  SoundSplinter
  Discount-Merchant
  Funky Waves
  Creative Sound Solutions
  Mach 5 Audio
  Video Products, Inc.
  
  While sponsors are allowed some freedom of advertising throughout the forum, we do not allow sponsors to troll threads, which means they are not allowed to deliberately go from thread to thread looking for opportunities to promote their company and blatantly flog our members with advertising. Members generally do not like to be constantly and publicly solicited.
  
  If you believe you are being trolled by a sponsor, please advise us via the Report button () or the Contact Us link. A sponsor occasionally promoting or offering their product in a thread is permissible. Also, some sponsors have their own forums within Home Theater Shack and are allowed complete free will advertising within their own forum.
  
  
• We encourage the participation of manufacturers and dealers. You are allowed to identify who you are by placing your name, title and official business name in your signature. However, linking to your business, including using your web site address for your official business name, promoting your products or services, devious marketing tactics and any type of advertising in threads, posts, signatures, usernames or any other places in this forum are all strictly prohibited.
  
  Keep in mind that we closely monitor all posts. Your posts should provide useful information and you must be unbiased in your participation. Failure to adhere to our Forum Rules, including this policy, will cause your privileges to be revoked and you may be banned. If you would like the benefit of promoting your products or services and a link to your business within your signature, you may request a quote for our extremely low-cost advertising via the Contact Us link. If you are a manufacturer, you may contact our liaison specialist to make sure your information and business link is up to date in our Manufacturer and Vendor Reference Information forum.
  

DISCLAIMER: The comments and opinions made in the posts on these forums which are written by our members are the responsibility of the individual member. The Home Theater Shack assumes no responsibility of the content expressed or implied by its membership. Every member posting on this forum accepts full legal responsibility for the contents of his/her posting as well as for the fact itself that it was posted. The mere presence of a certain post or message on this forum and/or a failure to edit and/or delete it cannot and should not be construed as any degree of sharing by the Home Theater Shack staff or its owners, of that legal responsibility or of any opinion expressed therein.

Please don't be shy about asking for help or offering help... this is one significant reason we are here. It will be our goal to provide one of the most informative, accurate and useful home theater forums on the net.

We appreciate you reading and adhering to the forum rules!

Please keep in mind that our rules are updated frequently... please check back occasionally to make sure you are aware of the changes.

On behalf of the entire staff at Home Theater Shack... We thank you for adhering to our rules!