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RULES
The information and guidelines listed below are designed to
maximize your experience while on nonConforums.com. If future changes are made, all user’s will have the opportunity to absorb the new
changes before they are required to be accountable to them.
Below, you will find the rules broken
into two types. Major Rules and Boring Rules. The Major Rules are general rules
relating how to or how not to act on the message forums. Boring Rules apply to the
typical message forum rules of posting.
Trust us, we hate setting up these rules; we really do. If everyone
understood, adopted, and absorbed Major Rule #1 below, then there
really would not need to be any more rules. But since we are all human
beings and our memories can be somewhat shady at times (not necessarily
dysfunctional, but more so selective), Major Rule #1 may take further
elaboration, more outlines, more sub-rules, and more of our time to write,
and more of your time to read.
The Single Questioned FAQ
Question:
So why do we have to have any rules in the first place? I mean, I
obviously I am here because I don’t conform to any form of conformity
for the sake of conforming, formally or informally.
Answer:
Anytime you are a part of a community and you are agitated by
oppressing enslavement of “the man”, consider the lowest common
denominators of the groups. Yes,
think of the people who would be normally categorized as
“idiots”. Since we
don’t have the time nor space to get into “what makes an idiot
an idiot”, we assume your definition of this specific lowest common
denominator is close enough. As you
are reading these rules, please keep in mind that most of the rules below
are to keep the “idiots” from ruining it for the rest of
us.
ALTHOUGH since all human beings are vulnerable to brief bouts
of “temporary idiocy”, these rules are best to be followed by
everyone. We’ll be the first
to admit, we suffer from “temporary idiocy” at times as
well. In fact, some of us are even
graduates of IA (Idiots Anonymous), a recovery group for individuals
suffering from extreme forms of spontaneous idiocy.
If this community evolves into a self-regulating community and
oozes respect at almost every post, then maybe we can all vote to go back
and eliminate all rules but the first.
If the lowest common denominator median is higher than the average
American population, then we will also consider removing any excess idiocy
clauses.
So here are the rules...it's time to sit up straight, scoot to the edge of
your chair, and pay attention.
Don’t forget to bring your sense of humor.
The Common Goal
The common goal of nonConforums is to bring many different people
together to effectively communicate with each
other about their beliefs relating to the existence or non-existence of
higher power(s).
Anyone who
decides to participate in the discussions on the message forums must be in
agreement with this goal. Yes, that means you need to temporarily conform,
as painful as it might sound. Oh the irony!
Major Rule
#1
Respect others and try not to be an idiot.
Sometimes it
can be very challenging to remember that there are actually other human
beings behind the digital text, the screen names, or the avatars. It can be
hard to remember that the people behind their typed concepts, ideas, and
beliefs are real as well. When the people linked to the screen names on
your computer monitor experience anger, frustration, love, joy, hate, and
happiness, there's a very good chance these feelings are very similar to
your own experience with them.
When posting, take a deep breath and remember Major Rule #1. If you don't want
to conform, then hold your breath, and think about not thinking about
remembering Major Rule #1.
Our experience has been that the Internet encourages honesty. It allows
people to open up. Some people may feel much safer sharing or challenging
others about tough topics on the web than in real life. Sometimes when
people open up, they let out a lot more love, or at other times, they let
out a lot more aggression.
Respecting others when posting shows that you are here for the Common Goal:
to be able to effectively communicate with others about their beliefs.
Regardless if your current belief system has clauses about showing respect
to other human beings, RESPECT is a requirement for nonConforums.com.
As far as trying not to be an idiot,
please do your best. If you need
help, please let us know and we will do our best to lend a hand.
The next major rules are all an elaboration of Major Rule #1.
Major Rule #2
Don't say anything to someone on here that would get you punched in
the face in real life.
If you
respect others while participating on the nonConforums.com message boards,
you will be just fine. You don't have to respect their opinion, their
belief, or even their reasoning, but you do have to respect the person.
Worse case scenario: since people's identities and sense of survival can be
extremely challenging to separate from their belief systems, if you respect
the person, you may end up actually respecting the person's beliefs as
well.
Just because you respect or understand
a person’s beliefs, doesn’t mean you have to compromise your
own beliefs. We believe that it is
not a requirement to agree with another human being to be able to
sympathize or empathize with them.
Major Rule #3
”Foul" or "inappropriate" language is not
tolerated.
Please go
back up to the top and read the COMMON GOAL again. We want to
encourage (and enforce when need be) "efficient communication".
Remember that using certain inappropriate language will not allow you to
communicate effectively with your audience. If you do remember this, then
you will be in agreement with the COMMON GOAL.
We will give everyone the benefit of the doubt that you will do your best
to respect your audience when you are carefully choosing one of the 171,000
some odd words contained in the English Dictionary. Doing this should save
us a lot of time from having to write multiple pages on explaining why the
"F" word is currently not an effective way to communicate with
others on these forums.
Major Rule #4
Preaching is not Allowed.
This is
definitely probably the most controversial rule you’ll find on here as
“preaching” is a very common type of communication that is used
when discussing beliefs. As stated
previously, many of these rules are designed to take into consideration the
“lowest common denominators”.
This rule is designed to hopefully protect your conversations from
others coming into the forums and blasting your healthy conversations with
scripts and cut
and pasted text.
The nonConforums’s definition of
preaching: one sided conversation that does not encourage the inputs of
others.
This rule applies to all belief systems
and non-belief systems REGARDLESS OF CONTENT. This means that the preaching
rule goes for everyone, not just “religious” folk.
On these forums, preaching would be in
the form of delivering information to others that is closed ended and not
conducive of the input of others. This
does not apply to when Moderators may need to post announcements or in
situations where members need to be reminded of the rules outlined here.
The “No Preaching” rule
takes a different shape depending on whether you are starting an
original post or are replying to a post.
Starting a Post
You can start a post and prevent
yourself from violating the “no preaching” rule by doing two
very simple things:
- Putting your
personal opinion in the post AND/OR
- Asking others
for input
Here are some examples of “preaching” and
“not preaching” according to these forums:
Preaching Example #1
Topic: Murder is Wrong
The Bible says that murder is evil in verse 1, 2, and 3. All who violate this will go to hell.
Preaching Example #2
Topic: Vishnu will Destroy You…
Vishnu says that anyone who doesn’t believe in him will
be destroyed. This is in the Holy
Bhagavad-Gita scriptures in verses 1, 2, and 3.
Not Preaching Example #1
Topic: Murder is Wrong
I believe that the Bible is the ultimate truth. The Bible says that murder is wrong, and
this can be found in verses 1, 2, and 3.
What do you think?
Not Preaching Example #2
Topic: Vishnu
I believe that the Bhagavad-Gita is the ultimate truth. Vishnu
says that anyone who doesn’t believe in him will be destroyed. This
is found in verses 1, 2, and 3.
Therefore I believe that if you don’t believe in Vishnu you
are cruisin’ for a brusin’.
Replying to a Post
The rule relaxes when you are replying to a post that
has already been started. As long as
you are participating in the conversation in a manner that is conducive of
The Common Goal, you will be fine.
When replying to posts, we are not suggesting that you have to
always ask what other’s think.
At times, you will be asked what you think, and then you will have
the opportunity to give an answer.
These answers would not violate the “no preaching”
rule.
Since this rule can at times be relative
and situational, we reserve the right to decide when violations take
place. We will do our best to
keeping this forum safe and conducive of conversation while continuing to
allow everyone to share what they believe.
If a member continues to intentionally violate this rule after receiving
a warning(s), they will be permanently banned.
Major Rule #5
Do not over
generalize a belief system or group of people.
If you
respect others, you will not assume that all Christians are hateful fanatics,
that all Atheists are arrogant fools, that all Muslims are terrorists, that
all Americans are self-centered, that all Scientologists are brainwashed,
that all Agnostics are lazy, that all Buddhists are
self-indulged....etc....etc....etc.
The best thing you can do is to remember that most belief systems do not
conform to only one set of beliefs.
You can thank human interpretation for this.
There are many belief systems within almost every belief system. These are
represented in sects, denominations, schools of thought, ritualistic
practices, and so forth. These varying beliefs can influence people to act
much differently than others of the same parent belief system.
Ironically, you will also find that people who believe the same exact
things may even explain these things differently. They may relate to them
differently. They may even live them out differently. Please try to
remember this when talking with our about others.
Intro
to the Boring Rules
While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to
remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible,
it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that
all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author
and not the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by
these people) and hence will not be held liable.
You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful,
threatening, sexually-oriented or any other material that may violate any
applicable laws. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently
banned (and your service provider being informed). The IP address of all
posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that the
webmaster, administrator and moderators of this forum have the right to
remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should they see fit. As a
user you agree to any information you have entered above being stored in a
database.
This forum system uses cookies to store information on your
local computer. These cookies do not contain any of the information you
have entered above; they serve only to improve your viewing pleasure. The
e-mail address is used only for confirming your registration details and
password (and for sending new passwords should you forget your current
one).
By registering and posting on these forums you have agreed to all the terms
and conditions set out.
IF YOU VIOLATE LEGAL LAWS, WE WILL NOT
HESITATE TO PROVIDE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY WITH ANY AND ALL INFORMATION
THAT MAY BE REQUESTED BY SUCH AGENCIES.
The
Boring Rules
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It is not permitted to have more than
one account per user. In some very
rare cases with extenuating circumstances, this may be approved by an
Admin.
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You must use a valid email address for
your account.
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We will NOT be responsible for deleting
users, posts, or threads UNLESS they violate our guidelines. Please
consider this before posting, and assume anything you post will be publicly
viewable for an indefinite period. If you no longer wish to be part of this
community, please unsubscribe yourself from any threads and/or forums, and
you wont hear from us.
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We do not offer a way to delete or
deactivate a user account.
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Use the search feature before posting a
new topic.
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No Multiple/Cross Postings: Please do
no post your question more than once, or to post it in more than one forum.
Choose the forum that your question or post best fits in, and place it
there and only there. If, after posting, you feel it should be in another
forum, please PM the appropriate Moderator of the forum you have posted in
and ask him/her to move it.
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We reserve the right to move posts to
other forums and delete duplicates.
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Threats or harassment are not
tolerated. Debate is welcomed,
harassment is not. This would be threats of bodily harm or other forms of
harassment against another user, through Public posts or Private (IM, email
and PM) messages.
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No Flaming or Trolling.
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Do not post in all caps, especially in
the subject heading.
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Posting/Linking Off-Site Pictures Part
1: Please remember that not all members have fast internet connections. You
are providing a link to a large picture please give a warning and if
possible provide a file size. If you are embedding (using the IMG tags)
then please make sure the file is under 20k in size. If you are unsure as
to size of the picture rather post a link to the picture.
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Posting/Linking Off-Site Pictures Part
2: Pornography. Don’t post
anything that could ever even be considered pornography. If you do, you’ll be instantly banned. This is up to our discretion.
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Plagiarism. Please cite your sources when copying and
pasting information into your post. Please use the [quote] tags to do this
for ease of use for readers. We
encourage original thinking in this forum, but when quoting someone else
work please give credit where credit is due. Also be mindful of the amount
of information taken, simply copying and pasting from other websites does
not make for a post, if doing this then simply provide the link to save all
members from having to scroll down the entire page for half the day.
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Posting of software: You may post up
links to legitimate software that you think people will find useful, so
long as it is related to the forum in which you are posting it. However we will
not allow the posting of any warez (serial
numbers/cracks) and Malware (Trojans/viruses)
abuse of this rule will result in banning.
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If you are banned: Being banned means
that you can no longer post on nonConforums.com. You are also banned for
life and we check IP addresses of suspected members that try to
re-register. If you are caught doing this, we will place a ban on your IP
address and report it to your ISP. If you feel that you have unfairly been
banned, you can email the Admin team at info@nonConforums.com.
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Locked Threads: Moderators reserve the
right to close any thread that does or does not break a rule, for any
reason, if however you feel that your thread was unjustly locked, please PM
the moderator concerned and ask for further clarification, do not just
start another post with slightly different wording, as this will be locked
as well.
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Asking for help: If you need help or
have any questions feel free to PM one of the moderators
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Been abused? If you are been harassed
by another member of the forum, please PM the moderator of that forum. *
Public posts - Please report this to the moderator of the forum in which
you are having the problem. *
Private messages(PM) - Keep the message in
question and forward it to one of the moderators or admin. Please do not
retaliate in kind, this just leads to flaming and everybody gets unhappy.
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Security: As a general rule of thumb
never give out any personal details on the internet. This includes home
address and telephone numbers. This is for your own safety.
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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.
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Any impersonation of a user within
these forums, in any mode of communication, is strictly prohibited and will
result in a banning.
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Linked and locked topics may be pruned
(removed) 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.
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If you are linking to external content,
you should link directly to that content. It is unacceptable to use
link-thru systems to mask the originating URL, and cases where this is
found to be happening may be edited or removed as appropriate.
VIOLATIONS
Violation of any of these rules will
result in consequences determined on a case-by-case basis. We do believe in second chances if the
user is willing to cooperate.
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