TalkUrbex.com Forum-Wide Rules and Guidelines

[sophos9]

These posts are designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members here at http://www.talkurbex.com and are in place to make http://www.talkurbex.com a good place for everyone to enjoy. Please read the info here and become familiar with it as its terms are retroactive and agreed upon by team and group members.

Please click here to see the Talk Urbex Team


1. Forum Rules

1. Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions before posting. Users consistently posting to the wrong forum may be given a warning (see policing below).
   
2. Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
   
3. If members note an issue which contravenes something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it to the attention of a member of the Moderator Team. Please use the “post report” feature to report posts. Do not respond to such topics yourself.
   
4. Members should remember this board is aimed at a general audience. Posting pornographic, nude or generally offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning.
   
5. Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Users linking to, asking for or discussing information on warez, crackz, illegal use of software etc. or re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and their post will be removed.
   
6. Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites. The use of inline image tags pointing to data stored on third party systems for which the user has not received permission to link to may be removed.
   
7. Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or coloured text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned.
   
8. Members should use an appropriate, descriptive subject when posting a new topic. Examples of bad subjects include; "Help me!", "I'm stuck!", "Where is the location!", etc. Examples of good subjects include; "How to get the sharpest urbex photos", "Advice on buying an ultra wide lens", etc.
   
9. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering commercial services, promotion of other groups, solicitation etc. Recruiting members for your own projects/groups (moderators, photographers, etc.) is not permitted and is also considered spam. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed. See specific item on spam and 3rd party linking for more information.
   
10. The moderating, support and other teams reserve the right to edit, remove or put on moderation queue any post at any time.
    
11. Posts including anything deemed as indecent, vulgar and/or disturbing in anyway that may cause significant offence will be removed. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to Moderators and not users.
    
12. The above forum rules where applicable also apply to private messaging. Abuse of the private messaging system may lead to warnings (as above) and/or the revocation of private messaging.

[sophos9]

2. 'Location' Forum Rules

1. Talkurbex.com will do its best to ensure that access is restricted to the location forum. Talkurbex.com cannot however ensure that the data posted by members will not be shared by the members to other forums. If your urbex site is exclusive and 'new' - there is a possibility that once exposed on here, a member may share it with other forums so please consider this before posting.
   
2. From time to time, talkurbex.com may revise the entry criteria for location access. This will be a proactive measure to ensure the security of the locations in the restricted forum.
   
3. Members must not copy and/or publicly share the information held in the location forums. If members are reported as doing so they will be excluded from the group and in some instances, may be banned without warning.
   
4. Members must complete the form contained in the announcement of each forum when submitting a post. Any posts that are entered without the required information will be moved to General Photos Forum.
   
5. When posting in this forum, please ensure that a maximum of 3 photos are included in the post.
   
6. Please post the latitude/longitude of each location in the location access forum. Posts without this information will be moved to general chat, photography and/or deleted.
   
7. If the moderators believe that the location forum is being abused, member/s may be removed without warning. In this event, there may not be any warning or explanation and the moderators decision is final. If you feel you have been unfairly treated then please contact the board Admin. If they feel you were treated badly they remove a warning and/or provide your access back

[sophos9]

3. Signatures

1. Signatures may contain up to five lines of text (of small or normal size) and/or one image, valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 60px high, 468px wide and 6KiB (6144 Bytes) in size. Signatures containing an image this large may also include one line of small size text. Signatures containing an image of 30px high may include up to three lines of small size text or two lines of normal size text. Images of 15px height or less may allow up to three lines of normal size text or four lines of small size text. Animated images are not allowed.
2. Text sizes should be between 75% and 100% (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons, and so forth.
3. Links in signatures are permitted to a maximum of four unique pages or sites
4. You may not include links in a way which suggests you offer official support, software, etc. for TalkUrbex.com. You may not link to warez, porn, racist or other similar hate sites. Links are included in signature size limits.
5. Users abusing these rules will be warned.

[sophos9]

4. Avatars

1. Users are permitted to utilise a gallery avatar or to link to one of their own (subject to previous points on misuse of bandwidth). User defined avatars are to be no larger than 120 pixels square, contain no animation, no nudity, may not exceed 12KiB (12288 Bytes) in filesize and have a consistently high availability (i.e. links to images on slow servers or those prone to failure may be removed).
2. Avatars are subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, and so forth.
3. Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges.

[sophos9]

5. Policing

1. Talk Urbex operates a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offences in a three month period. If the need arises for a fourth warning a temporary ban will be put in place of between 1 to 7 days.
2. Arguing with team members after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed three strikes a temporary ban will be put in place as above.
3. Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact the relevant team leader, e.g. if warned by a moderator you should contact the Board Admin. If they feel you were treated badly they remove a warning.
4. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban or other moderator action will lead to an immediate and permanent ban of your account(s). Circumvention includes re-registering or using an already registered account under a non-banned username.
5. Other examples include changing IP addresses, using a new email account or other action that can be taken to evade moderator action to hide your identity as the owner of the sanctioned account.
6. An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.
7. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While Talk Urbex may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence.

[sophos9]

6. Talk Urbex Photo Competitions

1. Members entries must be specific to the theme that has been chosen for the month. Any posts that include porn, off themed pictures will have their post removed.
2. The photos entered must be the members own work and not subjected to 3rd Party copyright
3. Members must only enter with 1 photo, any more photos will be removed
4. The result of the competition will award the highest scorer as the winner.
5. The winner of the monthly competition will have their work printed on the next years TalkUrbex calendars
6. Your original image must be at least 1665 pixels x 1325 pixels at 300dpi - if its under, it will not be able to be printed
7. Reserved for sponsor and/or prizes

[sophos9]

7. 'For Sale' Forum

1. New members should read section 8.f for information regarding usage of the 'For Sale' forum.
2. Members must keep communications on the sales thread. PM's are only to be used to exchange payment details and personal stuff. Members that consistently PM offers or contacts may get a warning.
3. Members must not post on behalf of other people - the item being sold must be owned by the member.
4. Members must not conduct any commercial selling unless previously agreed - please contact the admin/moderator team to discuss options for commercial selling. Members thought to be selling commercially will have their posts removed.
5. All items must be legal to sell in the UK, there are no exceptions to this - anything like potential OEM software, hacked, pirated software will be removed and you will receive a warning. Please make sure that if you are asked to prove it is genuine, you can do so.
6. The following must be included in a the FIRST post of a For Sale thread
   
   A description or link to a description
   A photo of the actual item
   Condition of the item
   Price of the item
   Delivery options
   If the item is for sale elsewhere
   
7. There is no 'first come first served basis' here - the seller can sell to whoever they want to HOWEVER once the sale is agreed, it would be really uncool to pull out and sell to someone else.
8. Once the sale is agreed, please swap personal details with the seller/buyer, these include home phone number, address etc - in the unfortunate instance that something goes wrong, you will have some info to follow up on.
9. Please ensure that delivery information is clear - once payment has cleared, the seller must send the item as soon as possible unless previously agreed.
10. Moderators can remove any posts where they feel there is a possible breach of the rules. If the post is found not to have broken them, it will be reinstated.
11. TalkUrbex.com, whilst offering facility is NOT responsible for the transaction that take place. We will of course help moderate and if something goes wrong with the transaction, we will of course help try and resolve. Be vigilant when buying.

[sophos9]

8. New Users

1. New users are allocated to a 'New User Group' ("NUG") until they have hit 3 posts. The NUG has certain limitations and are outlined below
   
2. Posts have to be approved by moderators
   
3. Access to the 'Urban Exploration Photos' forum is restricted
   
4. Signatures - signatures are not allowed until 15 posts have been hit. NUG members can set up a signature which will be displayed once the required post count has been hit.
   
5. Private Messages - PM's are not enabled for those in the NUG. Once you are out of the NUG, PM's are enabled
   
6. Avatars - NUG Members are not allowed custom avatars until the required post count is achieved. Once achieved, avatars are customisable in accordance with section 4.
   
7. Polls - NUG Members are unable to start polls until the post count is achieved.
   
8. Sales Forum - NUG Members are only able to view the 'For Sales' forum and must not contact and/or take part in any sales activity on Talk Urbex. Any attempt to participate in sales activity will be warned.
   
9. External Links - NUG Members are restricted from posting links to external sites (flickr or equivalent is permitted), if posted they will be removed by moderators.