Forum Rules
By registering or participating on the Unexplained Mysteries web site you accept and agree to the following terms and conditions. Our goal is to provide a high quality discussion environment for our visitors, these terms are in place to prevent disruption and to maintain a safe and friendly discussion service. The following terms apply to the discussion forum, private messenger, profile statuses, member blogs, image gallery and any other official UM sites or services. A "post" is defined as any message, comment or media contributed to the above.
Never give your password or login name to anyone else or allow others to use your account.
1. No spamming Common forms of forum spam include but are not limited to:
- 1a. Advertising: Do not use the forum to advertise a product, site or service.
- 1b. Recruitment: Do not recruit or invite members in to joining other sites, groups, services or forums.
- 1c. Cross-posting: Do not cross-post the same content across multiple threads/sections.
- 1d. Thread bumping: Do not post 'bump' messages solely to return a thread to the top of the topic index.
- 1e. Participation requests: Do not ask members to take part in offsite surveys, petitions, contests, campaigns or fundraisers.
2. Post content In the interests of keeping the forum as safe and family-friendly as possible please remember the following:
- 2a. Offensive content: Do not post or link to content that is excessively violent, sexually explicit, depicts images of death, gore, pertains to graphic cases of violent or sexual crimes committed against children or that is of an otherwise offensive nature.
- 2b. Illegal material: Do not post or link to material that is violative of any law or that describes or advocates illegal activities such as taking, growing, buying or selling drugs; the sale or promotion of weapons, hacking, trespassing, downloading pirated software, movies or music, participation in criminal offences or plans to enact criminal acts.
- 2c. Plagiarism and copyright: If you quote text from an external web site then please always provide a source link. Members are asked to copy only as much as is necessary when quoting material from external sources, do not copy and paste entire articles or web pages.
- 2d. Accuracy: Do not post material that is knowingly or intentionally false, inaccurate or misleading.
- 2e. Garbage posting: Do not deliberately post nonsense either for personal amusement or to wind up other members, keep your posts sensible.
- 2f. Private content: Do not post the content of private correspondances or the personal contact details of other members.
- 2g. Language: As this is an English speaking site we ask that our members post only in English. This also applies when linking to offsite articles, videos and other media.
- 2h. Medical advice: Do not use the site to request or offer medical advice, speak to your doctor instead.
- 2i. Preaching: Do not use the site to 'preach' your own beliefs or views to other members.
- 2j. Drug references: Do not post content describing or advocating personal drug use. This includes vitamin mega dosing, human growth hormones, prescription drug abuse, white powder of gold, psychic experience inducing drugs or any other illegal or mind-altering substances.
- 2k. Embedded videos: Do not embed or link to videos of ripped/copyrighted TV shows or movies on Youtube or other media services.
- 2l. Animal cruelty: Do not post content describing, depicting or advocating cruelty to animals.
3. Behaviour Please be civil and courteous to other members at all times.
- 3a. Racism or hatred: We have zero tolerance for racism or hatred towards any specific race, religion, country, gender, individual or group.
- 3b. Harassment: Do not harass, defame, threaten, bully or victimise other members.
- 3c. Profanity: Do not use profanity, crude language or attempt to deliberately bypass the profanity filters.
- 3d. Trolling: We have zero tolerance for trolling on the forums. We define 'trolling' as the act of posting intentionally false, controversial or offensive comments designed to start arguments or to provoke, bait or annoy other members.
- 3e. Flamebaiting: Do not taunt or bait another member in to an argument.
- 3f. Abusive behaviour: Do not be rude, insulting, offensive, snide, obnoxious or abusive towards other members.
- 3g. Suggestive conduct: Do not post sexually suggestive comments or content on the forums.
- 3h. Sock puppetry: Do not post under more than one alias at the same time or pretend to be more than one person via multiple accounts.
- 3i. Forum groups: The formation or promotion of organised groups, clans or gangs is disallowed.
- 3j. Thread derailment: Do not derail or 'hijack' threads with posts that are either off-topic or designed to draw attention away from what is being discussed.
- 3k. Forum warfare: Do not initiate or participate in "wars" with other members. Collective or individual attempts to attack, accuse, discredit or force a certain viewpoint on other members are disallowed. A "war" can constitute a prolonged series of disruptive confrontations between specific members or groups of members with similar beliefs or views, usually with either side accusing the other of being the aggressor and attacking, criticising and baiting each other on a regular basis. Action will be taken against members who instigate or participate in this type of activity.
- 3l. Defamation: Do not use this site or its services to attack, promote hatred towards or otherwise defame other web sites, forums, groups or individuals. Similarly, members found to be engaged in activities designed to harm, disrupt, defame or otherwise undermine this site, its staff or its members will be subject to a permanent ban.
- 3m. Role-playing: Do not use the forum to 'role-play' as a fictitious character or entity.
- 3n. Public figures: Do not post comments designed to spread hate about a public figure ( such as a politician, celebrity or convicted criminal ). This includes, but is not limited to, calling for retaliation, posting abusive messages, exposing someone's personal information or suggestions/descriptions of graphic/violent acts of punishment.
4. Signatures and profiles Please remember the following regarding signature and profile content. Note: Members may place a link to their own web site in their signature providing it is non-commercial in nature. Please be sensible when it comes to what you put in your profile. Signatures and avatars should not contain excessively gory, violent, sexually oriented, drug related, overly distracting or offensive content. Signatures should not be used to attack, denigrate or belittle other members or to 'bash' or mock religious beliefs or views. We reserve the right to remove any signature that we deem to be unsuitable, inapropriate or disruptive.
- 4a. Advertising: Do not use your signature or profile to promote commercial products, services or web sites.
- 4b. Image Size: Signatures should be no larger than 500x150 pixels. Images used in signatures or avatars should not exceed 100k.
- 4c. Distracting images: Please avoid the use of flashing or overly distracting animated signature or avatar images.
- 4d. Display name: Please choose a sensible display name. Display names should contain only alphanumeric characters and must not contain profanity, racism, sexual references, hatred or relate to illegal activities such as drug taking. Do not use your display name to display any web site or e-mail address, or to impersonate, harrass or offend other members.
5. Etiquette In the interests of maintaining constructive and friendly discussions:
- 5a. Personal attacks: Attack the point being presented, not the person who is making it.
- 5b. Spelling and grammar: Do not point out mistakes or criticise other members on their spelling, grammar or punctuation.
- 5c. Personal scrutiny: Do not attack or scrutinise another member's intelligence, mental status or personal/educational background.
- 5d. Topic bashing: Do not enter a thread just to shout "fake!" or to state point blank that "x does not exist". Elaborate on your response.
- 5e. Disrespectful conduct: Do not be rude, unpleasant or disrespectful towards other members - always be polite and courteous.
- 5f. Balanced debate: Do not make posts forbidding opposing viewpoints or make derogatory personal observations designed to dismiss or belittle another member's opinion ( such as accusing them of being mentally ill or being paid to post. ) All sides of a debate should be represented.
- 5g. Shouting: Do not write in all uppercase letters, writing in this manner is considered "shouting".
- 5h. Redundant quoting: Avoid quoting large amounts of material just to provide a short reply, only quote what you need to in order to avoid ambiguity.
- 5i. Rule quoting: Do not quote the site rules to other members, if you believe the rules have been broken please hit the 'report' button.
6. Moderator action Unexplained Mysteries is a privately owned web site and as such we reserve the right to remove any post, or to close or delete any thread that we deem to be inappropriate, offensive or intentionally disruptive, or to take any action necessary against any member whose behaviour we deem to be inappropriate, offensive or intentionally disruptive. Action taken is done on a case by case basis and is dependant on the nature and severity of the violations, but can include anything up to the banning of the account and IP address.
By using the forum service you agree to the following:
- 6a. Compliance: You agree to co-operate with the requests of our site staff should you be asked to stop doing something that they deem to be disruptive, inappropriate or in violation of the terms of service.
- 6b. Protest: You agree not to attack, harass, bully, defame, threaten or become abusive towards any member of staff either here or through off-site forums, services or media.
- 6c. Appeal: Do not post content designed to complain about, rally support against or to criticise moderator action. If you disagree with action taken by a member of staff you have the option to appeal the decision by PMing a moderator or administrator.
- 6d. Access: If your access or posting rights have been revoked, do not register more accounts in order to circumvent this restriction or have another member post or deliver messages on your behalf. Accounts that we find belong to previously banned members will also be banned.
Unexplained Mysteries reserves the right to change or add to these terms and conditions at any time without prior notice, and in any situation the decision of an Administrator is final.