This document is designed to clarify various responsibilities of community members here at ItalianGenealogy.com. Please read it and become familiar with it.

Board-wide Policies

1. Forum rules
   
   1. Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptionsbefore 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. Members are asked to not act as "back seat moderators". If members note an issue which contravenes something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it to the attention of the Moderator. Only do this if a moderator team member has not replied within 24 hours. Members who consistenly "act" as moderators may be warned.
   4. Members should remember this board is aimed at a general audience. Posting profanity, pornographic 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 or re-printing material without permision 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 ([img][/img]) 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 title when posting a new topic. Examples of bad titles include; "Help me!", "I'm stuck!", "Information please!", etc. Examples of good titles include; "Surname TARDIO", "Town PIAGGINE", etc.
   9. Members are welcome to use the test forum for general "test purposes". These may include checking signatures, testing a link or image, etc. (subject to previous points on decency, warez, etc.). Messages in the test forum are deleted automaticly after 7 days. Users posting in the test forum just to increase their post counts will be warned.
   10. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. This includes offering charged research or translation services. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed. See specific item on spam and 3rd party linking for more information.
   11. The moderator and administrator reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to the moderator.
   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 revokation of private messaging.
   13. Signatures
       
       1. Signatures may contain up to five lines (one line being that displayed on a browser opened to 800px width) 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 6KB 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.
       2. Text sizes should be between 9 and 12 (small and normal). Text in signatures is subject to the same conditions as posts with respect decency, warez, emoticons, etc.
       3. Links are permitted in signatures. Such links may be made to non-ItalianGenealogy.com material, commercial ventures, etc. Links are included within the text and image limits above. Links to offensive sites may be subject to removal.
       4. Users abusing these rules will be warned.
       5. 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 90 pixels square, contain no animation, contain no image which attempts to portray the user as having an official status here (e.g. mimiking ranks or copying avatars of team members), may not exceed 6KB 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, etc.
          3. Users abusing these rules will be warned and/or may lose their avatar privileges.
          4. Policing
             
             1. ItalianGenealogy.com 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 the moderator 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 moderator. If he feels you were treated badly he removes a warning. If you feel the decision is also unfair you may contact Edmondo. His decision is final.
             4. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account of evade an email ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
             5. An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact the moderator personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.
             6. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While ItalianGenealogy.com may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurence.