This is a list of rules for the Themotec.com Forum (formerly known as Mo's Talk Forum) located at http://www.themotec.com/Forum/.

It is updated as needed. Document version 3.1 updated on August, 12th 2006.
You must agree to this in order to use the forum!

Themotec.com Forum Rules:

I. Registration
Anyone who can read and write in English may register up to one account on the forum. He or she must provide a valid date of birth and e-mail address to automatically activate the account.

Users may use the forum upon agreement to registration terms, forum rules, and any additional rules stated by moderators or administrators.

II. Posting
Each user can make an unlimited amount of posts during his or her use of the Forum. Each new topic is to be posted in the correct forum-category, and no post is to be in breach of the advertising terms. Spam, fake quotes, vulgarity, duplicate posts, and rudeness will also not be tolerated. Administrator and moderator requests are to be kindly obeyed, and unwanted topics or posts may be reported to them using the provided forum feature.

If you are a site affiliate, you may promote your own site in one thread per month as long as your thread contains more than just a link. If you are a registered user with more than 300 posts, you may post about your site in a well-written thread as well, but limit the total amount of threads to one a month. Users that violate the advertising terms will be issued an infraction.

Administrators and moderators reserve the right to remove, delete, edit, close, or in any other way change any post or topic. Posting rules also apply to calendar entries and photo gallery comments.

III. Private Messaging
All users are allowed to use the private messaging system (PM system). One can send as many messages as one wants, but the inbox can only store a certain amount of messages at a time (generally 1,000). Each user may delete or re-organize his or her private messages as he or she sees fit.

IV. Signatures & Avatars
All users have the privilege to display a signature and an avatar, given that each is not offensive, inappropriate, or vulgar. Avatars have a height and width limit of 80 pixels; avatars consisting of copyrighted images will be removed. Profile pictures, which may measure up to 100x100 pixels, are also allowed. However, they cannot be animated.

Signatures may also not be offensive, inappropriate, vulgar, or excessively lengthy. Signatures should be short and no longer that 5 lines total, and they may not contain more than 3 images or 1000 characters; long signatures are blocked by the system. An administrator or moderator can also truncate or edit a signature at any time. Signatures consisting of copyrighted images will be removed, and note that regular users can also not display links in signatures.

Should users abuse either of the above privileges, they may be temporarily or permanently removed.

V. User Privileges
Users may log in, read posts, create posts, modify their profile, create polls, repost posts, and add to events to the calendar at any time. Users may question moderator or administrator actions, but they must take moderator and administrators decisions as final. Users may also request a single account name change at any time.

Users with over 500 posts that have been registered for over a year will be promoted to the rank of "Forum Veteran" and granted special privileges.

VI. Moderators, Super Moderators, and Administrators
Moderators and Super Moderators are chosen at the administrator's discretion. Each moderator has certain thread- and user-editing powers granted to him or her on an individual level by the administrator.

Administrators have full control over the board, and they may act upon it in any way at any time.

Users promoted to the rank of moderator must visit the Forum at least once a week, moderate at least once a month, and agree to the user terms and the rules above. The administrator reserves all rights regarding user ranks. Moderators must also agree to never abuse their powers.

VII. Punishments
Punishments are given upon noted misconduct. Punishments include, but are not limited to, the deletion, closure, or editing of threads; the banning of a user; the removal of privileges; the editing of post count; or the demotion of moderators. Infractions that may lead to a ban may also be issued. Should illegal action be noted, a user and his or her IP address may be reported to the authorities.

Regarding bans: upon severe forum abuse, a warning will be issued to the misbehaving user via a post and PM. If abuse continues, an infraction will be issued to the user. Upon the third notice, the user will be banned for one week, and e-mail notification will be sent. Severe misconduct may lead to extended or permanent bans.

Please note that it may be publicly declared that a user has been banned, and should a new user start his or her posting with spamming, that user will be IP-banned without notice.

VIII. Liability
The owners of the Forum take no responsibility for the misconduct of any user or guest. We are not liable for any post or any damaged caused by the Forum. We log IP addresses for security reasons, and we do not recommend the disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII) on the internet.

Thank you for reading the rules. Contact us if you have any questions or comments.
Please note that the Themotec.com Forum is known as “the Forum” throughout these rules.