General

• The forums are here to promote fish keeping as a friendly hobby in Ireland These forums are intended to help users with questions, comments and queries.

Attack the post, not the Poster

• Unwarranted personal attacks will not be tolerated.
• While a certain level of banter is expected between posters, it is not acceptable to attack another poster simply because you dislike or disagree with them. If you think that their comment is nonsense, argue why it is rather than simply insulting them. If you just don\'t like someone, just say nothing.
• When you arguing with someone about the content of their post please strive to provide links, references or other evidence to back up your points, this makes for a much more informative debate and prevents things spiraling into pantomime like "oh yes I did" ... "oh no you didn\'t" ... "oh yes I did" ............
  
  This is bad
  Poster1: I like Supermegatech filters, they are so pretty!
  Poster2: Only syphilitic monkeys with ADD like Supermegatech filters. You are obviously one of them. Scum I say, scum
  Poster1: Well you\'re a doodie head! I\'ll be crying into my keyboard all day now!
  
  This is good
  Poster1: I like Supermegatech filters, they are so pretty!
  Poster2: I find the build quality and optics to be of inferior quality. It is therefore ick.
  Poster1: Okay, I still like it though.

Spamming

• Complete nonsense Topics/posts will be deleted to save us money.
• ITFS pays by the megabyte our hosting package so we will not waste money on totally pointless threads.
• Unsolicited advertisements from traders will be removed from all boards except the Buy and Sell boards, please restrict your ads to there and please keep them Fish-keeping related.
  
  This is bad:
  Poster1 Marco
  Poster2: Polo
  Poster1: Marco
  Poster3: Polo
  Admin type: If I find you, I\'ll cut your hands off.
  
  This is also bad:
  Poster1: Come to my website where you can buy all sorts of useless Japanese junk! It\'s cheap!

Family Friendly

• Any content in threads should be \'family safe\'.
• \'family safe\' means that a parent would not feel bad viewing the content in a family environment. Un-suitable material should not be posted on or linked to from these boards, his includes (but is not an exhaustive list): pornography, images from sites like rotten.com, videos of people being executed, swearing etc..
• This website is viewed by both young and old alike. The use of socially unacceptable language will not be tolerated. Profanities, language of a racist or salacious manner, and similar, is not acceptable.

Off-Topic

• Mods may split threads that split into multiple separate conversations
• While going off topic is part of the nature of bbs, this can lead to informative threads becoming swamped as the signal to noise ratio goes skew-ways. Mods may then split the thread up so that the off topics post can continue without interfering with the original thread. Poster1: So, yes I believe digital photography is the way forward and that we will be able to take cool images for virtually nothing!
  Poster2: Cake is great! I love cake!
  Modtype: Er, can we talk about the topic at hand? You could start another thread on cake easily
  Poster3: Yes, "wet film" had it\'s faults and is expensive to develop, but there is something nice about the colours and the crispness of the images that I just don\'t think you get with a digicam.
  Poster4: Carrot cake is ick though
  Modtype: Okay, thread is being split into two - one on photography and the other on cake.

Illegal in the real world, illegal on these boards

• Illegal activity will not be tolerated.
• ITFS is bound by the laws of the Republic of Ireland. Posts that break the law will be dealt with in an appropriate manner. Ignorance of the law is not a defence. For details of the laws of the land see here. Some examples to be aware of: Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, Copyright and Related Rights Act.

Examples of bad things to do:
Poster1: Anyone want to buy hash? or
Poster2: You can download full versions of movies and TV shows from this site! or
Poster3: Here\'s a poll to see which poster you hate the most.

Guidelines

• Not everyone has the same sense of humour. Please bear this in mind when posting things you find funny. Someone could take offence. Don\'t be surprised when someone does.
Before you call someone a Nazi or compare their opinions to those of the Nazis, please have a look at Godwin\'s Law.
• Don\'t post just to increase your post count. It seriously annoys many users.
• We cannot and will not create a rule for every situation. We ask the users to follow the spirit of the minimal set of rules we have laid down.
• The internet is made of real people. Remember that before you post.
• This is a public forum that can be viewed by anyone so for their own safety they should never post any sensitive personal information on these boards (phone numbers etc..). Users can share this information with each other if they wish but should do so over Private Messages or Email.

For Sale Section

• Only post on the thread if genuinely interested in the item(s).
• Additional comments in relation to the item(s) such as 'another brand is better than this item's' or 'your item(s) is(are) overpriced' will be deleted without notice.
• Members that have under 10 Contributed post's, Will not be allowed to use the For Sale or The Wanted Section, If such is being used the post will be Deleted.

Posting about shops

• We all want a high standard of fish keeping and we all hope that retailers maintain a high-standard. However, the ITFS does not want to get sued for slanderous comments about a retailer. If you wish to post about a specific retailer, do not mention their name and only refer to the retailer in the 3rd party. If you are posting negative comments about a retailer, ensure your comments are based on fact, no exaggerations

Rules for Retailers

• Sponsors must only post listing in their own sections without prices included.
• Non-sponsors are not allowed to sell items through the forum outright.
• Shops should be discouraged from replying to posts with "Contact me for one of those", etc and should definitely not be quoting any prices
• Replies from retailers to posts in the "Wanted" section will be deleted
• Retailers and members are encouraged to use the PM facilities provided for exchanging information, etc

Excessive Guideline Breaking

• Users who continue to break guidelines after been given a warning from a moderator or admin will removed from the forum.
• Please remember this is a forum for fish keeping and helping to improve fishkeeping in Ireland. The forum caters for all ages ranges from 5 to 95, so please remember when posting to the forum, that we may have young members and certain material could be offensive to younger members.

For Admins and Committee Members

• The Admin section is here for Admins and Committee members to discuss issues only with the website and the forum that need to be dealt with. Other issues can be discussed elsewhere.
• If committee members feel there is an issue on the forum or website that requires the attention of an admin, they should post it to this section, no committee members should take any action on their own.
• Admins should post to this section if they feel some member is not obeying the guidelines, etc or if they feel a thread is starting to get out of control.
• Members should only be banned if 2 or more admins agree to it in the Admin section.
• If an admin feels that a thread is going out of control, they should lock the thread so that no more posts can be put on the thread and post it to the Admin section. Threads will be deleted if 2 or more admins agree that the thread is having too much of a negative impact. If no agreement is made within 2 days, the thread should be unlocked again.

We are all here to improve and enjoy fish keeping so let us keep it that way.