The rules, in case you didn't read them when you registered.

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Forum Guidelines

The policy of the FNZAS Fishroom Forums is to maintain a place where members can come together and share their experiences with other members.

The Fishroom forums is a family oriented discussion board. As such, the following guidelines are in place to support this philosophy;

The forum guidelines are the rules for the forum.

Guidelines:

Topics of this type will be removed and action taken against the poster(s):
- sensitive topics (political, religious, sexual reference etc).
- subjects / content not suitable for children to read.
- profanity, swearing or implied swearing.
- Disrespectful, obscene, vulgar or abusive posts
- posts intended to create a reaction
- personal attacks.
- sexually oriented
- slander
- illegal

Private Message Service:
The site guidelines apply to all private messages.

Posting:
Think before you post. Once posted, things generally get left in perpetuity.
Please note, that because of the threaded conversation-like nature of discussion boards, we reserve the right to refuse a users request for a mass delete of their own posts. Thus if at some point in the future you choose to unsubscribe from our boards be aware that your posts will remain.

Privacy:
No personal information (real name, e-mail, phone number, address etc…) concerning another user, person or business without that person’s express written permission. The administrators and moderators will under no circumstance release any personal information held on the site without court order.

Prospecting:
No posts are to be made with the intention of forming a bulk purchase or import by invite to meet a minimum order quantity . The FNZAS website is not to be used in any way for any individual or business to prospect customers or form a buying group. This is also extended to other websites using this site to contact our members with the intention of prospecting new members.

User Account:
Your user account is just that - your user account. It should remain personal and private. If we have reason to believe that an account is being "shared", we reserve the right to immediately disable that account and may or may not notify the user depending on the circumstances. This also applies to multiple registrations by the same person. These are not allowed without admin permission.

Signatures
Restrict your signature to no more than 3 lines with no embedded pictures. You may mention your Online Auction site user name in your signature (but no links).

Moderators:
While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable. All moderator and administrator messages about site conduct are confidential.

Copyright:
If you are using pictures that do not belong to you, you must give credit and acknowledge the source. Use these rules.
Linking to images on other sites is ok but you need to make sure that:
a) You are not breaking copyright rules (link to the original image not a copy)
b) The remote server allows hot-linking. The fact that you can see the image doesn't always mean that other users can see it.
c) If you link to an image that is not yours make sure you acknowledge the source.

Do not copy pictures to your own server or picture album unless you own them.

Image Size:
Images linked to the site in your personal posts need to be a maximum of 640 x 480 pixels and no larger than 128kB.
Posts into the members tank area require moderator approval so do not be alarmed if your post does not show right away.

Quoting from another source.
When quoting from another source you must give a proper reference. Title/Author/ISBN of a book, Author/Journalname/Year/Volume/Page of a Journal or Magazine article, Link (and if possible Authors name) to a webpage or whatever properly identifies the source of your information.

Private Trade and Exchange Section:
This forum is for private individuals to list and talk about for sale/wanted/trade aquarium related items. Refer to Online Auction’s for exclusions.
No auctions are to be run on this site. For Sale only advertising.
If you offer products at commercial prices/quantities or if you are a business please use the Commercial Trade and Exchange forum instead.
Moderators will move topics without warning!

Aquarium related products only please!
Please join a FNZAS affiliated club if you use this forum.

Commercial Trade and Exchange:
This forum is to be used only by Retail Outlets or Retail Web-Order Sites. Wholesalers and Importers may advertise products only available in Retail Outlets but must not use this site to sell direct to the public.

Commercial Memberships:
Remember to follow these simple rules:
- vendors talk about your own product(s) only. This means only products you are the registered dealer for. No bypassing the registered dealer is allowed.
- no product pushing, just a simple announcement will do, respond to questions only.
- queries about orders should be directed to private email please. Do not use this forum to collect orders. The forums pm system is a service for our members and should not be used for commercial transactions, use email please.
- no discussion (good or bad) of a competitors product.
- no hijacking of topics. Start your own please .
Vendors may announce product availability in the general forums with a link to their commercial section advert but there will be no discussion in the general forums about the product by Vendors. Eg, This might help your problem (link).

Online Auction or Classified Advertisement:
No links to Trademe Auctions, Online Auctions or Classified Adds are allowed. Also, no reference is to be made to Trademe, other Online Auctions or Classified Adds and the items for auction/sale.
No links or references to Trademe, other Online Auction sites or Classified Adds to discuss an item for auction/sale (applies to expired listings and linked pictures); exception - if you are genuinely interested in buying the item and want to learn more about the use of the item and if it will be ok for your purpose.
Any attempt to use this site to try to bypass the Trademe, other Online Auction or Classified Add systems is a breach of our guidelines.

Penalties for breaking the site Guidelines:
Anyone clearly breaking the FNZAS Guidelines will receive an immediate one month ban. If the post is borderline we will discuss it with you first. Following the ban they will be on a six month probationary period. If they offend again within this time they will receive a permanent ban. You are allowed a total of two one month bans. On the third you will be permanently banned.

We do not like to give out bans as it puts a whole negative tone on the site. Do not be the person to get one.

Last Update: 14.6.2008