Rules and Guidelines

As a part of our effort to make the forums a useful resource for all topics relating to earthquake forecasting and hazard analysis, we ask that all members abide by the following rules and guidelines.

Rules disclaimer:
We do reserve to right to make changes to these rules without notice. While we strive to be fair in our administration, all moderator actions are made at the staff's discretion. Remember, using the forum is a privilege, not a right.

Forum Content:
When making posts to the OpenHazards Forums, please make sure that the content you are posting falls within these boundaries.

Advertisement-
The OpenHazards Forum is not intended to be a marketing tool for any individual or business entity. Users are not allowed to post advertisements for their website or any others. If a link seems to be posted for overtly commercial reasons, or for increasing "hits," it may be deemed an advertisement by the moderation staff, and removed. If your links are useful or informative, you should not have to worry about this rule.

Off-Topic posts-
Posts and threads made on the OpenHazards Forums should be relevant to the forum and/or thread they are being posted in.  If a moderator finds your post or topic to be irrelevant to the topic or forum it is posted in, your posting may be deleted.

Forum Etiquette:

Courtesy-
As a part of our efforts to make the OpenHazards Forums a useful resource, we ask that users be courteous in their interactions with other users.

The following rules pertain to courtesy of user interactions on the forums:

- Do not post comments that defame, insult, or personally attack other users. (No flaming)

- Do not post comments that point out rule breaking behavior of other users.

- Do not start or support "flame wars" on the forums. There can be a fine line between debate and "flames," do not cross it.

Signatures, styles, etc.-
In order to make the OpenHazards Forums more accessible and less cluttered, we ask that users refrain from applying signatures, "avatars", emoticons, or unnecessary styles to their posts.

The main purpose of this forum is to provide users with a medium through which they can easily and comprehensibly learn about and discuss earthquakes, earthquake hazards, and other related topics. We feel that excessive non-informative imagery, emoticons, and stylistic/textual content does not help the forum flourish in this aspect.

Images-
While posting images to the forum is allowed, we ask that users be considerate of the following guidelines before doing so.

- Images posted to the forum should be relevant to the content of the post, topic, and forum they are in. No images should be posted for stylistic purposes or for adding commentary.

- Images should be appropriate for viewers of all ages. Images containing nudity or pornography will not be permitted under any circumstances.

- Images posted to the forum should not be exceedingly large. Images that extend beyond the borders of of the post area are invariably prohibited. If an image can get the point across at a smaller size, you may want to consider resizing it.

If an image you would like to post does not fit these guidelines, please post consider posting it as a link instead, or not posting it at all.

Other etiquette rules-

- Do not "over quote" text. If you wish to use the "quote" function in your post, make sure the quoted section is not excessively long. Please use use your own good judgment for this.

- Do not post "one word replies." If you don't have anything more to add to a topic than "I agree," or "That's odd," etc., then do not reply.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy your stay at the OpenHazards Forums.