Table Of Contents

Deleting Posts

Troll Alerts

Introduction

Anyone is welcome to sign up and become a member of Spero Forum . Spero Forum is a message board to allow discussion and debate between members of different religious affiliation, often challenging ideas about the faith.

Why have guidelines on one page

A member of the forum, Squirrel, asked, "How about combining the various forum guidelines that are in different posts into a single, one-page document that people have easier access to? It can have things about editing posts, ad hominem attacks, name-calling, etc., just so everyone is clear."

Original Post Perogative

The member who posts the first post moderates the thread. If members do not adhere to the OP, the member who started the thread can contact the administrator via PM for action if warnings are not obliged.

Styling Your Post

The forum lets you use different colors, sizes, and even different font styles. These should be used to accent your post and should be used conservatively and in good taste. "Texting" is not permitted.

Editing Posts

If you edit a new post within 10 minutes of posting it, I think it's fine that you don't explain what you edited. People won't question you. Because edited posts display the time you edited, when you edit four hours after you posted, people will wonder what you edited, whether it's a new post or one that is two pages back. Because of that, simply stating the reason you edited is appropriate. Those who don't follow this cause themselves to lose credibility.

For example, I just found a post of mine I made last night with "they're" instead of "their". If I edit this simple mistake and the edit tag is attached, then people will wonder what I changed, even though it's an innocent change.

Edit: Switched "they're" to "there".

But, if I just posted and realized I made this mistake, I think it's unreasonable to have to explain if I edit it within ten minutes.

Deleting Posts

Deleting posts is strictly prohibited.

Locked Threads

Due to the inability of the human eye to take in so much text and make sense of it without significant work, threads that are 20 pages long will be locked. If the conversation is continuing, anyone is welcome to start a new thread to continue it. Threads that are locked that are below 20 pages shall not be permitted to restart.

Name Changes

Name changes are not permitted. So choose your name wisely.

Multiple User Accounts

Members can only have a single account.

Titles

Use little punctuation
Do not type all-caps
Do not include member names in the title -- threads should be directed to everyone

Linking

If you are creating hyperlinks, be sure to always make them embedded links.

For example: CNN.com instead of http://www.cnn.com

While the long form of the url to cnn.com (http://www.cnn.com/) is fine because it's short, it's a better practice to make the UR Ls readable for the users as explained above. Links that are unreasonably long must be avoided because they stretch the page for many readers and simply can't be read and remembered by the average user.

Here is information on how to link .

Replying with quotes

Do not "reply with quote" to a post immediately above the post you are making. It makes the quote redundant, takes up database space, and makes the thread difficult to read.

If you find this in your post, you can delete it.

(Redundant quote removed -- Admin. Please read. Delete this note when you read it. Thanks.)

For clarification, if your post appears on a new page and you quote the post directly before yours, that is okay, because it's actually helpful and it's not technically "above" your post.

Trolls

How to determine between a troll or someone who is disagreeable?

Anyone may post here, but the community has decided that trolling is interfering with discussion.

To determine a troll, most are obvious, but some of them have one or all of the distinguishing marks including posts that:

are unintelligable
are poorly written
are repetitive
are incoherent
don't include a thesis or hypothesis
claim God, Saints, or Angels speak through the user
fail to seek discussion or debate and purely proselytize
cross-post
cross-reply
exhibits non-mastery of the faculties of reason

When any of these are encountered, I will move the topic to the new miscellaneous forum, lock the topic until the troll P Ms the forum admin with an explanation, or delete them.

If you discover a suspicious post, do not respond to it. Instead, please link it here and state the reason why you think it's from a troll.

Troll Alerts

In the spirit of debate and discussion, especially with topics that even the roughest saloons don't permit, religion and politics, it's important to be mindful of how we post and reply to others.

All posts should avoid making inflammatory comments no matter how irresistible they might be. If you want to comment on someone's ridiculous post, do it with gentleness and show them your position with evidence and without snark. Anything less would be inflammatory. If a user starts a thread that is inflammatory itself and designed without the purpose of discussion and debate, do not respond to it and send your troll alert via PM to me, the admin, to review and hide it.

If you find a reply that is inflammatory, PM me the thread and the reply ID and I will examine it. If it is inflammatory, I will hide it. But I must receive more than one PM from more than one person for the post or reply to be considered trollworthy.

Some guidelines used by other sites that strive to have open boards:

Do not send a troll alert for people whose opinion is different than yours, as long as it's in a civilized manner.
Do not send a troll alert for someone you are actively having a fight with. If you are in a heated argument with someone, you should not be judging whether or not what they say is trollworthy. Leave it to others to decide what behavior is or isn't over the line.
Do not respond to inflammatory posts. It is insulting to the person who started the thread to have it highjacked for a fisticuffs between two or three users. It is insulting to the rest of the community to have to scroll past a fight dozens of comments long in order to get back to the topic at hand. If people respond to inflammatory posts and continue the fight, especially if it's off topic from the OP, please alert me of those replies to remove them from the thread. No one should be rewarded for having a fight.
If in doubt that it's inflammatory, leave it alone.
If you make an inflammatory post and it's hidden, reflect upon it. Everyone has a bad day on occasion.
Again, one troll alert isn't enough to have a post removed.
Merely disagreeing with your own opinion does not constitute being a "troll".
An example of an inflammatory post would be some of the ad hominem attacks such as, "you are an idiot" or "you are a humanist!".

I repeated some of the rules intentionally. I hope this helps and will cause each of us to consider what we're posting before we post it.

Ratings

HOW TO RATE TOPICS AND REPLIES

When you rate a topic positively, you are providing a gift to another member. The more gifts you hand out, the less they're appreciated. Give your gifts wisely. The same goes for your punishments.

Think twice before your rate.

When to give a positive rating

There are several criteria that should be matched when rating positive and negative posts.

You like what the member said and recommend it for others to read.
You disagree with the member's post but the member is engaging in honest debate and discussion.
The post included original thought and proper formatting.

When to give a negative rating

First, never give a negative rating because you disagree with the post. Alert the admin or moderators if you suspect others might be doing this.
The post contains malformatted text (including unreasonable multiple colors and styles).
The post engages in issues that are troll-like.
The post does not add to the debate.
The post contains gratuitous cut and paste material.

CONSEQUENCES OF RATINGS

Positive Ratings

A positive rating is a reward. Members who gain positive ratings achieve greater respectability as active and productive members of the board. This will ultimately mean that their ratings will become increasingly weighted. The formula for this weighting will not be revealed and it's not as simple as it might appear. Everyone should strive to be a respected member and help to police the boards. Giving positive and negative ratings and receiving positive and negative ratings will impact your respectability rating.

Negative Ratings

A negative rating tells the community you think the post should not be recommended to be read by others. Posts that receive a certain number of negative ratings from respected members will automatically be hidden. The more a member has posts hidden, it will increase their chances of being auto-banned (this formula will also not be revealed).

IF YOU RATE

Think twice before you rate. When you rate, ask yourself if you're truly rating a significant post? A positive rating is a reward and a negative rating is a punishment. Also, rating should never take the place of replying or posting new topics. To receive a respectability rating, you must be an active participant and expose yourself to being rated.

Faq

WHO CAN RATE TOPICS AND REPLIES?

All Spero Forum members can rate topics and replies. Lurkers must register to be able to rate topics.

ARE THE ADMINISTRATORS AND MODERATORS RATED?

There is currently only one admin, me, and I've set the system up fairly and my posts can also be rated (but if I find people rating my announcements negatively, well... ). But my posts and replies can be rated like everyone else's.

CAN I RATE MY OWN POSTS?

No.

ARE MY RATINGS PRIVATE?

When you rate, it's presumed you're a respected member of the board and your ratings will never be exposed to others. Although the admin could potentially put together who voted against others' posts by accessing the database table, I can guarantee you that it will never happen unless an account must be audited for abuse. Even if that happens, only the records of the abuser are pulled. And it's way too tedious to put together the information. A positive or negative rating will always be presumed to be well-deserved.

Posting in the Speculation Forum

Only members with a reputation of 20 and above may post (create topics and replies) in the speculation section of the forum.

Banned

If you're banned you will be informed if your ban is temporary or permanent. If you are banned temporarily, it is up to you to request a return by contacting the forum admin explaining why you'd like to return.

Role of the Administrator and Moderators

The administrator and moderators take every effort to remain hands-off and let the community work out problems. When an administrator or moderator does get involved, his or her judgement takes precedent over any rule, even if it's contradictory. The administrator's rulings are final.

Additional Documents

Questions

If you have any questions, discuss them here .

Proposed Changes

Post your proposed changes to the guidelines here.

Spero Forum Community Portal

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