• Anything ‘published’ on the web is viewed as intellectual property and, regardless of whether it displays a copyright symbol or not, is therefore copyrighted by the originator. The only exception to this is if there is a “free and unrestricted reuse” statement associated with the work.

    In order to protect our members and TFL from possible litigation, all members must abide by the following new rules:

    1. Copying and pasting entire articles from another site to TFL is strictly prohibited. The same applies to articles from print or other media, and to posting photographs taken of copyrighted pages or other media.

    2. Copyright law provides for “fair use” of portions of a copyrighted work. You can copy no more than a SINGLE paragraph from the article to your post (3 or 4 sentences at most).

    3. You must provide a link to the article along with the name of website. For example: ww.xxx.yyy/zzz (The Lower Thumbsuck Daily News).

    4. You must provide, in your own words, a brief summary of the article AND your reasons for believing it will be of interest to TFL members. Failure to do so may result in the thread being closed or your post being deleted as a “cut and paste drive by.”

    5. Photographs and other images are also copyrighted. "Hotlinking" of images (so that it appears in your message) from other sites is also prohibited unless you own rights to the image. If you wish to share an image, provide a clickable link to it.

    Posts that do not follow these new guidelines will be altered or deleted by staff. Members who continue to violate this policy may lose their posting privileges at TFL.

    Thank you for your cooperation and your participation in TFL, the leading online forum for firearms enthusiasts.

Rules Enforcement Left to Mods

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Brian Pfleuger

Moderator Emeritus
I've seen several instances of rather inappropriate harshness directed by "veteran" members toward new members who violate forum rules. Most often rule 4. While I agree that improper punctuation, spelling and capitalization make for a difficult read I do not agree that it is or should be fellow members prerogative to openly chastise and embarrass new posters. New members who perceive that they are attacked for "i" instead of "I" are not likely to remain on board and become respected long term members. Correction of such relatively modest violations should be left to the mods and, even then, should be undertaken via PM, IMO.


I propose Rule #6:

TFL members are not grammar patrol. Enforcement of the forum rules is left entirely to the moderators. Any post that is in violation of any rules should be reported to the moderators using the "report post" button.


(Or something along those lines.)
 
M

Mike Irwin

Staff
If you see such an instance that it would tend to violated our existing forum rules, report the post to the moderator staff using this icon:

report.gif


That sends a note to all moderators and admins.
 
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Al Norris

Moderator Emeritus
On the other hand, if you can politely let the offender know that their spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. makes it hard to read, and hard to read posts are often ignored... I see nothing wrong in letting the general members self police the board.

We had a big public discussion (275 posts) about this rule change, back in early 2006, IIRC.... Yup. here it is.

Read at least the first post of that thread to get an idea of what the rule is about.
 
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goodspeed(TPF)

New member
Dats gud stuffs their. Eye red itt awl. I recm.... reku.... recku.... think dat it shud bee followed to thuh letters. An innie won inn violashun shud bee banneded.
 
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hoytinak

New member
Antipitas, that's a good thread in that link. It'd probably be a good idea to (maybe edit it?) and re-sticky it.
 
A

Al Norris

Moderator Emeritus
Perhaps. But that's over and done with. I can link to it anytime I need the reference (to point someone else to it).
 
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Brian Pfleuger

Moderator Emeritus
Rich Lucibella said:
Once it rises to the level of rendering a post unreadable or embarrassing to the TFL community, we will have to step in....and we hope our Members will support that effort by working with us behind the scenes.
Click to expand...

Obviously I can't read that entire thread but I think this sentence shows my intent. Public chastisement of members by members does nothing to enhance either the image of TFL or gun-owners as a whole. It also does nothing to encourage those members to change their style and continue as productive posters. I believe the only ways to be certain that the members report the inappropriate posts with out appearing to attack the poster is by either making an official rule change or by creating a sticky thread with an advisory.
 
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Mal H

Staff
I think what peetzakilla suggests has merit. He's not saying enhance or sticky the English language protocol guidelines.

He is suggesting that we let it be known, either in a rules file paragraph or in a sticky thread, that it would be best to leave the enforcement of the existing rule to the moderators - let us be the "heavies" if you will. If most members would do that, it would save quite a bit of online bickering, embarrassment and perhaps even a banned member or two.
 
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Shane Tuttle

Staff
My own opinion: If a person is lazy or downright self centered enough to post an incoherent statement publicly, then one should be willing to be criticized in public.

Case in point: People that make the excuse that they're using their blackberry and "can't" use correct punctuation is just inviting ridicule. It reflects poorly on Rich's standards of intelligent discussion on the boards.

I find it a total lack of respect and I personally don't have a problem at all letting the member know publicly. I don't call him an idiot, but I don't beat around the bush either pointing out the garbled mess.

Most offenders seem to turn the focus away from their own transgression and make a big stink about their feelings being hurt. Reminds me of the perfect example about the dying culture of being responsible for ones' actions.

I personally vote for continuing to allow the members to police ourselves on the small stuff and report the bigger stuff to staff. Let the citizens police themselves on the minor stuff...Call the Cops when there's real problems.

Our membership numbers have been growing at an alarming rate as of late. I don't see how one can expect the staff to handle every single minor infraction without the help of members.

Look at it this way, peetzakilla. Would be criminals are put on notice by citizens of a shall-issue state and are in a sense given public warning. We're probably armed, so I wouldn't try to rob me if I were you. No need to call the cops because the citizen has the right to help keep law and order.

Mal, if that's what you want, by all means I'll abide by what the staff wants. I can set my personal opinion aside in order to follow the rules (well, for the MOST part:D). I'm predicting an even heavier load on the staff than what is already in place, though.
 
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alloy

New member
I try not to worry because my own grammer and spelling can be on the verge...but what happened to paragraphs and indenting the first word of each one? Now its all about typing a line per thought and then skipping a line. Maybe the bullet list is becoming the acceptable post format. Quotation marks around a word are used to show it means something "other" than what it means, when it really "means" the exact same thing? Chat room, real time, conversation is different than typing a thesis, and some posts fall somewhere in between. The chance of me calling a hall monitor regarding grammer...is slim to none. It's the net, and I'm Charles Barkley.
 
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Creature

Moderator
I disagree.

This board is populated by a a majority of members who actually give a hoot about the board and how it actually looks to new viewers. The written word is our only avenue of expression. Do it using standard English as best you are able.

As a new viewer, if I saw that this board is rife with poor grammar, spelling and punctuation...and if I saw that the members do not care enough to self-police themselves, I would be very hard pressed to be confident in the credibility of the board as a whole.

Now if someone goes too far in their chastisement of the offender, then yes, the Mods should step in with corrective action as they see fit. But I believe that we as members can and should do much to ensure that this forum remains readable in the true sense of the word.
 
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goodspeed(TPF)

New member
Most offenders seem to turn the focus away from their own transgression and make a big stink about their feelings being hurt. Reminds me of the perfect example about the dying culture of being responsible for ones' actions.
Click to expand...

Well said. Agreed.
 
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alloy

New member
Disagreement is good, but dont allofwildalaskaspostsfallunderthebadgrammerviolations, and what would Shakespeare have thought of needing a smilie to denote sarcasm?
So....I disagree, i think the mods are doing fine work as it is, policing the new gun ban threads, two per day.
 
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P97

New member
He is suggesting that we let it be known, either in a rules file paragraph or in a sticky thread, that it would be best to leave the enforcement of the existing rule to the moderators - let us be the "heavies" if you will. If most members would do that, it would save quite a bit of online bickering, embarrassment and perhaps even a banned member or two.
Click to expand...
I am the Founder of two Bulletin Boards. This is a very wise statement. To do otherwise is asking for a lot of problems.
 
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