====RULES====

Last Revised: 01/10/2006

The CROSSFIRE echo is meant for the discussion political and social
concerns that affect society.

POLITICS are a tricky thing to discuss, patience and understanding are a
good thing to have when discussing it, right, left, center, not everyone
is the same. This means one persons opinions are very likely to
infuriate another.

[The Basics]

If you post a article of interest from elsewhere, the internet et al, do
not post without including or following it with some commentary and make
sure the source gets properly creditted.

When posting articles, do remember that many users are utilizing QWK or
BLUEWAVE offline message readers which often have line length
limitations, if you encounter a rather long article, either break it
into several smaller messages or just post the introduction paragraph
and then provide us with the URL address the whole article can be viewed
at.

When posting articles, please make sure you format or reformat it so its
easily digestible by every ones readers.

As you discuss issues and topics, you are not forbidden to but are
discourage from revealing intimate details about yourself, family or
life outside of computing, it often opens the door to flame attacks,
attacks on your character and credibility, every door opened is your
own, be careful but be warned.

[Decorum]

Unfortunately, some will flame, be flamed or "feel" flamed, its how you
respond to them is what counts, ignore the person or ignore the flame.
Politics are a passionate topic for all those who take the time to
discuss it. Having said that, this does not make it ok to flame, this is
not a flame echo, take flames to MATZDOBRE or other suitable echo, or in
private or hold your tongue. This is an acknowledgement that some
discussions will be or can be heated.

If your sole purpose is to flame, go away.

No one is so prude that the use of swear words is forbidden in this
echo, stating that something is "so fscking stupid" is ok, saying that
someone is "so fscking stupid" is forbidden and this does not apply to
only the "F" word. However the use of swear words if overdone does
diminish the strength of your argument and only leads your opponents to
believe that they have gotten to you and in all probability they would
be right.

There are 2 types of insults:

A - Direct

B - Indirect

A DIRECT insult is when you address to a person, a statement or words
that are intended belittle them and/or to push that persons buttons.

A INDIRECT insult is when you address to a third party something very
similar to a DIRECT insult, but about someone else. Either way, its
intended to push the buttons of the person being talked about.

What one considers an insult will vary from the person making it to the
person on the receiving end of one.

However..

As stated earlier, POLITICS in general is a volatile subject to debate
with anyone at any given time, emotions run high and NO ONE IS EVER
WRONG. (sarcasm)

But past history or familiarity with another echo participant from
another echo or another time by itself or in conjunction with differing
ideologies is no justification for launching into PERSONAL ATTACKS
either via the afore mentioned DIRECT or INDIRECT insults.

Retaliations:

Retaliating towards someone because you feel they attacked you DIRECTLY
or INDIRECTLY in such a way as to be considered a attack itself, is also
forbidden. See opening statement in this section regarding flames.

This is a REAL NAMES only echo, no handles or aliases, your real name
must be posted in the FROM field. Messages from the MODERATORS are
excepted.

Topic drift is natural and wont be discouraged so long as it stays
within reason.

MODERATOR BAITING is not allowed, the moderators reserve the right to
publicly acknowledge or determine that which is or is not a flame or
other rule violation. This means that publicly addressing messages to a
moderator or otherwise pleading to the moderator to take some sort of
action against another for a real or imagined rule infraction is
forbidden. Such requests must be done privately either in netmail or
e-mail. There is a vast difference between being an adult or a crybaby.

Leave the moderating to the moderators and see above.

The moderators reserve the right to enforce rules not outlined in this
document to maintain echo decorum or to change these rules without
notice.

[Crime and punishment]

Most of the time a warning will suffice.

However if someone must be removed from the echo, their posting
privileges will be revoked:

Offense Duration
======= ========
 First  1 week
Second  2 weeks
 Third  4 weeks
 Fourth 8 weeks to permanent

If someone is given a vacation, do not post messages to, reply to any
posts they may have made and do not talk about them in messages to
others while their vacation is ongoing.

Your moderators are:

Ross Cassell Fidonet: 1:123/500 or 1:123/456 E-Mail:
rcassell[at]gmail[dot]com
 
Alan Hess Fidonet: 1:261/1000 E-Mail: alanh77[at]comcast[dot]net
 
 


  
 









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