New Forum Rules. - Please Read.

[Gaaboardmod3]

Final version, to be posted in all forums if admin and other mod(s) agree.

GAA Board Rules, Regulations and Penalties

Hi All,

In a bid to clarify the rules and procedures in place on this board, the following is a list of offences and relevant penalties which will apply in each case. There will be no exceptions, and no excuse for breaking these rules as they are now clearly available.

We reserve the right to amend these rules if an unforeseen circumstance arises, but due reason will be communicated for such a change. We also reserve the right to take any action up to and including permanent ban for any issue not covered by the rules, if such an unforseen event is deemed to be serious enough.

In future, any warnings or bans issued will include a reference to the rule broken.

If you are reporting a post or a poster, please indicate which rule you feel is being broken, in order for us to answer your report more efficiently.

All Warnings issued have a lifetime of 3 months. If you do not commit the same offence within that 3 month period, the warning will expire. This is similar to the penalty points system with regard to road traffic offences.

By continuing to post on this site after these rules have been formally adopted, you are agreeing to abide by the rules, and accept the penalties should you breach one or more of the rules.

1. Personal abuse.
    Personal abuse is one of the most common problems on internet boards. Known sometimes as 'playing the man', whether foul language is used or not, this behaviour is
    not allowed.
    e.g. Calling someone a fat fool is the same as calling someone something more vulgar. This rule applies even in situations where another user has breached this, or
    another rule. Retaliation is still a breach of the rule.
   
    Penalties- 1st Offence - Warning,  Second Offence - 2 Day Ban, Third Offence - 10 Day Ban, Fourth Offence - Permanent Ban
   
2. Libellous/insulting posts about a real person
   In this day and age, many more people are becoming aware of the existance of boards such as this. While this is generally a good thing, it also means that the posts are
   more likely to be read by a casual visitor to the site. In these circumstances, the board must protect itself against allegations of libel, or defamation and so any posts
   which make derogatory remarks about a named, or clearly implied, individual, are a serious breach of the rules, and dangerous to the board itself. This particularly applies
   to individuals' private lives, finances, legal issues etc etc. This also applies to unwarranted abuse of GAA players and officials.
   
   Penalties - 1st Offence - Warning, Second Offence  - 5 Day Ban, Third Offence - Permanent Ban
   
3. Revealing a posters personal identity.
   An inherent part of most discussion boards is that members may choose to adopt an alias, if they wish, as their board username. This choice of anonymity must be
  respected and any move to identify the real life identity of a poster on this board, where they have not done so themselves, is a breach of board rules.

 
   Penalties - 1st Offence - 15 Day Ban, Second Offence - Permanent Ban

4. Inappropriate posts, incitement or racist posting.
   This is a very broad topic, and can be the most subjective in the way the moderators view things. In general, it would be the 'good manners' rule. Specific examples of
    inappropriate posts would be the following. (This list is by no means conclusive)
      - Abusive posts between fans of soccer teams, clearly not part of good humoured banter. Mentions of Hillsborough, Munich, Heysel or alluding to these incidents in a
        way designed to incite other posters to break forum rules.
      - Sectarian posts, or posts advocating violence against any community or person. Some of the topics under discussion from the different cultures on this island have
        come close to this. That will not be allowed or accomodated.
      - Racist posts, including posts propogating racist views about any race or community.
      - inappropriate posts such as the Maddie McCann jokes etc.
     
   Penalties - 1st Offence - Warning, Second Offence - 10 Day Ban, Third Offence - Permanent Ban
   
5. Creating facetious or duplicate topics
   It is very easy to post a duplicate thread topic, and is very understandable. People should, wherever possible, keep similar threads together, but this is sometimes not
   possible, or the other threads not seen. Again, perfectly understandable. This rule is in place to stop people deliberately and constantly posting spurious or similar threads,
   and blatantly disregarding the wishes of the GAA board community to keep these threads together.
   
   Penalties. If a pattern of posting these threads emerges from an individual, a Warning will be given.
       Further offences will incur a 2 Day Ban, followed by a 5 Day Ban. Subsequent offences will incur repeated 5 Day Bans.
   
6. Posting unsuitable links or pictures
   This board is not a pornography resource and pornography will not be tolerated on this site. Many of our users access the board from work, and anyone posting pictures
   on this board need to bear that in mind. Obviously some pictures fall short of pornography, and can be posted in the proper threads, such as the 'Would
   you/wouldn't you' thread, but even these need to be marked NSFW. In any case, any pornographic images will be deleted and bans handed out. This rule also applies to
   personal avatars displayed beside your username when you post.

   Penalties - 1st Offence  5 Day Ban, 2rd Offence - Permanent Ban

   
7. Spamming
   Links to viruses, spam posts or marketing will not be allowed and bans will result.
   
   Occasionally a board member may request, from gaaboard (admin) or the moderators, permission to post information/advice about their own business or club, and these
   will be accomodated where possible. This rule is designed to stop touts, or spammers abusing the site.
   
   Penalties - 1st Offence - 2 Day Ban, 2nd Offence - 10 Day Ban, 3rd Offence - Permanent Ban

8. Joining up to cause trouble, or to annoy people.
   Occasionally, some people join the board simply to post something abusive, or to 'flame' the board. These people are generally easy to spot (see the F365 invasion last
   year) and have no real interest in the GAA Board. Also some people, who have been banned permanently, rejoin under different usernames and continue with the
   behaviour that led to the ban. By tracking IPs, behaviour and other items, we can sometimes tell this fairly easily, and these users will be banned again.
   
   Penalty - Immediate Permanent Ban


9. 'Feuds'.
    On occasion, two or more posters become fixated with annoying each other, without necessarily descending into personal abuse per se. However this behaviour is very
   disruptive to whatever thread it breaks out it, and causes threads to be taken over by tit for tat insults. In a case such as this, a moderator may post a public and private
   warning for both posters to completely ignore the other, refraining from referring to, directing comments at, or answering the other poster. Disregarding this warning will
   result in a ban.

   Penalties - 1st offence after warning - 2 Days, 2nd Offence - 10 Days, Subsequent Offences - Recurring 15 Day bans.

10. Personal threats.
   Occasionally, some posters go beyond verbal abuse, (rule 1), and actually threaten, or imply physical violence against another poster. If moderators deem this threat to
   be serious, or made seriously, this behaviour is completely out of order, and will result in a ban immediately. A further offence will result in a permanent ban.

   Penalties - 1st Offence - 15 Day ban. 2nd Offence - Permanent Ban[/b[

[Gaaboardmod3]

Hi All,

This is the version we are proposing to publish. Please take a look and any questions or comments, attach them to this thread. Moderators will consider all comments and suggestions, but the final version, which will be posted after this brief period, will be totally at the discretion of the admin of this site.

Cheers
Mod 3

[full back]

1. Personal abuse.
    Personal abuse is one of the most common problems on internet boards. Known sometimes as 'playing the man', whether foul language is used or not, is not allowed.
    e.g. Calling someone a fat fool is the same as calling someone something more vulgar. This rule applies even in situations where another user has breached this, or
    another rule. Retaliation is still a breach of the rule.
   
    Penalties- 1st Offence - Warning,  Second Offence - 2 Day Ban, Third Offence - 5 Day Ban, Fourth Offence - Permanent Ban
   
   
3. Revealing a posters personal identity.
   An inherent part of most discussion boards is that members may choose to adopt an alias, if they wish, as their board username. This choice of anonymity must be
  respected and any move to identify the real life identity of a poster on this board, where they have not done so themselves, is a breach of board rules.

 
   Penalties - 1st Offence - 2 Day Ban, Second Offence -  5 Day Ban, Third Offence - Permanent Ban

So if you call someone 'fat' on 2 occasions or you call someone a 'pr1ck' on 2 occasions you get the same ban as someone who reveals a posters identity?
If you reveal a posters adentity how can you have a second chance?

[his holiness nb]

I'd agree, if you just "out" someone by naming them I'd suggest a straight permanent ban.

Also is there a time frame between first warning and bans in which the warning is wiped clear or is your record permanantly marked?
I'd suggest to have the warnings as permanent.

[Gaaboardmod3]

Fair point fullback.

Perhaps we need to review the penalties in that case. However, as a general rule we do not permanently ban someone for the first offence in any category. Perhaps a 5 day ban for revealing someone's identity, followed by a permanent ban for the second offence.

We'll discuss that. Thanks for the feedback.

[Gaaboardmod3]

I'd agree, if you just "out" someone by naming them I'd suggest a straight permanent ban.

Also is there a time frame between first warning and bans in which the warning is wiped clear or is your record permanantly marked?
I'd suggest to have the warnings as permanent.

Warnings will have a rolling period, like the penalty points system for cars.

At the moment it is 3 months. I would think that will still apply.

I will add that to the forum rules.

[his holiness nb]

Oh yeah and I'd stick this thread in the GAA section also for refence. some guys dont come over to the non GAA section.

[Gaaboardmod3]

Oh yeah and I'd stick this thread in the GAA section also for refence. some guys dont come over to the non GAA section.

I'd prefer to leave the thread in only one place, as it's easier to collate people's views. I will put a post up there just in case.

[ziggysego]

I reckon anyone with 5000+ posts should be exempt from all bans and warnings.

[screenexile]

I'd behave yourself ziggy you're already on thin ice!!!

[Billys Boots]

I'd remove the first offence for Spamming - it's never an accident, and those who do it alway know better.

[Hound]

Well done Admin on this and good luck on implementing it - it won't be easy!

In particular I would advise on keeping an eye on the 1 or 2 who will treat it as an objective to get others banned!

My only suggested amendment would be:

- Everywhere you have 5 Day bans, change to 1 Month, to provide a real deterrant.

[his holiness nb]

Well done Admin on this and good luck on implementing it - it won't be easy!
In particular I would advise on keeping an eye on the 1 or 2 who will treat it as an objective to get others banned!

The tricky thing there is that if someone clearly breaks a rule, then you reporting that rule break could be deemed to be trying to get the other banned.

I suppose the "feud" rule should cover for repeated goading of one person trying to get a rule breaking response.

[Gaaboardmod3]

Well done Admin on this and good luck on implementing it - it won't be easy!
In particular I would advise on keeping an eye on the 1 or 2 who will treat it as an objective to get others banned!

The tricky thing there is that if someone clearly breaks a rule, then you reporting that rule break could be deemed to be trying to get the other banned.

I suppose the "feud" rule should cover for repeated goading of one person trying to get a rule breaking response.

Reporting a rule break will never cause a problem for the person reporting. Moderators will make up their mind whether the rule has, in fact, been broken, and will take the appropriate action. If no action is taken, that will be explained to the person reporting. Reported posts are the best and most effective way of identifying problems.

Regarding the baiting and counter baiting of people, that is a little subjective, but moderators will decide if it falls under Rule 4, or Rule 9. If it does, the relevant sanctions will apply.

Thanks for the feedback, especially re. the ban lengths. We want to strike the right balance. Bans need to be a deterrant, but we don't want to be draconian.

[Main Street]

Being naturally secretive I would have thought that revealing someones real identity was a more serious affair especially where anonymity was the breeched posters desired preference.