Rule 1: No rudeness or personal attacks
While we honor passionate and informed discussion we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts.
'Rudeness' means deliberately discourteous comments directed at another member. 'Insulting posts' are those that treat another member with deliberate rudeness and contempt. 'Purposeless inflammatory posts' are posts that are designed purely to provoke a reaction and cause an unpleasant argument.
Such behaviour is not tolerated here.
We take a very firm line on these forums regarding personal attacks, so it is important for all members to understand the difference between disagreeing with the content of another member's posts, and making a personal attack on someone.
Our definition of a 'personal attack' includes:
- attacking a member's motivation for a post
- attacking a member's character
- referring to a member in a contemptuous manner
- referring to a treatment that a member finds helpful in a contemptuous manner
- belittling a member using sarcasm
- questioning why somebody is present on the forum (accusing them of being a "mole" or a "troll")
- questioning a member's affiliation with other groups
- mocking a member's username
- making negative or rude statements about administrators or moderators
- attacking people or groups based on race, age, gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.
Disagreeing with comments made in another member's post does not constitute a personal attack. Members are allowed to refute the comments of other members and provide reasons why they don't agree. A member may also choose to contradict a comment and provide very little evidence to support their comments, and this does not count as a personal attack either. When a member chooses to attack the
author of a post rather than the
content of the post, that is a personal attack. Please keep your focus on the facts of the topic under discussion - not on the person with whom you disagree.
The diagram below illustrates the definition of a personal attack. It is obviously best to aspire to arguments at the top of the diagram, but provided you stay within the green area (Contradiction) and above, you are unlikely to trouble the moderators. Posts in the yellow zone (Responding to Tone) are likely to attract the attention of moderators, and may be removed. Anything in the orange zone (Ad Hominem) or below will be removed, and persistent posts of that nature may result in a suspension or ban.