I know there's a learning curve for newbies on this forum; today I saw someone hesitant to post for the first time because of "pruning" topics (and I wholeheartedly support pruning out stupid crap and am glad I'm not the one who has to do it).  On the other hand there are newbies who jump in with little regard to the unstated rules of the forum.  Someone suggested a FAQ or guidelines for posting to help new people along, and I thought it was a good idea too.  So with some free time tonight, I put together a list of guidelines for posting - I thought it could be stickied somewhere or e-mailed to new members.  Here's what I came up with for starters - of course there's probably some more info that I've missed. 

 

I hope I'm not overstepping, as I'm not a mod or owner of the group, but I think this idea has some merit.  Feel free to add/edit and maybe we can together come up with a working set of guidelines that can be stickied for reference.

 

"UrbanOhio for Newbies

 

Welcome to the UrbanOhio forums!  UrbanOhio has hundreds of active members who share a passion for the cities and towns of the Buckeye State.  We welcome your interest and participation in our on-line community.

 

While there is no firm set of “rules” about posting on UrbanOhio, we would like to set forth some guidelines to help new members acclimate to our community.  :speech:

 

- UrbanOhio is organized into a set of forums: City Photos, Ohio Discussion, Projects and Transportation, and General Discussion.  Within each forum is a set of subforums which are more narrowly defined in their scope.  For example, in City Photos, there are subforums for City Photos – Ohio, City Photos – USA/World, and General Photos.  The Transportation subforum has “child boards” based on mode of transportation being discussed.

- Before posting, please try to select the right forum, or a moderator will have to move posts to the most appropriate forum.  If a topic doesn’t seem to fit a particular forum, then Urbanbar is probably your best bet.

 

- Before starting a new post, please utilize the search box in the upper right corner to see if an existing thread for that topic exists.  If you’re posting about an Ohio topic, whether it’s the inner belt bridge in Cleveland, or a  retail development in Norwalk, chances are good that there is already a thread dedicated to that topic.  There are also threads on “Random [name of city] developments” if a project doesn’t have its own thread.

 

- If your post is unrelated to any other topic on UrbanOhio, there is an “Off Topic” thread in the Urbanbar forum.

 

- Please refrain from posting wars, flame wars, and bashing of other members. Do not post messages to other forumers which would be more appropriate for the “private message” function on the board.  The private messaging function is found by clicking on “My Messages” in the blue task bar at the top of the forums.

 

- When posting any copyrighted information such as news articles, you must also post the link to the original information to avoid copyright infringement.  The same goes for copyrighted images, diagrams, and photos.

 

- Please do not use images posted here for any commercial purpose without the permission of the poster.  Borrowing an image for your personal computer's background is OK; taking it and printing it in a commercial brochure is not.

 

- The moderators  :police: on this forum are dedicated VOLUNTEERS who give their time freely to keep this forum available and reasonably organized.  Please respect the fact that they also have jobs or are in school, and do not have time to patrol these forums endlessly.  If you disagree with a moderator’s decision, you can “private message” them for a further explanation.

 

- When a moderator requests that a conversation get back on topic, please abide by that decision and get back on topic.  At times, threads have to be pruned in order to remain on topic, for the good of the greater discussion.  UO members and guests get the best value from these forums when they remain well-organized and on-topic.

 

- If you find this forum valuable (or invaluable as it is to many of us), please consider becoming a [glow=gold,2,300]premium member[/glow] to support the costs of bandwidth, servers, etc.

Works for me - though I would add as the final bullet point:

 

"Being a member, and participating on this forum is a privilege, not a right."

 

:-)

Thanks for taking the time to put this together.  We will probably tweak it and add it somewhere so new users can read it.

Love it!  Thank you so much!