BOARD POLICY!

[thedollcafe]

Board policy

Not reading this policy will not be considered a valid excuse for not adhering to the rules herein.

Although we KNOW that all the people participating in these forums are quite capable of understanding what it is appropriate for a public discussion board, we would like to remind everyone of a few things:

We believe respect to be the most important issue here. Respect for each other, Admin, MODS, and the likeness and reputation of Barbie and her legacy. Please do not register at this board to disparage either Barbie or or any of her incarnations. This is not the kind of place for that.

Please note that:
We will not tolerate any slandering or disrespect of ANY kind, in ANY context, towards ANYbody including Barbie, her likeness or any retailer, dealer, or individual. Discussion of a particular problem or concern which does not fall under "disrespect" and spirited discussions of this type are not subject to warnings.

Adult Content
Do not post links to NC-17 or X-rated sites, or post any NC-17 or X-rated material anywhere on the Board. This includes photographs taken by members of dolls featuring adult themes. This type of content will be immediately deleted and will result in a warning.

Flaming
Flaming will not be tolerated. Do not insult people. You are free to post negative comments about someone's opinion, but never actually about that someone him/herself. If you do not agree with someone or feel that a person has not studied the subject at hand carefully enough, it is not in order to question someone's intelligence and/or use a derogatory tone. Using strong language in relation to someone else will not be tolerated. All flames will result in an official warning. It is very easy to make a post that you meant in a purely teasing/joking manner, only to discover that someone may have misinterpreted it as a real criticism of some kind.

If you are flamed, do not respond. Always contact an administrator.

General rules
• Credit the people you quote. Especially in longer threads, keeping track of who said what can be extremely difficult if you post random quotes.
• Always link to your source when discussing news items.
• When using the reply with quote feature - please don't quote the whole of another message. Just the relevant parts. • Displays of melodrama should be avoided at all times (e.g. "I'm leaving!" threads), and posting while angry or hurt invariably makes things worse. If you're upset, simply do something else; and when you return, please be sure you are calm enough to conduct yourself in a reasonable manner.

Please use the Private Message Feature for private messages. Please refrain from holding personal conversations in the Board. If one does start please move to the PM function.

Personal Posts
Please do not post personal information like your full name or email address on the board. Keep discussions of a personal nature off the board. Personal posts will be deleted. Keep discussions to dolls, toys or current events when at all possible.

Sales or Trading
A forum has been set up for the personal sale of your unwanted items or for trading. Again, after initial posts please pm the person who is interested or if you are interested PM that person. The Admins do not take any responsibility for trading or sales that take place here. Make sure you know who you are dealing with. Use Ebay and "buy it now" if you are not sure about who you are buying from. Ask for references too. Don't be afraid to ask.

Keep your listings current. If you have sold an item please be sure to take it off your list.

Listings will be posted for a limited time. If you are selling items on a regular basis (you are a customizer or have a lot of items you sell here regularly) please consider donating to the site when periodic renewals come up.

If you have a business or would like to post your message in an announcement you are welcome to advertise for a longer period for a nominal fee. Please contact Sandra to discuss.

Ebay Posts
If you would like to post links to your auction items from ebay please post them in the Sales and Trading forum. You can reference ebay items that are not yours in other areas of the board as appropriate. You can post direct links to the auction.

Plagiarism, Pirating, and Copyright
Linking to or giving information about any site that distributes illegal software, ROMs, media, or emulators, seeking help to circumvent any copyright laws, admitting to possessing and/or distributing illegal copyrighted material, or encouraging software or media piracy is grounds for a warning. Take care in posting copyrighted pictures on this site. If they belong to anyone else but yourself please post a link and give credit to where you obtained the picture.

Deletion of Topics
In order to save space, topics in all forums will be deleted from 15 to 50 days after inactivity, or last response/post. If you see some info you want to save, please do so. This is done to save space on the server. The admins will not have copies of the messages so don't forget to save. More important topics will stay on the board for 50 days after inactivity. To find any topics use the search feature. If you cannot find it, it was probably deleted. This is done automatically and we are sorry if it causes any trouble.

Posting/Linking of Photos in Messages
No unauthorized hotlinking will be tolerated. If you post a photo in your message, or use one as your avatar, they must either be linked to your own website, or have the permission of the person whose site the picture is on to link directly to their server. Also, even if you do save the picture and put it on your own web site or server to link to, it is common web site courtesy to ask permission from the webmaster to use the photo. Non-compliance with this rule will result in a warning. The mods reserve the right to remove photos that violate the rules, are too large, too blurry or off topic. If you post pictures here, your pictures may be posted in the galleries. If you do not want your pictures in the galleries, please notify the admins.

Avatar sizes are limited. Do not try to post Avatars that are larger than allowed. The mods will edit or delete your avatar and request that you repost. Thanks for understanding.

Quoting of Posts:
There is no need to quote a member's post in its entirety, including all pictures. If you are responding to the post right above, there's no need to quote. If you are responding to a particular picture, that's fine to repost it in your reply and please edit a quote only to include the issue you are responding to. If you are responding to the first post there is still no need to respost the original post, most people know what the original post referred to by the subject. Not quoting the entire post saves a lot of bandwith as the month goes on and makes the topic smooth to scroll through without having the same message or picture repeated dozens of times.

Profanity
Use of profanity will not be tolerated. Language filters are in place to prevent this. Any attempts to circumvent the language filters will result in a warning. Also, repeated use of foul language, whether attempting to circumvent language filters or not, will also result in a warning.

Privacy
On the Internet, a person's privacy is very valuable. Do not post private content on the board. This includes, but is not limited to, Instant Messenger (ICQ, MSN, AIM, etc.) logs, any emails, private pictures, real names of posters (unless they use their real name), their (e-mail) address or telephone number or other private details unless the poster has this content in his or her profile or has given you permission to do so. In addition, any posts with private information will be deleted. Please limit posts to doll related, toy related or current event type messages. These types of messages are allowed in the Everything Else forum.

Spamming
Spamming will result in an official warning and/or adjustment of post count. Do not spam. Spam is defined as any of the following:
Posting the same thing over and over in the same thread, forum, or in different the forums. Posting to gain rank. Posting excessively in a short time with posts that are only one or two sentences or words.
Posts without real content or relevance to the discussion or forum.
Posting too many threads. Posting twice (or more) in a row in the same thread.

Trolling
Trolling is defined as posting remarks intended to anger another poster and/or start an argument or flame war. Trolling will be edited or deleted at the Moderator's or Administrator's discretion. Do not respond to trolling aimed at you. Contact an Administrator. Trolling will result in a warning.

Warnings/Bans • 1 Warning - 24 hour ban. Upon return, may not start own topics for one month.
• 2 Warnings - 5 months ban. May not have any access to message board.

Dual User Names
We won't accept dual user names. Don't think you can fool us 'cause you can not do it. At one point we will find out!!!!
• Registering more than one account will lead to an immediate ban of the second username and a warning. Warnings given to the second username will be added to the original account.
• If you decide to switch to a new username, please inform the Administration beforehand. We can do this manually without a need for you to re-register.
• Do not let others use your account, and do not give anyone your password.
• Do not post messages on behalf of banned members.
Non-compliance with this rule will result in a warning.

Deletion of Memberships
Periodically memberships will be deleted when they have zero posts. If you do not post you are free to view the public portions of the site as the board is for members only.

[felicityk]

If I may, I would like to remind users who are also members of the Barbie Fan Club that there is a rule against taking exclusive content (e.g. Sneak Peak photos) from the BFC board and posting it elsewhere. If a photo has the "Barbie Collector" watermark, it is not intended for public use. Please do not post photos or links to photos until they are made generally available to the public.

Here is the relevant passage from the BFC Membership Agreement:

9. Prohibited Use of BFC Content

Any unauthorized copying duplication or distribution of any content appearing in or in connection with the BFC, whether originating from us or any third party ("BFC Content"), including, without limitation, content that is modified, merged, or included with BFC Content is expressly prohibited. You agree not to, in whole or in part, copy, duplicate, create derivative works based on, modify, sell, distribute, lease, loan, rent, repost, grant a security interest in, reverse engineer, or otherwise use the BFC Content; any attempt to do so may result in, among other things, the immediate termination of your membership, without refund, reimbursement, or credit of your Membership Fees.