General Forum Rules

[City]

General Forum Rules:

• While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate, "vulgar profanity" (or attempts to bypass profanity filters), insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts. Our decision is final in these matters.
• Please refrain from posting meaningless and/or spamming threads, one word (or short) non-sense posts, or the such.
• Multiple or repeated posting in order to increase your post count is not allowed.
• Advertising, spamming and trolling is not allowed. This includes using the forum, forum signatures, classifieds, email, visitor messages, blog comments, picture comments and private message systems to spam other members.
• Advertising and offering parts or services in the forums are permitted only by VOA members and only to the extent that such offering is not "commercial" in nature (such determination shall be at moderator discretion). VOA members must also place a classified ad which must be linked to their forum post.
• Advertising and offering parts or services by non-VOA members is permitted in the classified area only.
• Classified advertisements will be limited to 5 ads for any single VOA member and 3 ads for Non-VOA members at any one time.
• Please wait a reasonable amount of time before bumping posts. For style changes and general 'how-to' questions this should be 24 hours. For specific troubleshooting issues, use 12 hours as a guideline.
• We do not allow posts or links to sites that are sexual in nature. Nudity is not permitted. The moderators shall be the sole arbitrators of what does and what does not violate community standards.
• Discussion of illegal activities such as software and music piracy and other intellectual property violations are not allowed.
• The VOA does not condone street racing and as such, at the discretion of the moderators, we will review any street racing related posts and take down street racing videos.
• Each member is allowed one login account. Registering with multiple accounts is not permitted.
• While we are quite happy to have constructive comparative conversations about competing community vendor's products and services, we will not tolerate blatant advertising. The same rule applies to alternate forums; hard nosed discussion is fine, but please keep it civil so we are not forced to take any action. Reviews and opinions expressed and posted regarding vendors and sponsors will only be permitted from forum and VOA members based on FIRST HAND experience with said vendor or sponsor. The moderators will edit and/or delete second, third, etc. hand opinions and reviews as 'hearsay' at their sole discretion.
• We reserve the right to remove definitively offensive posts.
• Posts discussing moderator actions ARE allowed, but we'd prefer you contact the moderator directly to find a compromise. The moderators are here to ensure that all reasonable voices can be expressed. Our preference is to mind our own business rather than yours.
• You cannot post any affiliate or referral links, or post anything asking for a referral. Such posts will be subject to edit and/or removal.
• You cannot post NON VOA advertisements or notices for contests.
• Avatars are available for all registered website members, however all avatars must be Viper related.
• We also reserve the right to ban anyone who willfully violates the forum rules, as access to our support forums is a privilege and not a right.

Although these General Forum Rules should address most common situations, we obviously cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way. Although disagreement among participants is assured and welcome, we strongly discourage absolutely negative expressions of opinion. Please bear that in mind or you and your participation may be jeopardized.

Let's keep this forum enjoyable, entertaining and educational!

[City]

As a result of the appearance of "commercial" use within our Classified Area, we have added a new Rule.

The amount of Classified Advertisements by any single member at any one time will be limited to 3 advertisements. If you're running 3 classified ads and wish to upload a 4th, you will need to eliminate one or wait until that ad is completed prior to uploading the 4th. We are convinced that virtually all members will never find this restriction to be problematic, however if it ever DOES, members should feel free to request a variance from any of the moderators. Such requests will be considered on a case by case basis at the sole discretion of the moderators.

[City]

"Hearsay Rule" added this date to 13th bullet point.

Might also be time to number the rules?