Geekzone Forum Usage Guidelines (FUG)

These are the guidelines to follow when using our forums.

• These are moderated forums.
• Geekzone is not affiliated with any particular company, either directly or indirectly, for forum moderation.
• Sponsors (if any) have no direct or indirect influence on decisions made by Administrators and Moderators in this forum.
• We require that members respect the decisions of the Moderators.
• Accusing someone of working for a company or being paid by a company because of disagreement in opinions may result in a ban at the discretion of the Administrators or Moderators.
• Ad Hominem premises are not acceptable.
• If a company's employee offers support or help in our forums, they must identify themselves by asking Geekzone to assign them a company tag. Without this, we won't allow requests for personal information.
• Users should always use the private message system when providing personally identifiable information.
• Users should be aware that information posted in the forums will be available to everyone else, including search engines. If you do not want your name appearing in search engines, make sure you edit this information on your profile page.
• Posts shall remain on topic. Off-topic (OT) replies are not allowed, and the user should create a new topic if needed.
• Please search the forum before posting - you'll find lots of answers here, and this will prevent double posts. Do not post the same topic in more than one subforum.
• Self-promotional, advertising and commercial posts are not allowed and will be removed. The user will be banned and both username and email reported as spammer. The only exception is in the Offers and Wanted forums, where users will be allowed to post non-commercial offers (personal only) after some participation in the forums.
• Astroturfing and sockpuppeting are not allowed, and posters will be banned. If a company IP address is identified, we may block that IP address from accessing Geekzone.
• When talking about a company, use their real name. We follow the principle that respect must go both ways.
• Be polite. Do not SHOUT. Do not post the subject in ALL CAPITALS. Be considerate and use standard English; do not use SMS abbreviations.
• E-mail addresses may be removed, to prevent spam bots from harvesting these addresses.
• You should not ask for other members' personal information (including name, address, phone number and account numbers) unless you have a company tag and work directly in fixing/investigating a fault. 
• All IP addresses are recorded and will allow us to track fake posts if necessary. Our Privacy Statement explains how we collect and manage this information.
• Administrators and Moderators can and will delete or edit posts if they fall outside these guidelines. If the behaviour persists, the poster can be banned. This ban is for an unlimited time. In some situations, Moderators may decide to apply a temporary suspension instead.
• Discussions about the copyright law itself are welcome. You can not complain about notifications or terminations sent by ISPs according to the law, and you can not discuss in detail how to bypass the copyright law. For example, saying a specific technology can be used is okay, but describing step-by-step how to do it is not.
• The [Offers and Wanted] forum has specific rules that must be read before posting in said forum.
• Godwin's Law will cause topics to be locked and may result in an instant ban.
• Breaching Wheaton's Law will result in a warning and subsequent ban.
• Our team will not enter in communication regarding a ban.

Posts will be removed, and the user may be banned (either temporarily or permanently) if:

• the post promotes illicit material;
• the post encourages or asks for ways of breaking the law;
• the post links to unauthorised sources of copyrighted material not property of the author;
• the post links to contests, pyramid schemes and get-rich scams;
• the post contains instructions for sharing mechanisms that impact the revenue streams of content providers;
• the post is simply for URL dropping or SEO link building and similar;
• the post is one of multiple copies in different forums;
• the post contains unnecessarily long quotes from previous replies;
• the post contains adult material;
• the post has abuse towards any person, Geekzone user or not;
• the post contains confidential information or information subject to NDA or other agreements, and the information owner requests removal;
• the post can be considered libel or defamation;
• the forum is used as a "soapbox" by first-time posters; "soapbox" posts usually have inflammatory subjects, bad words, and the user does not respond after being contacted by the ISP or other users.
• The topic is created for a business/student survey. 
• If a topic is empty.

Posts will be removed and the user will be banned if:

• it promotes and advocates extremism or other ideologies of hate.

Refunds to banned users: if a subscriber is banned from Geekzone we will reimburse the subscription paid via bank account or a donation with receipt in the user's name.

Copyright: Geekzone does not claim copyright on your comments. You give Geekzone unlimited, non-revocable rights to use the topics, replies and quotes you posted. You can request us to remove personally identifiable information from your posts, but comments and opinions will remain in our database.

Agreement: Users posting in our forums agree to these terms. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not proceed.

Update history:

19 Jul 2012: Added mention of breaking the law. More specifically, because users were recommending ways to defraud New Zealand Customs.
16 Oct 2012: Reformatted.
14 Jan 2013: Added words explaining "soapbox" in more detail; reworded "instructions for sharing mechanisms that impact revenue streams of content providers".
06 Apr 2014: Added link to [Offers and Wanted] forum rules.
22 Sep 2014: Added words to prevent non-company users from asking for personal information. Users should not disclose personal information to anyone that does not have a "company tag".
04 Oct 2014: added sockpuppeting to terms.
27 Jun 2016: added "unnecessary quotes" and moved Godwin's Law to its section
17 Aug 2017: added "extremism" and "ideologies of hate" as an instant ban offence to this FUG
01 Oct 2018: added "racism, sexism and ageism"
22 Mar 2019: added "Refunds to banned users"
09 Jun 2019: added "Single word subjects"
07 Jan 2020: added reference to Wheaton's Law
10 Oct 2023: fixed spelling, grammar