What is it?

Welcome to the Community Rules for Pinside.com. They exist so that everyone can get the best out of contributing to the site. They aim to protect anyone who reads or contributes to the site, and to help everyone to have a supported and safe time. Think of them as Pinside.com's own brand of netiquette - common courtesy, in other words.

Pinside.com reserves the right to change these Community Rules at any time by posting changes online. You are responsible for regularly reviewing information posted online to obtain notice of such changes. Your continued use of this site after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of these Community Rules as modified by the posted changes.

If any content breaks the rules below, it may be removed or edited by the moderators.

Rules for contributing to Pinside.com

Please keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant. The aim of Pinside.com is to provide a safe and supportive environment for creative writing.

NO FLAMING OR TROLLING

On Pinside.com, flaming means posting something that's angry and mean-spirited - the online equivalent of flying off the handle. Trolls say deliberately provocative things just to stir up trouble - it's not polite, so please don't do it. This includes using multiple identities to cause disruption and arguments. Multiple identities are not allowed on Pinside.com.

Pinside.com is meant to be a supportive and friendly place, so please help to keep it that way.

UNLAWFUL, HARASSING, DEFAMATORY, ABUSIVE, THREATENING, HARMFUL, PORNOGRAPHIC, SEXUALLY ORIENTED, RACIALLY OFFENSIVE, OR OTHERWISE OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

All the types of content above break these Community Rules. Please don't post it, or you may find that your account has been closed down if you keep breaking the rules.

PLEASE BE PATIENT

People of all experience and abilities may potentially visit Pinside.com, so please remember this when posting. Think back to when you were an pinball novice, and try to be kind.

NO SPAMMING

On this community, spamming is the posting of the same (or very similar) messages to lots of forums. It's especially antisocial if it's off-topic for those forums, so please don't post the same message, or very similar messages, to loads of different conversation threads, especially if they're totally off-topic. They will be removed and your account will be closed if this activity persists.

NO ADVERTISING

Advertising is not allowed anywhere on these community pages. Writing entries that review or criticise commercial products are usually fine, as long as they're balanced. If you're interested in advertising on Pinside.com please go here.

PLEASE DON'T ATTEMPT TO IMPERSONATE OTHERS

Only one registration is allowed per person, and dual identities are therefore not allowed. Adopting an inappropriate user id (one that is vulgar, likely to cause offence, etc.) is also not allowed, and if you do pick a user id that isn't acceptable, it will simply be changed to something else.

BE CAREFUL WHEN INCLUDING EMAIL ADDRESSES OR INSTANT MESSAGING ADDRESSES IN CONTRIBUTIONS, AND PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE ANYONE ELSE'S PERSONAL DETAILS

You may include your own personal email address or instant messaging address in postings (providing it is acceptable, i.e. not vulgar or offensive), but please be aware that you are potentially opening yourself up to a lot of email, and possibly spam email too, and you should be absolutely sure that you want people to be able to contact you like this. We recommend that you set-up a new email account specifically for people to contact you on if you wish to publicise a contact point. You may prefer to simply use the private messaging facility contained within the community.

It is not acceptable to publicise anyone else's contact details other than your own, and any such instant messaging details, email addresses, postal addresses or telephone numbers will be removed from Postings. However, it is acceptable to include general contact details for companies, for example, but you must only include publicly available details, such as the address of a restaurant, or the email address for customer support for a company.

ONLY INCLUDE SUITABLE URLS IN YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS

Links to websites considered unsuitable will be removed, so if you are considering contributing something that contains a URL, please make sure that it adds value and interest to the subject of your entry, and isn't, for example, purely commercial.

Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, members-only sites, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, or sites which may offend members.

PLEASE DON'T POST FOR SUSPENDED OR BANNED MEMBERS

Anyone who posts communications from members who have been suspended or banned may also have their own account suspended. If the management suspects for any reason that an account has been opened and / or is being primarily operated by or on behalf of a banned member, the holder of the suspect account may be asked to prove their identity to the management's satisfaction.

ABOUT COPYRIGHT

It's important to note that you still own the copyright to everything you contribute to this community. This means you are perfectly free to take what you have written and post it somewhere else.

In contributing to Pinside.com, you agree to grant Pinside.com a perpetual, non-exclusive right and licence to publish your contribution on the website whilst you continue to remain a member, as well as to publish and distribute your contribution, and with your separate permission, as part of any compilation work that Pinside.com may choose to produce in any format at any time. Once you have given your permission, it cannot be withdrawn. This will apply even if you have been suspended or banned from the site.

ABOUT THE LAW

If anything you post is illegal, condones illegal activities (such as recommending drug taking) or infringes the copyright of a third party (content that you haven't written, in other words), then it has to be removed.

You may not post any defamatory or illegal material of any nature anywhere on the site. This includes material in any format. Posting a message with the intention of committing an illegal act is strictly prohibited.

You agree to only post materials to which you have the copyright or other permission to distribute electronically. You may not violate, plagiarise, or infringe on the rights of third parties including copyright, trademark, trade secret, privacy, personal, publicity, or proprietary rights.

ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY

Pinside.com will not publish or provide your personal data to anyone without your explicit permission, unless it is in the interests of public safety to do so. On your personal profile page you can choose what amount of personal data you wish to share with other users of Pinside.com, if any. Other than that we will only use personal information you have provided us with to validate your access to Pinside.com or to administer any other business of Pinside.com, like building site statistics. We will not supply your email address or personal information to anyone else for any reason whatsoever, except in the case of law breaking or infringement of these community rules. In those circumstances, and where appropriate, we will co-operate fully with criminal investigations by the police and / or other law enforcement agencies.

TRANSGRESSIONS OF THE COMMUNITY RULES

If you fail to abide by these Community Rules, then the following procedure will be followed in most cases. Please note that Pinside.com reserves the right to terminate accounts immediately at its discretion (in the event of such things as criminal behaviour or personal abuse of community members, for example), or to vary the following process as it sees fit. Pinside.com has implemented a period of individual pre-moderation (which means moderators read every post you make before it appears on the site) instead of, or in addition to, the following, at our discretion.

• For the first offence you will receive an official warning from the management
• A second offence will mean that your account is suspended for seven days
• A third offence will mean a suspension period of one month
• A fourth offence will result in your account being closed permanently

The warning or suspension notice may be publicly posted on the site.

While under suspension, returning to Pinside.com by creating another account will constitute a further offence and will extend the suspension to the next period, or will result in your account being closed permanently. Similarly, asking other Pinside.com members to post on your behalf while suspended will constitute a further offence on your behalf, and will also constitute an offence on behalf of those members.

Banned members will not be allowed back on to the site to retrieve material posted there. It is the responsibility of all members to keep a copy of their own work on their own PC. The management reserves the right to delete material or continue to keep material displayed which has been previously posted by suspended or banned members. Similarly, any such material can be used in any compilation which is currently under progress (and where permission has already been granted to do so).

Whilst the aim of Pinside.com will be to follow these rules and procedures, and ensure that every other member does so too, the management reserves the right to vary, amend or set-aside these rules at its discretion, and will not consider it necessary to explain why this has been done.