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New TOS Final Draft

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This is not the final draft, but simply a way for me to copypasta. If you want to read ahead, you can look over the whole thing we're improving on. Specifically, we want to trim it down (remove duplications) and organize it. (Move stuff around so that we address one topic thoroughly, instead of revisiting it repeatedly) Wanna help with that? Please post your suggestions here! The other ToS thread will be used as already outlined, working on one section at a time.

TERMS OF SERVICE
(ToS)


ChristianForums.net aspires to provide a place where Christians can come together in fellowship for encouragement, inspiration, and strength to help build each other up and grow in our walk of faith through honest and open discussion, study, reflection, and prayer.


The CF staff team uses the ToS as a basis for how this community is run. Our aim is to treat members fairly and, in the event of difficulty or dispute, to give them the best chance to remain members before any action is required. Your cooperation is appreciated. Here are key things to remember, which will be much more effective than any rules we can make up:

John 13:35 (All references use NKJV)
“By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Luke 6:31
“And just as you want people to treat you, treat them in the same way.”

Philippians 2:3
“in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.”

1 Corinthians 6:7
“it is already an utter failure that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?"

If all else fails, this is the action that will be taken:
Matthew 18:15 - 17
“Moreover if your Brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.
But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that “by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the Church. But if he refuses even to hear the Church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”


That means PM (private message) a member to settle an issue rather than publicly feuding. If that doesn’t work, start a new PM that invites both the other member AND staff. After all that, do we still need rules? Maybe so. Here are some basics:

  • Members must be at least 13 years of age. Users who are found to be under the age of 13 will have their account disabled until they meet this criteria. ChristianForums.net does not maintain permission records from parents.
  • English is the acceptable language since most persons in other countries speak English.
  • As a member of ChristianForums.net, you agree to abide by the Terms of Service, and you stipulate that you understand the disciplinary process in response to violations of the ToS
  • To contact a member of the staff:
    Click on their name
    Click on Start a Conversation

    BEHAVIOR

  1. Give other members the respect you would have them give to you:

1.1 Address issues/ideas, not the person. Do not insult, post derogatory opinions, belittle, discredit, or create a hostile environment. Do not make inflammatory remarks, do not make remarks to affect others negatively.

1.2 Do not misquote or misrepresent another member. Do not disrupt the flow of the conversation, respect all members as to where they are in their spiritual walk.

1.3 Do not post your opinion of another members standing in the Christian faith. Judging someone’s soul is not Christ like; only they and God know their relationship with God. This includes collective beliefs and groups in general.

1.4 Do not discuss other members by name, with whom you have a disagreement, in a thread in which they are not participating, thus putting them in a position of having to defend themselves in a discussion is which they have no desire in which to participate. This item may be waived by the staff if it is deemed to be in good-natured fun.

1.5 Always tag a member that you mention in any thread.

1.6 Foul language, pornographic, sexually offensive or explicit material is prohibited. Violent material is prohibited unless it relates to a news story.
This includes words purposefully misspelled or alternate use of characters. Staff will determine acceptability at its discretion.

1.7 No trolling. This is defined as posting simply to get other people to "dance for you;" to elicit a reaction for no good reason.


DISCUSSION OF SUBJECTS

2.Some subjects are limited or banned.

2.1 Discussion of homosexuality, or LGBT, is limited and will be allowed only in Christian Talk and Advice, and in the Bible Study Forum.

2.2 We understand the need to discuss LGBT issues and to provide support for those struggling with these issues; however, Godly discussion must be adhered to and a sinful life style must not be promoted in any form. We welcome sincere biblical discussion and requests for support and prayer.

2.3 Active promotion of other faiths is not allowed. Atheism, for our purposes, is considered a belief. This includes posting images, links, messages or photos that promote a religion other than biblical and historical Christianity. Other faiths include: Full Preterism, Universal Reconciliation, Universal Salvation, Serpent Seed, Dual Seed or Two-Seedline Doctrine. These discussions are limited to and only allowed in the 1 on 1 Debate Forum since this is a Christian Forum.

If you are not sure about a site or its content, please direct your question to a
Moderator assigned to the forum you wish to use, or to any of the staff.

2.4 Non-Christians will not create threads inviting members to ask them about their belief system. For example: Ask the Atheist or Ask the Agnostic. This will be considered a promotion of another faith.

2.5 The New World Translation and Book of Mormon are not considered Christian bibles and verses cannot be posted on this site.

2.6 Discussion of other questionable sources, documents, writings,etc. Is acceptable but cannot be used as a basis of support within a discussion or debate.

2.7 Discussion of conspiracy theories often lead to hostile debate and are prohibited on this site.

2.8 Discussion of Catholic Doctrine is limited. It will be allowed in the 1 on 1 Debate Forum and End Times Forum. Content in the End Times Forum should relate only to the Catholic Doctrinal beliefs regarding this subject matter. Do not sway existing threads toward a discussion that may be viewed as Catholic in nature.

2.9 Anti-Christian content will be considered a hostile act.

This is a Christian site. Any attempt to degrade Christianity or declare it false, including the basic tenets of our faith, is against the basic purpose of this site.
Links to anti-Christian websites will be removed.

Please read: Statement of Faith
https://christianforums.net/Fellowship/index.php?pages/statement-of-faith/

2.10 We consider Paul’s writings to be part of the inspired Word of God. Any
posts intended to purposefully distort or discredit Paul’s writings will not be accepted.


GENERAL RULES

3. Advertising/Links are restricted.

3.1 We have a "20 post rule;" 20 posts must be accumulated before you can post links, even for links within signatures. Business Advertising: Please use the Business Discussion and Plugs Forum.

Advertising links in Signatures are limited to member content such as home church, personal web site, email addresses, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

3.2 No spamming, No solicitations. Please do not flood the board with ads, excessive posts, meaningless or long texts, or otherwise useless material. Our boards are not for the selling of goods or services.

3.3 Business Forum Exception: Approved businesses and sites may advertise
here according to the 20 post rule. No advertising for pyramid or related
schemes will be allowed. The staff reserves the right to determine what
may be advertised on this site.

3.4 Administrators and Moderators will make every effort to remove or edit any objectionable material as quickly as possible; since it may be impossible to view every post, you acknowledge, by using this site, that all posts express the views of the author and not the Staff Team, and agree that Staff and Site Owner will be held harmless for such views expressed by others.
 
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Part 2:

3.5 Christianforums.net reserves the right to respond to the violation of any of the ToS with any method available to our Leadership, at its sole discretion. Any action taken against offenders and their status within the community is considered private and confidential and will not be shared with the public. Christianforums.net also reserves the right to remove any content which is considered to be disruptive to the Community, at the sole discretion of christianforums.net Leadership.

3.6 The Staff of christianforums.net are authorized to use all available actions in dealing with violations to these rules. These actions include, but are not limited to, editing or deleting posts or threads; locking threads; official warnings to members; suspending or permanently banning members’ accounts, email addresses and/or IP addresses. In addition, repeated severe violations may result in a report being generated with one’s Internet Service Provider.

3.7 Warnings through Private Messages or official warnings will be given as needed. Serious violations of the ToS can result in a minimum of one or more point warnings. A point warning is assigned a value of 1 point, and remains active for 2 months. If you accumulate 3 active points, your account is automatically suspended for 1 month. We also reserve the right to permanently ban a member at any time. Warnings may also carry no point value. These point totals are only seen by the CFnet staff. Members do not see point totals of other members.

Assigning a point will be avoided, if at all possible. Members generally aren't banned unless given multiple, and patient, warnings. Our hope is that all members will adhere to our vision of the Christian exchange of ideas, and that point warnings will not be necessary.

3.8 Members are expected to take responsibility for what they post. While personal information or copyrighted information may be removed by the Staff upon request, the Staff is not obliged to remove large quantities of posts.

3.9 If you do not wish to be a member any longer, the simplest course of action to take is to stop logging in. Accounts cannot be deleted. Staff members are not obligated to delete any posts if requested, but may consider such requests on an individual basis.

3.10 Privacy Policy: as a user, you agree to the database storage of any information you have entered. This may include email and IP addresses. This Private information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent except as provided by LAW. Neither the Staff Team, nor the Site Owner may be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

3.11 This forum uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain your Private Information, mentioned above. They serve to improve your viewing pleasure. Your email address is used to confirm your registration details and password (and for sending a new passwords should you forget it). It can be viewed only by Staff, and any group of users you select. The Staff Team will not disclose your contact or personal details without your prior permission, however this information may be shared among the Staff Team if it is deemed relevant to the performance of routine duties by the Staff Team.

3.12 ChristianForums.net users are responsible for knowing the Terms of Service. All Members are asked to periodically review the Terms of Service for any updates. It is each Member’s responsibility to check the ToS and the ‘Stickies’ (especially Announcements) periodically in order to stay appraised of any changes. Announcements are to be considered part of this Terms of Service Agreement once they are posted.

3.13 ChristianForums.net Leadership has the right to decide what forms of Christian “ministry” can be practiced and preached within the forums and to decide whether to deem any form of ministry ‘unsafe’ or outside the basic tenets of Christianity as described below ** and within the Announcement Stickies incorporated herein once they have been posted.

3.14 You should consider all posts to be a public posting in an open forum. All posts deleted are logged and are the property of christianforums.net and may be used for the basis of investigative or disciplinary action at the discretion of the Administrators.

** It is our desire to provide a safe community that reflects Christian values and yet remains sensitive to all users. It is understood that participating in the forums is done at one’s own risk. Due to the size of the ChristianForums.net we do not commit to providing 24-hour community monitoring for every area. Nor do we commit to verifying identities of community participants. In addition, we are not responsible for the safety of children in the christianforums.net community. However, we do aim to have at least one staff member online most of the day.

3.15 Do not flood a forum or thread with similar posts, or many posts in succession. Allow others a chance to speak and be heard. If you are responding to multiple posts in the same thread, please consider using the multi-quote feature. If a thread is taken off-topic, it will be the decision of the OP to either request that the separate topic be removed to a different thread for that purpose, or to let the “derail” continue. At times, it is natural for any discussion to develop, and become more interesting. If the OP requests, please start another thread for whatever it was you were wanting to talk about. Sometimes that makes for really good new threads!

3.16 A member may not impose additional rules upon threads. Moderators will enforce only the rules as included in the ToS and are not obligated to enforce regulations promoted by a member.

3.17 Please provide source and/or links for your information. We want to respect copyrighted material. Be sure to cite your source and keep all posts in compliance with Fair Use copyright law. Also, you stand a better chance of having your post read if it contains a link with an excerpt from a source that’s relevent to your point.

Information on proper source acknowledgement and fair use is here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/731/1/

(Points 19 & 20 intentionally left blank, for now)

3.18 All Bible verses and passages must be referenced (NASB, NIV, etc.) unless it is public domain like the KJV, YLT, etc. Information on copyrights is here: http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/

3.19 The contents of private messages (PM’s) with members or staff are to be kept strictly confidential. Staff reserves the right to share private messages among themselves for the purpose of moderation duties. Staff generally will not become involved in moderating private messages; just please do not harass anyone.
The contents of an ignore list are to be kept strictly confidential including an intent to add a member to an ignore list.

3.20 Do not attempt to circumvent the security permissions on the site. This includes attempting to gain access to another member’s account, staff accounts, restricted areas (including staff areas), servers or databases to which you are not authorized. Additionally, do not use the site for illegal purposes. If such activities are discovered, the proper authorities will be notified, including the police and your Internet Service Provider (ISP). We, the Staff at CF.net, hereby announce our intention to cooperate with any effort focused toward the full enforcement and subsequent consequence for breaking the law.

3.21 Do not post nonsense words and claim to be speaking in tongues. Do not claim that God told you that everyone should give you money. Do not engage in attempts to deceive others.

3.22 Do not impersonate christianforums.net moderators, or administrators. Do not create names or make false statements indicating that you represent the staff at christianforums.net.

3.23 Each person is asked to have only one account. Each post and ISP# is logged. Only people who have created an accurate account are permitted to participate in the community. Registering with false information is grounds for immediate blocking of access to the christianforums.net community. Misrepresentation of age, gender or identity in the forums is also prohibited.

GRIEVANCES

4. Please do not post grievances against other members.

If you have observed a violation of the Terms of Service please inform a staff member; this includes violations or allegations of inappropriate actions by staff. If the grievance is with a staff member, or some action taken, please contact them privately. If you deem it necessary to go beyond that, you are advised to start a new thread in the ‘Talk With the Staff’ (TWTS) forum area.

4.1 If you feel that any action taken was unfair, it can be appealed. To appeal an action taken against you by CF.net staff, you are advised to start a new thread in the TWTS forum area, where they are viewable only by the person initiating the thread and CF.net staff. In this private venue, anyone on the CF.net staff may respond, and the OP can address his/her concerns with regard to the action taken. This forum is primarily intended for appeals to actions by CF.net staff. TWTS area may also be used, according to Staff discretion, for other expedient purpose of communication. If a member agrees or disagrees with a Moderator's decision, they are not to make their opinion public.

4.2 Do not expect staff to take sides in debates.
The staff cannot be expected to assume your views against another member for what may be conceived as a common belief.
 
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