Below, you will find the rules, which each member should respect. They were derived according to the above, and for your own protection. Please read them and respect them. If you want to discuss them, you know where to find me. It would be a good thing, if you also spend some time, reading our Mission Statement, it shows you the reasons behind this site and my goals, when I started it.
At this point, please allow me to thank the people who will be assisting me in running this forum, the moderators. These people spend their time doing an ugly job, enforcing the Forum Rules, which are shown below. It's not an easy job, and it is impossible to satisfy each one of you members, but someone has to do it, and the moderators are here for your own good. The Forums have also rules for the moderators, which specify what are the obligations and rights of the moderators. These rules are also posted here, so that you all know where you stand.
Finally, allow me to thank each and every one of you, registered members, I am well aware that you are the strength of this forum, and I thank you for coming here. I promise you I'll do my best to make your staying here a pleasurable and learning experience.
Please keep these rules in mind, when entering the Forum. These are the rules that the moderators will have to check for, in your posts.
Forum Rules
1. It is obvious that the Forum should be used to discuss the M1911 pistol. It does not matter if it is made by Colt or Springfield or anyone else, as long as the posts concern the M1911, they are welcome to the Forum. Please try not to bother the Forum members with questions related to other firearms, unless they are posted in the specifically provided Forum space.
2. Please try to avoid flames. I know that it is human to over-react some times, but please try to avoid it. So far, the M1911 Pistols Home Page Mailing list, has been a ladies and gentlemen's area for asking questions about our favorite pistol. Let's all make sure that the Forum will follow the mailing list example. Spamming, trolling, flaming, and personal attacks are prohibited. You can disagree with other members, even vehemently, but it must be done in a well-mannered form. Attack the argument, not the arguer.
3. Please bear in mind the international nature of the network, and the fact that your postings are read by people all over the world, with different cultures, religion, interests and attitudes. Let's try to avoid making a local problem, an international issue.
4. Foul language will not be tolerated. I repeat, let's keep this Forum a ladies and gentlemen's playground. Foul remarks for a person's religion or nationality should be avoided at all cost. They will again not be tolerated. Pictures used will have to be related to the M1911 and should definitely not include nudity. This will not be tolerated. Any porno related material (pictures, links etc.) will be immediately deleted and the member will be immediately banned. Disguising a vulgar or obscene word with symbols or random characters ($, *, etc), deliberate misspelling to by-pass the naughty word filter, or using common synonyms when the intended word can be easily inferred from the substitute is considered the same as using that foul word, so please don't try it. In addition, the use of slang adjectives deriving from words associated with excrement or bodily functions are considered extremely insulting in some cultures and for that reason such words may not be used on these forums. It should be needless to say that slang words referring to sexual acts are also not acceptable.
5. This forum is intended as a place to discuss the M1911 firearm in an adult and respectful manner. Sexually-suggestive statements, sexual harassment, sexual innuendo, bawdy or “locker room” humour and the like have no place on this forum and will not be allowed. This forum includes in its membership people of many nations and cultures, as well as ladies and young children. Therefore, bawdy stories and “locker room” humour are not appropriate, and will be treated the same as obscene or profane language.
6. When replying to a message in the Forums and quote a previous message, please cut and remove whatever is not relevant to your answer. It is stupid to post one line as a reply and include an 100-lines quote in your message. Cut whatever is not absolutely essential to convey the meaning you want. Also, you must not edit or alter a quote in a way the changes the meaning or intent of the original quote.
7. Keep signatures to a minimum. I know that bandwidth is not as expensive as it used to be and that most of you are on cable or DSL connections, but let's save as much bandwidth as possible. Consider people who visit the Forum through very expensive wireless links (either through mobile phones or others), or those unfortunate ones who are still using a dial-up connection. Photos or other images in signatures may be no larger than 200 x 150 (horizontal 200 x vertical 150). Anything larger than that takes too much space and is making the posts look ridiculous. One picture per signature only. Text in signatures that include photos or images shall be limited to three lines. Text in signatures without photos or images may be up to five lines. And, in order to forestall any "Philadelphia lawyers," blank lines count.
8. No member of the Forum can use the Forum to promote his/her commercial activities/products/services. If this occurs, the member doing that, risks to be banned from the Forum and invoiced for the usage of advertising space.
9. Treat other members the same way you want to be treated yourself. We cannot provide a comprehensive list of "Things Not To Say." Posts that are contrary to the above policies, or to the mission of M1911.ORG, may be edited or deleted at our sole discretion. Membership may be revoked if such a step is deemed necessary by us. This forum is a private venture enabled by an all-volunteer staff. Please treat this venue as a polite discussion in a friend's home and respect the wishes of the host.
10. M1911.ORG had (until June 27, 2012) very strict rules about discussing politics or religion related issues. While religion discussions are still not acceptable, we have now a special forum, in which legal and civil rights related issues can be discussed. Please make sure you read the sticky thread in that forum, which explains what is acceptable material for that area and what not. General political discussions are STILL NOT allowed. Discussions which do not match our guidelines will be immediately deleted and the poster will be warned. Please read our FAQ section about our Warnings System.
11. Your threads should go to the appropriate forum. Do not post threads in the wrong forum, just because you think that they will get better exposure there, they will certainly be moved to where they belong. Also, do not post multiple threads on the same subject, in different forums. This is prohibited and extra threads will be deleted, only the thread which appears in the single, appropriate forum, will be left behind. The only case when double-posting is allowed, is if a copy of a post is also entered in the "Thumbs-Up" or in the "Thumbs-Down" forums, as a reference of your good or bad experience dealing with a company or person, when purchasing goods or services. There are some restrictions which apply for posting in some forums, please respect them and do not try to bypass them. These additional restrictions are clearly shown in the proper forums ("For Sale" forums in particular).
12. "Bumping" refers to posting useless information, making unnecessary corrections or updates in a post, posting one-liners (such as "Bump," "Back to Top," "BTT") or any other action to deliberately keep a thread hot or to bring it to the top of its Forum. Excessive bumping is rude and selfish, and does not respect the right of other members and participants to have their posts viewed and responded to. In order to strike a balance between a legitimate wish to refresh a post or topic that has not been satisfactorily answered, and the needs of other members and participants to have their posts viewed, members are allowed to bump their own posts only two weeks after the post was first entered, or two weeks after the last bump. Members shall not "bump" a thread initiated by another person.
13. It is not really necessary to stress that the information you enter in your post should be (to the best of your knowledge) correct. No material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate should be posted in the forums, unless you clearly state that you are unsure of its validity. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages. In light of our policy of encouraging candid, open exchanges of views and the rapid distribution of information originating from many sources, M1911.ORG cannot determine the accuracy of information that may be uploaded to the Forum. By participating in these Forums, each user acknowledges that M1911.ORG is only providing a medium for communication between and among individuals, and that any and all opinions appearing on the Forums are the opinions of the individual posting the message. The only messages that may be construed to be from or by M1911.ORG are posts by the Owner (John Caradimas, user name 'John') or a moderator when the moderator is acting in that capacity, as opposed to participating in a discussion as a member of the forum. By registering for and participating in this Forum, you acknowledge that you understand this limitation and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless M1911.ORG and its Owner with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s). You may not reproduce copyrighted material without the owner's permission and/or without giving credit to the author and/or copyright holder. Furthermore, you may not suggest that someone engage or participate in acts that you know, or should know, are illegal.
14. It is illegal to reproduce any significant portion of any book, magazine, newspaper, or other printed or on-line publication without the express permission of the owner of the copyright. Without going into detail, BRIEF quotations of a limited portion of an article or other publication is generally allowed under the "Fair Use Doctrine." However, the quotation must be identified as a quotation, and the author and source must be identified and attributed. You may not reproduce copyrighted material without the owner's permission and without giving credit to the author and copyright holder. We are aware that members of some forums ask (or demand) that news articles be copied and reproduced in their entirety in forum posts. Unless you have the express permission of the copyright owner to do so, THIS IS ILLEGAL and IT IS NOT ALLOWED ON THIS SITE. Any member who quotes or reproduces an entire article, or a substantial portion of an article, will be warned, and the post will be deleted. This applies whether or not you also include a link to the original article. In addition, any member who suggests to another participant on this site that he should or must quote an entire article rather than a small portion and a link will similarly be warned.
15. A valid email address is a prerequisite for your membership. M1911.ORG does not make your email address public, only the site management team has access to your email address, and M1911.ORG management does NOT spam our members. Your email address will only be used in case we need to contact you and we can not do it in any other way (Private Message), or to inform you about the activity in our site. Please remember to change your email address in this site, if you get a new email address. Any mailing in bulk to the forum Members by another forum member will result in immediate suspension of your membership.
16. Members may not offer to sell a gun or anything else in any post, except if this offer is posted as a separate thread in the proper "For Sale" forum. If you offer to sell a gun or anything else in any other forum, even if your "For Sale" ad, is covered up (for example, "I have this rare 1911 model, which I am thinking to sell, how much do you think it is worth?") your post will be erased and you will be banned from this site. Please keep in mind that you can not post a For Sale ad, in the "For Sale" forums, unless you have meet some prerequisites, which are shown in the For Sale forums. So please do not register to post a For Sale ad or to post a covered-up For Sale ad, your message will be deleted and you will be permanently banned. Also, a member is not allowed to post a For Sale ad, for a third party. Finally, all For Sale ads should have fixed prices for the items you are selling, we do not allow auctions in this site. Nothing offered for sale on this site may also be offered by auction anywhere else; and nothing being offered by auction anywhere else may also be offered for sale on this site. You may read this file for more details.
17. Offers to trade or barter, rather than buy or sell for cash, shall all be considered as "For Sale" ads and shall be posted in the appropriate "For Sale" forum, not in the "Wanted to Buy" forums. Posts offering to trade or barter are subject to the same minimum participation requirements as ads offering items or guns for sale.
18. Links to on-line auctions of any kind are not allowed anywhere on this forum. If you are looking at a firearm or accessory on an auction site and wish to ask for advice regarding the item, you may post links to any individual photos from the auction and you may copy and quote the item description, but you may NOT post a direct link to any auction or auction site. There will be no exceptions to this. Any links to on-line auctions will be removed, either by editing your post or by deleting the entire post.
19. In addition to the rules posted here Forum Users are required to read any individual forum rules, which may be posted at the top of specific forums as Important threads or Announcements. There are some additional rules for posting in the "Flea Market" Forums, i.e. when you post an announcement for selling a gun or parts etc. Please read these, before posting in those forums.
20. This forum has a team of moderators who take care of ALL issues requiring moderation. Individual members are NOT to use posts in the forum to perform "ad hoc" moderating. Please do NOT suggest to another member that "You would do better to post this in the ___ area," or "You'd better watch your language or the green meanies will get you." You probably do not know the other member personally, so you cannot know how he or she may react. Such "ad hoc" moderating often starts flame wars in forums, and our goal here is to avoid flame wars. This forum has a 'Report Bad Post" icon -- it's the triangular icon with the exclamation point in it -- that appears below or next to each and every post. If you see a post that you believe is a violation of Forum rules, please use the "Report Bad Post" icon to report it to the moderators. That's what the icon is for. If you are not willing to report a post you believe is a violation, then do nothing or else you may incur a warning yourself.
21. The owner of this forum and the moderators are volunteers who serve without pay. Abuse toward these individuals will not be tolerated. Any abuse directed toward the Owner, Moderators or forum provider will result in the immediate suspension of forum privileges.
22. We don't intend to censor messages based on the opinions expressed within posts, but we will enforce the policies outlined both here and on the individual Forums. We reserve the right to remove, modify or move posts at our discretion and without explanation. If you have any questions, please e-mail the moderators. If the action of an individual moderator is questioned and the action is deemed by a poll of the other moderators to have been appropriate, the matter shall be considered closed.
23. I reserve the right to revoke membership from this Forum or disable a member's posting ability for any or no reason whatsoever. I also reserve the right to reveal member's identity (or whatever information I know about a member) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by a member.
24. We have a Legal document, which is considered to be part of these Rules. Please read it, by following this link. By registering in this site, you accept the terms specified in our Legal document.
25. GDPR Compliance: This site does not sell product or services to its members. All we provide is a free means to communicate with other people who share your interest, for the 1911 pistol. As a result, GDPR compliance is not needed. Regardless, all information collected during registration (i.e. your email address, country, time zone, occupation, gender, IP address) are only stored by us, in order to facilitate your participation in our discussions. We do not share that information with other entities and we do not sell that information to other entities. Also that information is not shared between members. Some of the information you provide, may appear in your posts, like the flag of your country, or your location, but (a) providing this inforation is not mandatory for your registration, or (b) the information is not cheched for accuracy, so you may enter whatever you want in the location field, for example, or leave it blank. You may ask us to delete your account at any time, by simply emailing us or sending us a Private Message. If you do not agree with this rule, please DO NOT REGISTER with our site. If you are already registered and do not agree with this rule, please email us to remove your account.
Please keep in mind that this site uses a Warning System, which the moderators will use whenever they find in the site, something which is against the rules. Our Warning System issues you warnings and alerts. To learn more about our Warning System, please read the FAQ section of our site.
Your comments are always welcome, we have set up a special Forum just for that. Use it to convey your message to us.
A note on FREEDOM of SPEECH:
As has been stated above, this is an international forum. We are aware of the Constitution of the United States and its First Amendment:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The First Amendment is greatly respected here. However, M1911.ORG is private property, not the United States Congress. Quite simply, the First Amendment does not apply to this forum. We respectfully request (and require) that members adhere to all forum policies. This is a contract agreed to by all who become members of this forum. Those who break forum rules cannot invoke U.S. constitutional protections against censorship or for freedom of speech - they do not apply. A contract broken is a contract broken. If you do not like the rules of conduct or the acceptable topics, please seek out a new venue to frequent or start your own board.
It is my hope that establishing the above rules for conduct on the forum will not prove unduly burdensome on the membership, but will serve to make the forum experience more universally enjoyable as well as avoiding conflict and misunderstandings. My intent in establishing this forum is to provide a venue for mature and intelligent discussion of a topic which I find fascinating and enjoyable. I sincerely hope that forum members share in my enthusiasm and will accept the above forum rules in the spirit in which they are intended: to make the forum experience as interesting and enjoyable as possible for the greatest possible number of participants.
Welcome on board
For M1911.ORG
John Caradimas