NEW SAINTSATIONAL FAN FORUM RULES (7 FEBRUARY 2019)

[BackFromUSA]

Saintsational Fan Forum is an unofficial St Kilda Football Club discussion forum open to all ages.

Only topics and posts that directly relate to the St Kilda Football Club are allowed in this forum.

Please be aware of the following rules before posting. Not being aware of a rule is not an excuse.

Please use the report feature <!> in any offending post that you feel breaches any rule below, so it can be assessed by moderators.

NEW PENALTY SYSTEM

Warnings are no longer issued. They have not been a successful tool to maintain civility in the forum.

New penalties apply for breaches. A breach of rules will result in either a 1 DAY or 1 WEEK ban.

Three 1 WEEK bans will result in that poster nic being banned from posting in the Saintsational Fan Forum under that username / nic, although they will retain access to read the Fan Forum and post in the closed forums such as Animal Enclosure, General Forum etc. They can re-register under a NEW username / nic and then continue posting football related matters in the Saintsational Fan Forum. If a poster continues to offend under the new username / nic, the administrator may decide to ban them from ALL forum access.

PLEASE NOTE: The Animal Enclosure Forum is a members only forum covering the same topics but has a different set of rules and would better suit those that which to make some commentary on other posters, with less posting restrictions overall.

SAINTSATIONAL FAN FORUM RULES

UPDATED POSTER INTERACTION RULE

Vigorous debate and even some friendly banter on St. Kilda Football Club matters is encouraged on the Saintsational Fan Forum, as long as respect is shown for every poster and all opinions.

No matter how much you may disagree, or dismiss the worth of any opinion posted, or dismiss the worth of the poster in your own eyes, your response must be always be respectful and polite. Argue the facts. Post an opposing opinion. However ONLY make football related commentary on the football content. Do NOT ever make any form of negative commentary about posters or posters.

Any post that negatively relates to or references, or baits (directly or indirectly) another poster, or posters, or group of posters in the Saintsational Fan Forum or leads to bickering to the level of an ongoing dispute, will be deemed a breach of rules and the penalty will be either a 1 DAY BAN or 1 WEEK BAN.

POLITICAL POSTS

Political posts are strictly forbidden in the Fan Forum. All political posts must be limited to the General Forum. Any political posts made will be defined immediately as "baiting" and depending on the post will be subject to a 1 WEEK BAN. No warnings will be issued.

ABUSING OR DEMEANING A SAINTS PLAYER, FAMILY OR OFFICIAL RULE

Commenting on the performance of a Saints player / official is allowed. Review their performance and suggest where or how they can improve. In cases where posters abuse or demean a Saints player / official / or their family, OR casts aspersions on their character and it is deemed by the moderators to be offensive and inflammatory, then the moderators will issue a 1 DAY or 1 WEEK BAN depending on severity.

However, we recognise that match time and match days are emotionally charged. If a post is made that is deemed by a moderator to be highly inappropriate, offensive or inflammatory during match days, the moderator can edit this post and that moderator has the right to unilaterally issue a 1 DAY ban, as a cooling off period for the offending poster or posters, but in extreme cases a 1 WEEK BAN.

SWEAR RULE

Swearing covered by the swear filter will be published as f***, s***, c***, c**k etc.

The community has been consulted and the word "dick" and "shyte" and the acronyms WTF, FFS, BS etc have been found to be acceptable and as such shall be deemed permissible in usage.

Attempts to circumvent the swear filter with terms with alternate spellings, or any usage of those words within another word OR an alteration of the swear word that may constitute the reader to understand that it is a swear word, will be deemed as a breach of swearing rule and a 1 DAY BAN will be issued. Severe cases will result in a 1 WEEK BAN.

INAPPROPRIATE POST RULE

There will be ZERO tolerance for any sexist, racist, ageist, homophobic, religiously or culturally offensive, or highly sexually explicit terms or commentary in the Fan Forum or Private Messages.

Such behaviour is a breach and an automatic 1 WEEK BAN will be issued without warning.

SPAMMING RULE

Do not spam the forum board with multiple posts designed to disrupt the harmony of the board. This may include repeating a point of view over and over, when such posts cause the forum to descend into abuse. Such disruption will result in a 1 WEEK BAN.

TROLL RULE

“Trolls” are defined as posters who have the goal to create friction and anger in our community.

A poster, who has the aim to create friction and anger in our community will receive a 1 WEEK BAN.

MORE SEVERE PENALTY SECTION:

PORNOGRAPHY AND SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL

As a forum open to all ages, pornographic, or semi-pornographic images, inferences, references and anecdotes, are not permitted. Any such postings will constitute a permanent ban without warning.

THREATENING OR BULLYING BEHAVIOUR RULE

There will also be zero tolerance for any direct (or implied) physically threatening or bullying behaviours in the Fan Forum and Private Messages and such behaviour constitutes a breach of rules and will result in an automatic permanent ban. Any such posts in the Fan Forum or in Private Messages may also be reported by the administrators to both the State and Federal authorities under the current cyber-bullying laws with severe criminal penalties now applying for cyber-bullying.

PRIVACY RULE

Do not post private details of other posters in the public forums of this Fan Forum, nor post your own private details. Do not post private messages received on Saintsational in the Saintsational Fan Forum. Breach of this privacy rule will result in a permanent ban for your nic from all forums.

MULTIPLE IDENTITY RULE

Posters found to hold multiple forum identities and using them to add support to their own position within a forum argument, OR to undertake any activity that can be constituted as a breach of rules, will be penalised without any formal warning and with an ongoing permanent ban on all identities from the offending I.P. addresses, all associated e-mail addresses and of course all forum identities.

OPPOSITION SUPPORTERS

Opposition supporters are welcome to post in a respectful manner and within forum rules, but should their goal be to disrupt our community, they will be banned immediately WITHOUT warning.

ADMINISTRATION MATTERS:

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTION DISCLAIMER

The editorial opinion or contributions of the individual posters in no way constitutes the view of the Saintsational website or it's fan forums, or it's administrators, moderators, or voluntary personnel.

COPYRIGHT

Due to copyright laws, when posting articles from any other website, please only post the URL (the link to the original article) - and no more a selected small portion no longer than one paragraph.

Any copyright claims will be forwarded to the poster as the author of the offending post.

POSTING IN THE APPROPRIATE FORUM

The Opposition & General Sports Forum and a General Forum are available for other topics and discussions not relating to the St Kilda Football Club. The Administration Forum is for communicating with the mods of rules and moderation issues. There are different rules in place for each Saintsational forum. Please be aware of the rules in each forum. Ignorance is not an excuse.

GRIEVANCES

The moderators have an enormous task to read and assess posts and make their decisions based on the overall good of the community and purely based on the rules above. All grievances are to be posted on / responded to in the Administration Forum.

APPEALING A BAN

Bans will be listed in the Fan Forum. The banned poster can request an appeal process be started in the Administration Forum. If the administrators feel the appeal has any merit, it will be listed in the Administration Forum and promoted in Fan Forum to make the other members aware. The appeal will take the form of a POLL where members have the capability to vote anonymously to uphold or overturn the ban. For a ban to be overturned, a 2/3 majority against the ban must be achieved.