Rules & Code of Conduct

Members of the Detroit Politics Blogs & forums community are expected to be familiar with and adhere to the following rules. Repeated violations of these rules will result in the user(s) being banned from the system.

1.) Common courtesy & criticism

The most important rule of the Detroit Politics is the Golden Adage: "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you." Common courtesy in the community is not only expected, it is the rule. Common courtesy is the common leveler for treating people and gaining trust. Online public discourse is our primary objective, but we expect such discussions to be civil and supportive. Personal wars and the like are not allowed on our community forums and blogs.

In short, we expect everyone to act like an adult on any community discourse. If you disagree with someone or offering a feedback on a submission, feel free to criticize their argument or their work. Remain constructive and avoid personal or group presumptions. Based on our aim of a clean and objective discourse, please, if something appears disturbing, we urge you to "put your money where your mouth is" and write your own up. In short “say what you mean and mean what you say.”

Furthermore, we encourage that you confine your comments to the subject at hand. Do not resort to personal attacks on other members or individuals. Name-calling, childish behavior, defamatory language, profane, libelous or bigoted comments about members of the forum or anyone else will not be tolerated or allowed. Saying that you hated dislike an object such as a book would technically be ok—though not particularly helpful, since there was no reasoning as to WHY you hated the book—while "I think the author really sucks" would not be permitted.

Likewise, harassment will not be tolerated. We urge users to avoid online flaming. Flaming is the hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users. Flaming usually occurs in the social context of a discussion forum. Persistent flaming or continued personal attacks against a person, company, etc. in our community forums is not allowed.

Spamming, trolling and baiting should also be avoided. Spamming is posting the same thing continuously all over the forums. Trolling and baiting happen when someone says something specifically with the intent of evoking a negative reaction.

Finally, please watch your language. Profane language-anything you can't hear on the radio or network TV during "prime hours" is not permitted. Close approximations of forbidden words obviously intended to bypass the language filter are likewise not permitted (this includes masking). We expect our members to be able to conduct a civil discussion and get their point across without needing four-letter words to do so.

2.) Copyright issues

Posting long sections of text or images on the board that are excerpted or copyrighted from a printed Detroit Politics publication, or from any other publisher or web site, is prohibited. This rule also includes posting rules from published or PDF sourcebooks unless you have permission to do so.

If you find copyrighted material used inappropriately on the community, please contact a moderator and it will be removed.

3.) Relevance of topics & posts

We are a Detroit Politics forum, so we expect topics to stay Detroit Politics-related. There are many places out there to discuss off-topic matters, so please direct discussions to the appropriate forum.

If you have a question, comment, or technical issues with any content, a problem with a member, or suggestions on how to improve things, send a private message to us using the “Contact Us” menu item. Do not create a thread for your specific topic, unless it is a thread in an appropriate forum (such as a suggestions forum).

4.) Descriptive titles

Please make sure your thread's title is descriptive so that people do not have to open it without having an idea of the contents. This is especially true when posting a spoiler, especially in the case of a new book that people have not read yet. Some examples of bad titles: "Read This" or "Your Opinion" or "Vote Here." A couple of suggestions for good titles: "The Economic Politics of Detroit" or "What About Fighting Political Corruption?"

6.) Repeat topics

Before creating a new thread, see if anyone else has started a similar one. There's no sense in beginning a new thread if there's also been some discussion on the topic. Often, the new thread asks a question that was already answered in the old thread! At the same time, look through the old posts to see if someone has already said what you want to say.

7.) Forbidden topics

There are several topics that generally get the average Detroit Politics fan's blood boiling. The following topics (or ones similar to them) are not permitted: 'Which character is sexier?' / 'Which character would win in a fight?' / Do you think [insert character's name here] is gay?'. These are just the most popular bad topics that have been covered countless times on a variety of forums, and not encouraged here.

9.) No advertising

The forum may not be used to advertise or promote businesses, commercial sites, products, etc
That being said, it's another thing entirely to post a link to Detroit Politics rules, a piece of artwork or a web site you've created and to ask other members of the forums for comments on it. We encourage you to do that. Links to articles, news items, interviews, or the like that are relevant to a thread and reinforce the point you're trying to communicate are also encouraged. The intention here is to stop people from creating a new topic thread specifically to direct visitors to their web site or to try to sell our members something.

We do encourage those who have Detroit Politics websites to promote their activities. The one exception to this rule is forums. We would rather not see entire topics devoted to promoting forums that may take people away from our own forums.

10.) Impersonating Others

Impersonation of another person, site staff, authors, etc. is not allowed.

11.) Fan Fiction

Fan fiction is not allowed. Though we do support the works of fans, fan fiction is a bit of a legal issue and is therefore prohibited.

12.) Private Messaging and E-mails

Private messaging is a nice feature allowing community members to stay in contact with each other outside of the realm of the blogs and forums. Moderators do not "police" such activity. However, abuses may result in warnings or potentially being banned from the community.

13.) Banned Users

Occasionally, we ban (restrict) users from using the community who may have violated the spirit and the letter of these rules. While such instances are rare, it does happen. Banned users are not allowed to use the system once they have been banned, and banned users are not allowed to create a new account or accounts to access the site. Any new accounts created by a banned user will be subsequently banned immediately.

14.) Miscellaneous rules & other items

You are only allowed to have a single account on any subsystem (blogs/forums). If we find that a single person has multiple accounts, all of the accounts will be deleted or banned at our discretion. It would be nice if you can use good punctuation and grammar for the rest of us to read.

DetroitPolitics.com reserve the right to change these rules at any time, and also reserve the right to restrict, "ban," or delete user accounts from our system at any time, for any reason, and without prior notification of account owners. We further reserve the right to modify any post and/or delete any post or thread at our sole discretion at any time and for any reason.