Rules

Updated: November 10, 2009

I am a geek, not a lawyer. If you are seeking legal advice (Is it legal to do xyz with abc's EULA?), you should contact a professional or ask directly the company/individuals involved with your issue.
Disclaimer: Posts appearing on these forums are the opinion and property of "The Poster." In no way do these opinions and views reflect my opinion unless "I" am "The Poster."
No warranty or guarantee of any kind is implied or given with regard to any information or links throughout these forums.

Topics, posts and discussions that even seem as though they are heading in these directions will be moderated/deleted and user accounts banned accordingly:

1. "Adult" topics of any kind (links to "Adult" material or discussions about such). You know what I am talking about. I have no need to elaborate.

2. Circumvention of Copy Protection (Piracy, CD Keys, etc) or discussions related to registering/validating (Windows Product Activation/Windows Genuine Advantage). Each of these should be taken up with the particular software company/developer involved and not discussed (pass or failure) here.

3a. Password cracking (regardless of reason), bypassing security/encryption (computer or otherwise), etc. Posting questions/answers about security (or to increase computer awareness/security) is fine, Posting material to avoid/crack security, bypass "Administrator" restrictions or methods to exploit a vulnerability are not.

3b. "Password Recovery" to include resetting/removing/or otherwise "cracking" existing passwords. With that said, every account on every OS on every system should have a password associated with that account. "The Administrator" in every OS, sometimes called "Admin" or "Root" has sweeping privileges and can basically do anything they want. As such, reply's on this forum will "automatically" assume you are the administrator and are not attempting to bypass restrictions (see also, work, school, or parents systems) imposed on you by those administrators.

4. Reproducing (cut/paste from another web site) Copyrighted material, even if it is your own!

5. Illegal material. United States, your country, my town, or anything in between.

6. Any type of spam related advertising (application, product, web site, etc.)

7. "Trolling" - Any type of post (usually negative) or reply that I believe its intended purpose is just to incite an argument or disrupt normal, healthy discussion.

If you are wondering whether or not your topic/post violates these rules, it probably does and submitting said discussion about "it" should be avoided.
If you feel these rules have been violated, please use the "Report to moderator" function located in the bottom right hand corner of every post. Include your reason(s) for which ever post you feel has violated my policy. I could miss much due to the volume of posts and "Real Life", but you could help me nail down bad postings and it is greatly appreciated.

General help in getting your topic read/replied to.

8. First off, you should create a descriptive subject line. "I need help..." is not very descriptive, nor actually "helpful" for the person coming in from the internet behind you looking for an answer on the same issue.

9. Be as exact as you can when describing the issue. Include what the indications of the problem you are seeing as well as what you have already tried to solve it.

10. Proper location: Try to post your question or comment in the area outlined for such purposes. Posting a XP hardware compatibility question in the Linux general area may cause me to either delete the post or move it to the proper section, causing delays in my personal response time.

11. Ask only one question per topic. A laundry list of unrelated issues in one section out of context does not help other readers in solving their own issues, nor assist me in moderating. Help us help you.

12. "Piggy-backing" on old posts is frowned upon by me. If you have a new but related issue as someone else, feel free to post a new topic. It may turn out to be not related at all. The members, however, may link back to an old related thread.

13. Posts directly to files are not allowed. Link directly to "description" HTML pages. In a related matter, do not use any service, such as TinyURL or many others. Link using the full URL you are posting about. Official sources are also encouraged and not random "freeware" sites and the like. Example: Driver software directly to the manufacture of said hardware and not to download.com.

Other important points to note:

14. Forums are, in general, riddled with opinion. Even if they conflict with your particular thought process, respect others opinions. Welcome to Planet Earth. We are all human (at least I have not caught my cats using my computers... yet, but they have switched them off), so act accordingly.

15. If you are having a specific problem with a particular software package (bug) or technical gaming issue, it is best taken up with the particular developers of that software.

16. Windows Services: I try real hard to recommend a service setting for "the masses." Microsoft is "more general" than I am in this regard. As such, this recommendation is labeled "Safe" throughout my web site. This does not mean that it will work for you. I cannot exactly determine "what you need" in each individual circumstance, but I can offer up the tools and information for you to determine that yourself. Knowledge is power, run with it.

17. Lengthy debug log files, such as DirectX and HyjackThis, will be deleted, due my feeling that its usefulness on these forums is minimal. I do not have the time to sift through hundreds of lines of code.

18. Utilizing Google as a resource cannot be overstated, it is valuable and should at least be attempted before posting, to avoid replies of "I did a quick Google search and...": http://www.google.com/

English is and will be the language spoken here. I cannot determine (or desire to use a web translator that usually never works good enough) what is being said in any other language.

Particular things that I dislike about other forums that I do not allow here are:

19. Huge "signatures" with anything from a large image to many lines of text displaying items, such as system specs. They irritate me big time. As such, the signature limit is 50 characters and image signatures are not allowed.

20. "Bumping" a thread or reposting to get more people to read it. "First Post" or "Bump" is a guaranteed way to get banned here with no recourse. Trust me when I say I read all posts and "bumping" a thread will not make me answer/read any faster or give your particular topic any more attention other then my "delete post" action. I consider it spam or an attempt to increase your "post total" and you could just plain be banned outright for it, depending on my mood for the day.

21. "OMG BV READ THIS"... uh... yeah. Again, trust me when I say that I read every single post on these forums. As such, no need to "make sure" that I read your post. The use of all capital letters also is viewed as "yelling" and should be kept to a minimum (I try hard not to do it myself, but I slip sometimes).

22. Try to identify and report the "source" of information that you are posting or link directly to it and do not duplicate it in the forums. Posting a link to said information is much more valuable then strictly cutting and pasting, possibly out of context, something that could violate Copyright as well as the original authors/creators intentions.

23. Account sharing is not allowed.

If you are interested in contacting "BV", please keep this information in mind:

24. I am only one person!

25. I get a lot of email per day from my web site visitors. At one point in time, before shutting the web site down in mid to late 2005, I was getting 200 emails per day (not including spam and viri, which my server dumped up to 6,000 per day). Seriously... that is... a bit much.

26. I do read all of them, but not enough time exists in the day to respond to everyone's personal technical support questions and give them the attention you may be looking for. Technical support questions via email or forum private message must be ignored because I do not have the time to answer them.

27. If you have a technical support question, try to utilize my Forums for discussion about your computer related issue.

28. No reason exists to post on the forums, send me a PM and an email... I check everything at the same time and that action does nothing but delay a response and waste my time, not promote a faster one.

29. A huge number of questions are answered by my highly valued forum members before I can even read them. In general, it takes me 24 hours or more to check up on things and reply to messages. If you post at the same time I am cruising through, your response will be rapid. That is the exception, not the rule, however. As such, I may not have anything to add and not respond, but I do read all posts and moderate them accordingly.

I wish to thank you in advance for your understanding.

With that said, enjoy!

Charles "Black Viper" Sparks
www.blackviper.com