Forum Rules & Infractions

General Rules

Treat each other with the same respect you would if you were talking to each other face to face. If there's a good chance the person you're talking to would punch you in the face for saying what you're about to type, it may be a sign that you want to reword your post. Unfortunately the relative anonymity of the Internet allows people the world over to say things they would never say in real life without fear of any repercussions.

Try to keep debates friendly. While it's fairly well understood that 10 gun owners will give you 20 opinions on the same subject, the key to disagreement is to keep it friendly and sometimes realizing that the best option is to agree to disagree. Don't let a debate turn into a personal fight, that is childish.

Also keep in mind that your words reflect on the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association and all firearm owners in general. Fair or not, if you come on here and act like a jerk people are going to associate your bad attitude with the organization and firearm owners as a whole. Please don't make the rest of us look like uneducated, small-minded idiots just because you choose to be.

Please also note that these rules and related infractions are in effect everywhere on the site. This includes, but is not limited to: posts, user profiles, reputation comments, etc.

Defined Rules

The following is a list of the currently defined infractions, how many points they give, and how long it takes for the infraction to expire. All infractions allow moderators to issue a warning if they feel a full infraction is not necessary.

This list only contains explicitly defined rules to standardize enforcement of common problems, however moderation by it's nature will require that moderators apply judgment calls to inappropriate behavior. Just because it is not explicitly listed does not mean moderators can not issue bans. We can and will enforce bans on people who engage in anti-social behavior that ruins the forum for everyone else.

PLEASE NOTE: WHEN YOU SEE SOMETHING IN THIS LIST LIKE "NEVER EXPIRES" OR "EXPIRES IN 1 MONTH" THAT IS NOT, I REPEAT NOT, RELATED TO A BAN. IT IS HOW LONG THE INFRACTION STICKS BEFORE IT IS PHASED OUT AND FORGOTTEN. PLEASE SEE THIS THREAD TO UNDERSTAND HOW THESE RULES ARE ENFORCED AND THE RELATED PUNISHMENTS BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS.

Hateful Content

Extreme (320 points, Never expires)
Simply put, we are not interested in racial slurs or when your next KKK meeting is.

Inflammatory (20 points, Expires in 1 month)
Think all the world's problems are the fault of an entire [race, religion, etc]? Save it for another forum.
Note: This rule does not apply to political parties/ideaologies, you are more than welcome to blame all the world's problems on liberals, conservatives, libertarians, or socialists.

Borderline (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
Please keep the subtle, implied racism, etc. in your head.

Illegal Content

Blatant (320 points, Never expires)
Posting content that could get you or us arrested will result in not only a ban, but us contacting law enforcement. If you can't figure out the kind of stuff we're talking about, you'll probably never be affected by this rule.

Gray Area (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
We do not want to know where you pirate your music, movies and TV shows from or similar things.

Illegal Activity

Willful & Serious (320 points, Never expires)
If you are engaging in or suggesting people engage in committing a serious crime on this discussion forum you will be permanently banned without warning. One example of this would be engaging or encouraging someone else to engage in an illegal straw purchase of a firearm.

Willful & Moderate (40 points, Expires in 1 month)
PAFOA considers engaging or suggesting people engage in any crime to be a punishable offense, however we recognize the difference between suggesting breaking firearm laws and suggesting someone pirate a movie.

Ignorant (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
Same as above, but we don't think you did it knowingly and on purpose. However we still really need to drive home the point of how badly such behavior reflects on all firearm owners.

Pornography

This isn't a porn site; please don't post, embed, link to, upload, or otherwise provide pornography or adult content here. Aside from the infractions described below for posting such content, any uploaded porn can and will be removed without notice, and continued uploading of porn will result in a manual ban.

Blatant (20 points, Expires in 1 month)
If you can see body parts that you can't show on a normal beach, it's blatant pornography.

Gray Area (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
If Maxim or FHM wouldn't publish it, you're entering a gray area. When in doubt compare what you're posting to what SoberByker posts, his pictures bring many people enjoyment, but don't go too far past that. :)

Gore/Death

Non-hunting (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
We have no interest in pictures or videos of car crashes, shooting victims, war casualties. There are two exceptions to this rule:

1. Pictures of wounds sustained from negligent handling of firearms. Such things can serve as a grim reminder of how careful we must be when partaking in our hobby.
2. Anything from breaking news.

Excessive Hunting (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
It's one thing to show a picture of you with your recent hunting accomplishment, but there are a lot of people that probably don't want to see your step-by-step process of gutting a deer, or the remains of a coyote's head you hit with a .308.

Shock Imagery

Extreme (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
If you have no idea what we're talking about, chances are you won't be posting it.

Profanity

In Thread Title (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
Please do not use profanity or masked profanity in thread titles.

Excessive (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
Profanity within posts is fine to a certain extent and often necessary in a text-based medium, but if your language would make a dock worker or marine blush, please tone it down.

Profanity or pornography In User Profile (Deletion of avatar )
Please do not use profanity or pornography in user avatars, profile pics, etc. Such content can and will be deleted without notice for violation of this policy, and continued violations will result in a manual ban.

Trolling

Instigation (20 points, Expires in 1 month)
If your only purpose of posting in a thread is to rile people up and cause drama, we'd prefer you simply not post. This is very subjective, but our moderators have very good trolldars.

Misquoting (20 points, Expires in 1 month)
The forum software allows you users to "quote" other people's responses in their reply. While cutting out parts of a quote for brevity is OK, manipulating someone's post in a quote to make it look like they said something they did not is a big no-no.

Sock Puppetry (40 points, Expires in 1 month)
Creating multiple accounts for the purpose of bolstering your own arguments and causing drama will result in all accounts being banned. Yes, we can figure this out pretty easily. For more information please see the Wikipedia entry on Sock Puppetry.

There are two very specific cases we need to cover with regards to Sock Puppetry:

1. We do consider it to be sock puppetry if you engage in a thread about a subject (such as a person or business) without disclosing that you have a material tie to that subject. This is primarily to prevent people that own a business, are employed by a business, or have a close personal ties to a business from engaging in Astroturfing. This can also apply to things such as supporting political candidates without disclosing similar material ties.
2. We do not consider it to be sock puppetry to have separate accounts that you use to separate your private online identity from your public real life identity. For example, you are allowed to have one account to engage in general discussion and debate that is not tied to your real life identity, and a separate account to engage in classifieds transactions or for managing your business where your real-life identity is likely to be exposed. Everyone deserves the right to speak their minds freely on the Internet without worrying about exposing their personal information and the risks that come from doing so.

Armchair Expert

Commando (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
Please do not offer dangerous advice that may get people killed or injured. Examples of this would be bad ammunition reloading or gun-smithing advice. If you're not 100% sure about something you're free to offer advice, just please be clear about that. Preface such posts with "I'm not totally sure but I think..." or "To the best of my knowledge..." and let people know to wait for more responses.

Lawyering (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
Please do not offer advice that could land someone in jail. The last thing we need is people telling other members that's it's perfectly OK to carry a firearm in a car without a License To Carry Firearms, or that you can sell someone a handgun without going through an FFL. Like above, don't be afraid to post what you think is correct, just don't state things as fact when you aren't sure without a disclaimer.

Harassment

Blatant Threats (20 points, Expires in 1 month)
Want to physically hurt someone? Seek counseling and don't use our forum to relay such threats.

Subtle Threats (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
Don't try to be sneaky about the above rule.

Excessive Personal Attacks (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
At the time of writing these rules the forum has become a much less civil place than it once was. There is a certain percentage of people who seem to be unable to agree to disagree and debate civilly. Often their posts include name calling and outright, non-constructive mocking of people's ideas and opinions. It's one thing to criticize someone's actions and ideas, it is another to be a jerk about it. We thought for a while that a forum related to firearm ownership would not have these issues as it is mostly adults taking part, but we have been proven wrong. For whatever reason the anonymity of the Internet seems to reduce certain full-grown adults to the mental state of children on a playground. Simply put, such anti-social behavior will not be tolerated on this forum as it breeds contempt and ill-will among all members of the community who can behave civilly. This forum has a very specific purpose: To bring together firearm owners so we can share information and organize as a force to expand and protect our hobby. People who act like jerks disrupt the friendly group cohesion that we need to fulfill our goals.

Classifieds

Bumping Too Early (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
The specific rules for the classifieds section allow users to reply to their own posts at set intervals to "bump" their post back to the top and get it back in front of potential buyers/sellers. If you bump before this time, you will receive this infraction and you may have your classifieds threads deleted. Please see the Classifieds Rules announcement for the current requirements around classifieds postings.

Discussion (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
We do not allow discussion of classifieds posts, if you have a question send it through a private message.

Price Commentary (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
If you think a seller is asking too much for an item, don't look at it, someone else might think it's a great deal. The market will take care of everything, just as it has for thousands of years.

Note: Posting replies on other people's classifieds threads is now completely disabled in the Classifieds system (except for feedback and group buy sections.) However, these rules are still in force in the event that someone re-posts a members classifieds add for the purpose of circumventing the posting restriction. So do not comment on peoples ads by re-posting them in another section of the board, or by using the rep system.

Spam

Unrelated (320 points, Never expires)
We're not interested in your iPods, phones, or pharmaceuticals. If you're breaking this rule, it is doubtful you'll ever read this. This does not apply to posting links to bona-fide deals or sales that people might want to jump on (for example if Best Buy has a really nice TV at a great price)

Related (20 points, Expires in 1 month)
If you are selling something, put it in the classifieds. If you are a business, make sure it's in the commercial section. This goes double if it's the only reason you signed up. We don't need gun shops from Hawaii signing up to just post a list of every item they have for sale in the general discussion area.

Non-Firearm Politics (10 points, Expires in 1 month)
PAFOA is a site for discussion firearms related issues. We're NOT interested in religious, philosophical, or political discussions unless they pertain to the topic of firearms, firearms law and politics, firearms training, carry, etc. General discussion of non-firearms related topics that aren't religious, philosophical, or political in nature will still be allowed in the Lounge, but we're tired of breaking up arguments over topics of religion, philosophy, social issues.

As a general rule: if it's something that used to be discussed in the Political Wasteland forum, it's not allowed. We've tried to allow such discussion, and it seems people can't seem to debate these topics civilly.

Cross-Posting (5 points, Expires in 1 month)
We ask that no one post the same thread, topic, classified ad, etc. in multiple locations on the site, as all that does is create clutter, confusion, and divergent discussions on the same topic. In the past this was considered a spam infraction, but in the interests of clarification we've decided to create a separate infraction for this. Note that while this is only a 5 point infraction, the more you cross-post a topic, the more infractions you will receive. For example, if you post a topic twice, you will receive one infraction for the duplicate; if you post a topic 5 times, you will receive 4 infractions. If you feel it absolutely necessary or important to cross-post for some reason, please contact the staff in advance of posting, so that the request can be reviewed.

Administrative

Marking PAFOA email as spam (320 points, Never expires)
Unfortunately spam complaints against email sent by PAFOA can cause deliverability problems for emails to all users. As such we cannot accept users who mark our email as spam. If you mark PAFOA email as spam you will be issued an infraction that bans you until we can work with you to resolve the problem. Additionally we will delete all of your thread subscriptions and disable all settings that cause the system to send you email. Lastly, if you want to have your account reactivated and receive emails again, we will have to provide reasonable proof to our email provider to allow us to send to you again. Please note that the purpose of this infraction is not to punish or ban you, it is simply to disable your account until we can work out all of the problems caused by marking our email as spam. To read a full discussion of this issue, please see http://forum.pafoa.org/forum-announc...mail-spam.html