Forum Terms of Service, Rules, and Regulations

See this forum for the rules that govern users engaging in discussions on this website. Includes links to the Ohioans For Concealed Carry privacy policy.

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Daniel
OFCC Coordinator
OFCC Coordinator
Posts: 3375
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 1:07 am
Location: Sheffield Village, OH

Forum Terms of Service, Rules, and Regulations

Post by Daniel »

Rules, Policies, Disclaimers, and Terms of Service
Amended 5/12/2010

Welcome to the Ohioans For Concealed Carry Forums! As a contributor to this forum, you will be seen as the likely candidate for, or current recipient of, an Ohio Concealed Handgun License. Your comments, statements, and behavior on this board impact and reflect upon all licensees and gun owners.

It is known that elected officials, state employees, news media personalities, and others are subscribed to this board for the purpose of learning who "we" are as a group. We are also aware of the fact that opponents of our cause monitor this forum daily. Keep this in mind when posting.

What you say today may be in the news next week, or be taken before a legislative committee hearing out of context. If what you have to say is of a critical nature, please send it to info@OhioCCW.org, or a moderator,instead of posting it to this board. We will tell you if the topic you were going to post would be detrimental to our cause. If you wouldn't pick up the phone and tell our opponents about it, don't post it to the forum until you give OFCC a chance to review and/or investigate.



Terms of Service

Please keep in mind that by registering and using our sites and services, you are agreeing that you have read, and will abide by, our Terms of Service.

We reserve the right to delete, remove, or edit content posted or published on our site. Be aware that if you violate our terms of service, OFCC staff may delete, remove or edit your messages. We will not edit forum posts simply for content, grammar, spelling, layout, or meaning, but reserve the right to edit for violations of the TOS, the inclusion of identifying personal information about others, technical problems, and other unforeseen complications.

All of the services we provide on these sites, we provide as a service, and grant you the privilege to use them. If you violate that privilege, either knowingly or unknowingly, we may contact you and ask you to stop. If you persist or become abusive, belligerent, or argumentative with an employee or volunteer staff, we reserve the right, at our discretion, to refuse service, limit or block your access to our website, have your account terminated, contact your Internet service provider, or take legal action.

Our volunteer moderators are doing their jobs and being abused is not part of the job. If you receive a warning about forum post, or find your post missing or edited, please think twice before you send a belligerent email.

While occasionally a moderator may inform a user about a violation, or post a general warning to a forum, photo gallery, or chat room, we have no policy guaranteeing that anyone will be warned about violations on their account, nor any specific number or type of violations that may result in action against their account.

If you have had your ability to log in, post to the forums, or upload to the site rescinded, or had posts or images removed, you may contact any moderator and appeal the action. Any public discussion of actions against a user's account will be removed, and we will not discuss any action against a user's account with anyone but that individual himself or herself.

Any individual who has had his or her account terminated for violations of our terms of service may NOT re-register in any format, under any circumstances. Attempting to circumvent this system by registering under the name of a friend, family member, or any form of alias, will cause the account to be immediately terminated. Anyone who knowingly assists someone in fraudulently obtaining an account will themselves be banned.

Considering the real-time nature of this forum, it is not feasible for us to review every message or confirm the validity of information posted. Please remember that we are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of Ohioans For Concealed Carry. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact a moderator immediately by email or PM. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine, at our sole discretion, that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, so please realize that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.

Users and members of the forum, to include those persons who are not registered members (i.e. persons merely browsing the forum), agree to hold Ohioans For Concealed Carry, its members and staff harmless for the content of any post. Further, users and members agree that the responsibility for the content of any post is directly the responsibility of the person who made the post and not in any way the responsibility of Ohioans For Concealed Carry, its staff, or members.

Ohioans for Concealed Carry provides a Classifieds section in the forum for public use. OFCC takes no responsibility for the truth or accuracy of these listings, or the quality, safety, or legality of any items offered; and we are not involved in the actual transactions between parties. Any sales or trade agreements reached through use of this forum are the responsibility of the parties involved. Ohioans For Concealed Carry will not mediate or arbitrate any dispute, monetary or otherwise, between forum users in this or any other section.

You agree, through your use of the OhioCCW Forums or mere viewing of its contents, that you will not use the Forum, or its resources to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or that otherwise violates any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by the Forum.



Forum Rules

• No abusive posts -- these include attacks against individuals, their opinions, their statements, or attacks against OFCC -- if you have a complaint against the way something is done or a decision that was stated, please raise it with a moderator. This rule is primarily for those controversial discussions where forum members tend to attack each other (what is commonly referred to as “flaming” or a “flame war). Such posts will not be tolerated once noticed by the moderators or once brought to our attention.

• This is a family-oriented forum. It is the property of Ohioans For Concealed Carry. Any user who becomes disruptive or a distraction to the forum community may be removed or have his/her posts edited. We at OFCC believe in the entire constitution and are not fans of censorship. However, from time to time, posts may be deemed to be inappropriate for the forum for reasons detailed in this Terms of Service document and will be subject to editing or removal.

• This is a moderated forum. Any posts found to be in violation of these Terms of Service, in poor taste, condoning or admitting to illegal activity, off-topic posts or for any other reason deemed necessary by the moderators may be edited or removed. You may appeal the decision to edit or remove your post to any moderator, at which time the matter will be reviewed by the entire moderating staff. After appeal, the decision of the majority of the moderators is final. Any user who attempts to plead his/her case on the forum in any way, including new posts, personal emails or private messages to non-moderators, referencing the issue using avatars or signature lines, or any other communications regarding the issue may be subject to having their account suspended or removed. Reposting a deleted or edited post, or referring to a deleted post in another thread is not permitted. Removing or altering a moderator's edit is not permitted. Editing your own post in such a way as to make it appear that it was edited by a moderator is not permitted.

• If a user has had their account suspended or terminated, you will not be permitted to post statements attacking or defending the disciplined person or discuss the reasons why they were banned. Those reasons are between that person and the forums staff.

• No advertisements, including: no training advertisements, no businesses, no advertisements of other organizations regardless of their connection to Concealed Carry, except as noted below. While this is not intended to stifle conversation about "XYZ's self-defense training" it is intended to strictly prohibit blatant or regular advertisements. This is not a commercial advertisement arena, but legitimate discussions about products and services related to CCW are encouraged in moderation. We will, however, permit a short plug or link for your business or organization in your signature line. You may also use an avatar with a logo of your business or organization provided it is tasteful, complies with the forum rules for image size, and is a business or organization related to the firearms industry. It is at OFCC’s sole discretion if sig lines or avatars are in compliance with this rule. We have also recently added a separate subforum where limited commercial advertisements will be permitted provide the rules posted in that forum are followed.

• No "document dumping" - Do not forward complete/fractional stories from other mailing list, other news sources, websites, etc. You MAY post a URL pointing to a story but you MUST include a brief description of the link and what someone will find if they go there. That description MUST include the relevance to concealed carry and the State of Ohio. If you post just a URL and something in the subject, it will be deleted. Include details or don't post the URL.

• Constant negative contributions -- If you are a chronic negative contributor, you will be asked to reconsider posting to the list. If you are not happy with Ohio's concealed handgun license law you are entitled to your opinion. However, you are among friends who in many ways feel just like you. Ohioans For Concealed Carry exists to reform the law, and we will not tolerate people who constantly complain about the law, regularly post to antagonize other individuals, or contribute to a negative/hostile environment.

• Posts containing vulgarities, nudity, partial nudity, or other obscene material or adult content are not permitted.

• Posted images may not depict graphic content such as, but not limited to, dead bodies, surgeries, severed limbs, excessive amounts of blood or other bodily fluids or emissions. Such images, used in a bona fide educational manner, may be linked to (displayed on another site) provided forum users are given notice as to the nature of the image. Images under this paragraph that are removed may be reposted as a link in accordance with the section.

• Repetitive messages, cross-posting, flooding, spamming, etc. is not permitted.

• Messages devoid of content, or containing very little content not contributing to the discussion (“me too”, “who cares”, “IBTL”, etc.) may be found to be in violation and removed.

• Messages exhorting others to commit illegal acts or describing illegal acts you’ve committed or intend to commit are expressly forbidden. This does not apply to relating instances directly related to concealed carry such as traffic violations or any other contact with law enforcement directly pertaining to firearms provided it is presented in an educational manner and is not exhorting others to commit similar acts.

• Do not post partial or unclear subjects for posts (such as "Help", "I have a question", "This is weird", etc.) or questions that are split between the subject field and the body. This does not give enough information to the people who are reading the forums. The subject line of every post should fully disclose the author's intention. By following this request, everyone will have a better idea of what is being discussed in a specific thread without having to open it, and that is the true purpose of the subject field.

• Messages that are deceptive or misleading as to their true nature, whether or not the deception is intentional, are not permitted.

• DoS attacks, hacking, flooding, and all other related computer crimes will be dealt with immediately and in fullest cooperation with local and federal law enforcement. Also, posting copyrighted software, music, etc. is forbidden.

• Hate speech is not permitted. Criticism is not hate speech, but inflammatory comments directed at a particular ethnic group, sexual orientation, religion, etc. are unacceptable.

• Messages containing public or private contact information are not allowed. We are aware that most of this information can be found online or a phone book - however, posts containing email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, credit card numbers, etc. are generally not allowed. An exception to this is any public contact information for a public official or government office.

• Every person is entitled to a single account on these forums unless that privilege has been revoked or denied due to violation of these rules. Creating a duplicate user, or more than one identity, is strictly prohibited and is means for being banned permanently from these forums without warning. If we conclude that we have reasonable cause to suspect a duplicate user exists we will terminate all accounts associated with the abuse at our discretion You may ask us to reconsider if you can prove to us that we've made a mistake. Repeat violations will be reported to the ISP and/or network/company/employer where the abuse originates.

• Ohioans For Concealed Carry reserves the right to disallow any topic from being discussed if, in the opinion of OFCC staff, discussion of the topic would reveal internal strategy or in any way harm legislative efforts to reform the concealed handgun laws in Ohio.

• Not all users of the forum have high-speed connections, or enjoy being distracted or slowed down by graphics intensive posts. With this in mind, the following guidelines apply to all images posted. Avatars are to be no larger than 128 x 128 pixels at no higher the 100 dpi. No avatar image may be larger than 50K. Animated avatars are not permitted. No images are permitted in signature lines. No image may be posted that is larger than 640 x 480 pixels at no higher than 200 dpi. No image may be larger than 300K. Any image larger than this size may be linked to (displayed on another site) using a text link or a smaller image (thumbnail) for display on this forum.

• Any user listing, trading, or purchasing items are expected to abide by all Federal, State, and Local laws governing the offering, transfer, ownership and sale of firearms. It is the obligation of the user to know the law regarding such a sale, and to abide by the law as set forth. It is critical that users of the OhioCCW Forums use our service in a legal manner, consistent with standards of good citizenship. Any user found to be breaking laws in the use of our system will be expelled, and the proper authorities notified. OFCC will cooperate with law enforcement in the prosecution of any individual suspected of breaking violating firearms law.

• Listing items for sale or trade which are illegal in the State of Ohio or the seller’s state is prohibited. Purchasing or trading for items with are illegal in the buyer’s state is prohibited. Ohioans For Concealed Carry may edit or remove any item it, in its sole and final discretion finds illegal, in violation of these terms and conditions, inappropriate, offensive, misleading, fraudulent, in poor taste or for any other reason.

• Failing to sell, trade, or purchase an item in an agreed to transaction may be grounds for your account on the forums being terminated.

• Any discussions directly relating to or debating religious topics are prohibited. These types of discussions have a track record of quickly becoming contentious and rarely contribute anything positive to this board. Your religious beliefs and opinions are your own, and they should stay that way here.

• Moderators of this forum reserve the right to make exceptions to any of these rules if deemed to be in the best interest of OFCC or the forum community. Moderators may also decide to remove or edit a post for any reason not listed here if deemed to be in the best interest of OFCC or the forum community.

• Forum users have the ability to report a post for moderator review using the button located in the header of the post. Posts are only to be reported that are clearly in violation of the forum rules, not because they may contain inaccurate information or statements you disagree with. This system is also not for making suggestions to the moderators.

• These rules, regulations, and terms of service are retroactive. Ohioans For Concealed Carry reserves the right to edit or change these rules, regulations and terms of service at any time. Any changes may be designated as retroactive. Posts found retroactively in violation will be subject to editing or removal without any further action taken against the poster for said posts.
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