Effective 05/05/2005

We believe that everyone has the right to a positive experience in this community.
Please read this agreement before using the ARCO boards.
By using this site you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.

THE RULES:

SECTION 1: Inappropriate conduct and messages not tolerated.

ARCO, embraces and welcomes individuals of all races, religions, genders, sexual orientations, and disabilities. Posting of any material, which is defamatory, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, outright inflammatory, or otherwise in violation of ANY law is prohibited. Hate messages will not be tolerated in any manner or form on the forum. This includes, but is not limited to messages regarding race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. ARCO is about respect for others as much as it is about allowing users to voice their opinions.

Any content that advocates violence or contains pornography are also not appropriate on this site. ARCO reserves the right to make final decisions regarding the handling of the content or user in question in any of the matters outlined in this section.

We do recognize that there are situations when users may have a disagreement of opinion that may be “heated”, we just ask that you keep it indoors (an argument can be solved easily by pm)

SECTION 2: Spam and Solicitation not allowed.

Commercial spam, post/message flooding, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations by the users are also inappropriate to this forum. Posts with such content will be removed from the site. Please do not come to ARCO for the sole purpose of posting about a website/product/event/etc. We offer the ability for users to submit such items to our advertising board (only veggie/animal related advertising is allowed). The determination of what constitutes a violation of this rule will be at the sole discretion of ARCO.

ARCO make every effort to avoid mass email and solicitations of an inappropriate or unwelcome nature, but reserves the right to notify users via email regarding forum business (this by sending a monthly newsletter). Additionally as ARCO is operated and funded solely by unpaid volunteers, we do reserve the right to offer an option to our users to donate to the operating funds of the forum (i.e. hosting, software, etc.) and/or offer veg*n related products for which some of the proceeds are received by ARCO. Any proceeds received in this manner will only be utilized to defray the costs of running the site. All efforts to that end will be made by ARCO to make these options are available in an unobtrusive manner.

SECTION 3: Protect personal information.

Posting of any information that is considered a personal identifier is prohibited (complete address information, phone numbers, or social security numbers). This policy is for the protection of our users. If you decide that you would like to share your own personal information with another user please utilize the pm option to exchange that type of information. ARCO is not responsible for personal information given out voluntarily by any user of our forums, messaging, and any other public areas. It is your sole responsibility to maintain personal privacy while visiting this community.

SECTION 4: We take the protection of minors very seriously – unbecoming or illegal conduct will not be tolerated.

There is a strict policy on the ARCO site regarding minors. Any infraction of the following rules will be taken seriously and forwarded to the appropriate authorities. No one under 13 is allowed to utilize this website. We comply with COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). The administrators and moderators have the authorization and duty to review any content that they feel may be in violation of the rules pertaining to minors or harassment in general. We ask that VP minors immediately report any activity/conduct towards them that they feel may be inappropriate or suspicious in nature to a moderator or administrator directly.

SECTION 5: Respect copyright protection laws.

The use of copyrighted material that either you do not own the copyright or have received specific permission from the owner of the copyright is prohibited. This includes content of posts, avatars, and profile information. When in doubt, post a link and a short quote instead of source material in message posts. Please see the FAQ section for further clarification.

SECTION 6: Privacy Policy

While we respect your privacy, we reserve the right to moderate the site in order to enforce the Terms of Service. This can include reviewing, editing, moving or removing posts, attachments, or "private messages". Additionally, we reserve the right to ban any users that are in violation of these terms of service.

All the views expressed and messages posted in the ARCO forums are those of the individual users. Opinions expressed by users of this forum are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the owners and management.

SECTION 7: Use of information found on this site.

You shall make your own judgments and evaluations of any information provided to you at the ARCO site. You assume full responsibility and liability for all personal decisions you make regarding any information you obtain.

SECTION 8: Linking to other sites is allowed, but there are restrictions.

Posting links or URL references to other sites is allowed as long as the site isn't in violation of any laws or any of the other rules of ARCO (i.e. commercial spam, donation requests, pornography, contains personal information, etc.).

Users may include URLs in their personal profile. But again, these need to be in accordance with the rules of this site regarding links.

VIOLATIONS:

Actions that may be taken upon infringement of these Terms of Service by a user:

Moderators or Administrators may edit, move or delete any content that is in violation of the Terms of Service.
The Board Moderator may ban the user from the board for a certain amount of time, or permanently.

The user may be banned from the site for a certain amount of time, or permanently.

If the infraction involves inappropriate content or actions regarding minors, the authorities will be notified as appropriate, and the user will be permanently banned from the site.

If the infraction involves inappropriate use of the site for spamming, ARCO also reserves the right to notify the Internet Service Provider of the offender.

The Board Moderators and Administrators are instructed to moderate with a light touch, but they have the final word on any dispute regarding these Terms of Service. Our moderators and administrators have been given full authority to enforce these terms of service.

THE CODE:

The Code describes the basic etiquette expected on this site when posting.

1. This is a site run by Animal Rights Activists (who are vegetarian/vegan) for Animal Rights Activists (who are vegetarian/vegan). If you are not at least sympathetic to the Animal Rights/vegetarian/vegan philosophy, and you are not interested in learning more about it or meeting people who practice it, then please go elsewhere.

2. Please keep your posts on topic. The Board Moderator may move your posts if they are off-topic or the thread has strayed from the topic.

3. Threads may also be moved if it has been deemed that the discussion has become "heated or personal".

4. Please do not troll for flames, and please do not respond to trolls. The easiest way to make a troll go away is to ignore him/her.

5. On a related note, bashing of other veg*n/animal rights websites is not regarded as proper behavior. We all have the same goals - can't we all just get along?

6. Swearing is generally frowned upon. We realize that the Internet is like the wild west, but we'd like to consider ourselves an oasis of civility. Use your imagination instead.

7. In general, please be respectful of others, use the golden rule, use your common sense, and take the high road.

8. When posting a link, it is generally considered polite to give a brief summary (beyond the subject line) of what the link contains, and whether it requires any special media players (such as Flash or Quicktime).

9. Please be sensitive to the belief systems of other members.

10. If you are posting a message for only one person, it may be better to send a private message to that person.

11. In general, before posting a breaking piece of news or asking a question, you may want to use the search option to see if it has already been posted and/or answered.

12. Before posting some alarming piece of news, you may want to check whether it is an urban legend. Snopes is a great resource for this.

13. Please refrain from using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS - it is the equivalent of shouting.

14. Be kind to newbies. Message boards can be intimidating to a new user. Better to give the benefit of the doubt.

15. It is bad form to steal the posts of others and repost them under your name on this or any other forum.

16. When revealing the plot or ending of a new movie, book, etc, it is good form to put something like **spoiler** in your subject line.

18. We ask that users refrain from attempting to drive up their post count by:

- double posting (please edit your original post rather than replying to it)
- one-word posts
- nonsense posts
we understand that these may be appropriate in certain circumstances. the key phrase here is "attempting to drive up your post count". Flooding the board for the purpose of increasing one's post count may be actionable in certain cases. It interferes with your fellow users' enjoyment of the forum. Flagrant and continuous instances of this behavior will not be tolerated.

19. If you use this board regularly and feel that it has enriched your life, please consider making a donation on a regular basis. PM the administrator for questions on how to make donations

We hope that you still feel welcome after reading the rules and code of this board.
Please enjoy your stay here!