Animal Emancipation Forum is a place for people concerned about the rights of animals. It is an abolishionist site – we want to see the end to all animal exploitation.

Terms of Service/The Rules

There are only 10 rules of which you should be mindful, but the most important rule is: behave yourself. If you are not sure how to behave yourself in civil society, it is not our job to couch you and ask you thoughtfully about your childhood and how you feel about it. We will simply ban you, shake our heads, and then move on.

The typical moderation process here is as follows. A minor first offense nets you a warning. A second minor offense nets you a temporary ban (length to be determined) or possibly a permanent ban. Unless there are serious, extenuating circumstances, a pattern of problematic behavior implied by a third minor offense in a short period of time will probably result in a permanent ban. We reserve the right to determine what qualifies as a first, second and third offense, which acts are minor offenses, which are major, and which are not an offense at all. We also reserve the right to adjust these rules and their punishments in any way we deem fit at any time, or to ban immediately any user in violation of the terms of service or otherwise as we see fit.

Typically, however, offenses are addressed with the least moderation possible with an eye to how long a user has been a member, the seriousness of the offense(s), the nature of the offense(s), the time between offenses (if there has been more than one) and the user’s positive behaviour on the board. Moderation uses a very plain reading of the rules and moderations are conducted on a basis that emphasizes both legal formalism and an outcome that corrects behaviour, not purely to punish people (most of the time). The outcomes of all moderation decisions that involve a major rule violation or a decision to ban a user will be published to a locked thread on the forum. In short, on this board, the rules are the rules, and they are not optional, even if the moderation staff decides to exercise leniency in extraordinarily limited instances.

MINOR RULES

Rule One. Avoid ad hominem arguments, personal attacks and other insults.
Try to remember that the people on this board are your colleagues. Not only do personal attacks, ad hominems and insults make your argument look weak, it disrupts the community feel of any discussion board when users have a flame war. Do not complain passive aggressively with thinly veiled insults in other threads, either. If you are not getting enough attention or you need anger management therapy, do the world a favor and solve it off the Internet.

Rule Two. Avoid derailing threads with off-topic posts.
That does not mean you cannot explore the topic in greater detail with unpredicted nuances. It means that if we sense that you are being disruptive intentionally to the discussion, we will address it directly.

Rule Three. Write your posts like an adult, even if you are not one.
This board is for mature discussion of mature ideas by mature advocates (pattern?). We have low tolerance in general for idiocy, and even less for IM spk, coloured text, and other indications of a desire to return to the womb.

Rule Four. Even if the discussion becomes heated, remain courteous.
In fact, there is no penalty at all for going out of your way to ensure that others understand that you are trying to engage them in a polite discussion by reaffirming your good faith. Also, be aware that any other user can request your ban at any time just because you rub him or her the wrong way. We take these requests seriously. The longer the member has been a member, typically, the more seriously we take the request. Being nice is nice, and we expect courteous treatment of all users, not just the staff.

Rule Five. No advertising, please.
You can post a link to your blog/project/podcast/etc., in your signature or the appropriate thread. Do not start threads devoted to advertising yourself, your business, etc. If you are solely here to advertise, social network, or otherwise use this community as a means to your economic ends, we will probably close your account.

MAJOR RULES

Rule Six. Remember, this is an abolitionist animal rights board.
Although the debate between a position backed by historical data and well-reasoned arguments (the abolition animal rights position) and positions that lack both (regulationism/welfarism/new welfarism/etc. however they are identified) may be educational for the undecided, there are plenty of forums where this debate is already commonplace. This board is strictly for abolitionist animal rights advocates to discuss creative, nonviolent abolitionist vegan work and ideas. Posts that promote non-abolitionist activism or ideologies will result in an immediate and permanent ban. This forum adheres very closely to the Six Principle of the Animal Rights Position.

Rule Seven. No one wants to know about your illegal doings.
Keep any admission, discussion or promotion of any criminal acts off this board. You may also not promote the serious illegal acts you have committed, that friends have committed, that you are going to commit, that organizations you admire have committed, etc. If you wish to discuss or promote illegal activity openly on the Internet, that is entirely your prerogative, just not on this board. There are plenty of forums where illegal activity may be discussed.

Rule Eight. No one wants to read about your bigotry.
If you are a sexist, a heterosexist, a classist, a racist, a speciesist or any other walking example of irrational prejudice, we might wonder how you also got to be vegan, but you should expect an immediate and permanent ban. If we do not ban you immediately, it is probably so that we can keep you around as a moral example to others until we tire of ridiculing your views (very loose use of the word). Very infrequently, we may take it upon ourselves, in our benevolent nature, to educate you about why these things are wrong, but education on this board is a privilege, not a right.

Rule Nine. Do not argue with, complain about or otherwise antagonize the moderation staff.
All moderation decisions are carefully weighed and discussed, often at length. All moderation labor is volunteer. Your input on any decision of moderation is not required, invited or otherwise encouraged. Giving a moderator lip, arguing with an official PM or a post from a moderator, or disregarding a note that repersents a formal act of moderation, trying to be clever, etc., is likely to result in an immediate ban. We reserve the sole right to determine what meets the criteria of antagonizing the staff and we enforce this rule without the slightest hint of mercy.

Rule Ten. No douches.
It bears repeating: if you join and decide to act like a douche, even if you are not breaking the letter of any of the rules above, even if you are not entirely cognizant of the fact that you are behaving like a douche, you should expect moderation, and failing successful change in your behavior, a ban. Any harassment of another user on or off the board, anything that resemembles harassment of another user on or off the board, attention getting behaviour, drama or other antics, complaining about the forum or other users on or off this board will almost certainly result in an immediate ban.

STILL WANT TO JOIN?

In addition to the above, you agree not to provide false or misleading statements either in your registration or introduction or to register for multiple accounts. Doing so will may lead to a permanent and immediate ban. You also agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “animalemancipation.com” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP addresses of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions.

We also employ what we call “Moderator Remorse”. We may decide to close your account within the first 30 days of your membership just because we do not believe that you are a good fit for our community. Finally, unless there are extenuating circumstances, if you are not an active member of our community (1 post every 30 days or so), we reserve the right to close your account. This board is for active discussion on the part of advocates.

You agree that “animalemancipation.com” have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. We do our best to ensure and respect the privacy of this information, but you should treat anything you might post here as if it were public. We shall not be held responsible for any action that may lead to the data being compromised.

Please reread these terms and then read them again if you need to. No need to commit them to memory. There will be a rules page on the forum available for you to read should you be unclear. If you are uncertain about any part, please ask a question about it in your introductory thread.