The Thom Hartmann Program Message Board Forums, Chat Rooms and Member Blogs Rules:

Website: thomhartmann.com

The Message Boards, Chat Rooms and Member Blogs are communities designated as safe places for people to come and discuss topics. While all variety of opinions are welcome here, people who make others feel unsafe in the message boards, chat room or member blogs in the following ways (or others, at the discretion of the owners and managers of the message boards, chat rooms and member blogs) may be evicted and banned.

1. Abusive Posting: Ad Hominem attacks, death threats, racism, anti-Semitism, and trolling are all prohibited and can result in a ban.

2. Altering Quotations: Do not alter the wording or make it appear as though another member had said something which they did not.

3. Anti-Semitism/racism: This creates a hostile environment contrary to the purposes of community and a welcoming forum environment.

4. Flooding and Stomping in the Message Boards, Chat Rooms and Member Blogs: Flooding the message boards, chat rooms or message blogs with disagreeable posts that serve to dominate, intimidate and prevent others from posting or chatting diminish user's sense of a safe community. We reserve the right to remove any duplicates at our discretion, and to request that no more duplicates or similar messages are posted.

5. Banned User Procedure: A member who has been banned may email the Forum Moderator or Webmaster to apologize, to appeal the decision or to clarify. Once a Forum Moderator or Webmaster has taken action, he/she will decide to reinstate or not.

6. Contempt of Site: This is a private community, and people who show contempt for it should and can find a different community with which to interact.

7. Personal Information: Do not post personal telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, street addresses, or mailing addresses of anyone but yourself (and we recommend you don't post your own personal information) or by expressed permission of the person whose information you are posting. If the information is posted with the intent to harass or intimidate, flood their mailbox or solicit harassment in any way, then a ban will result.

8. Trolling: Trolling is to deliberately post derogatory or inflammatory comments in order to bait other guests into angrily responding. They may also focus on changing the subject or diluting the discussion with content-poor posts, or focus on only one topic and point of view whatever the discussion. The troll has no intention of taking part in discussions, save to try and ruin the quality of the community for others. Trolls may also adopt sock puppets - alternative identities - to further their aims. Trolls will be banned.

9. Spamming and advertising: Members are to use their accounts for personal, non-commercial interests and discussions. Any commercial business, who allows a member to post a commercial message on their behalf anywhere on the website, whether posted directly by the business or by any third party, either manually or using a software system, is fully responsible for any such message. All such commercial messages will be deleted and the member’s user account will be blocked. The commercial business will receive an invoice to the value $1,000 (one thousand dollars) for each individual posting and is responsible for settlement of the invoice within seven working days, to prevent legal action for recovery, legal fees and damages.

10. Copying from the website: Content from this website may not be posted, except by its original poster to the website, to other venues on the Internet without the explicit written permission of the owners of this website.

11. Copyright and Plagiarism: Posting copyright material without permission of the copyright holder is not permitted.

CONTACTING MODERATORS
You are encouraged to work out problems among yourselves wherever possible. You can contact moderators in privacy by clicking on the "report this post" button to the right of the edit and delete buttons. All reports are read, and action taken where necessary.

CONTENT NOTICE
By viewing the site content, you agree that all content on the Thom Hartmann Message Boards, Chat Rooms and Member Blogs and is the responsibility of the person from which the content originated. You agree that neither the Message Boards, Chat Room or Member Blogs nor its sponsors or affiliates are responsible for any content that you personally post or upload. The Message Boards, Chat Room and Member Blogs does not directly control any content posted on the boards, and does not guarantee the truthfulness or quality of any content. You agree that while using the Message Boards, Chat Room or Member Blogs, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable, and that you will in no way hold The Message Boards, Chat Room or Member Blogs nor its sponsors or affiliates liable in any way, shape, or form for any harm or loss that may come to you or others as a result of viewing this content. The Message Boards, Chat Room or Member Blogs are not responsible for screening content before it is posted, although an offensive language filter is installed on the system that will reject certain posts that may contain certain words deemed offensive or used most often in an offensive way.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER:
Users are legally responsible and liable for the content of their posts. Additionally, The Thom Hartmann Program, employees, and moderators will be held harmless against any and all claims resulting from the use of the Message Boards, Chat Rooms and Member Blogs.

About Future Rule Revisions
These rules may be amended in the future if necessary. It is your responsibility to check the rules section to stay informed of any changes.