New Member Introductions

Application

These Rules apply to:

• any message you post publicly on the forum
• any Personal Message (PM) you send to another member
• any Email you send to another member via this forum’s software
• your membership of this forum and your entitlement to access all or any part thereof

Preliminary matters:
This is a private forum. If you wish to participate, you are required to abide by these Rules.

Your liability regarding content
You are solely responsible for the content of your messages. By becoming a member of this forum you agree to indemnify and hold all other members of the forum and the forum Administrator harmless with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).

We recommend that you do not post personal real life information such as age, home addresses and home phone numbers.

The AusAqua Team
The Administrator is Bettarazzi. The moderators are Shadoh and Neffy.

Section 1: Summary of the Rules

The Rules are summarized here in Section 1.

Additional details relating to each Rule are provided in Section 4.

Respect for others:

• Defamatory content must not be posted
• Offensive content must not be posted (we expand on what is offensive in Section 4)
• Flaming of other members is not permitted
• Privacy of other members must be respected
• You must not post any content that breaches copyright
• You must not make posts that involve bandwidth theft (we explain what bandwidth theft is in Section 4)
• You must not make posts that knowingly involve, promote or encourage trade in illegal/noxious items

Respect for the forum itself, as a resource

• Posts must be made in the forum to which they properly relate
• Cross-posting is prohibited (we explain cross-posting in Section 4)
• Use the Search facility before posting to avoid duplication and repetition
• Commercial posts must not be made without prior written consent of the Administrator

Respect for the AusAqua Team, who do not have time to micro-manage the forum

• You may only create one account
• Trolling and SPAM are prohibited
• Posts questioning or criticising decisions or conduct of the AusAqua Team are rude. Private enquiries regarding such matters, however, are welcome.

Section 2 : Ramifications for breach of the Rules:

If material is posted in breach of the Rules set out above, any one or more of the following may result:

• The post may be edited or deleted without reference to you
• The entire thread may be deleted without reference to you
• The author of the post may be sent a warning PM or Email
• On the 3rd warning, a member in breach of the Rules may be banned
• The author might be immediately banned (at the discretion of the Administrator)

Section 3: Copyright in content posted here

This forum is designed to be a free resource available to all interested hobbyists. All content posted here is therefore granted to AusAqua.net with perpetual electronic publishing rights.

Should you choose to no longer participate in the forum, because content posted by you forms part of the resource AusAqua is designed to be, we will not delete it upon your departure.

You may ask the AusAqua Team to remove an item at any time, but we will decide when and if to remove it.

If you wish to no longer be identified with our community, we will at your request (or otherwise, should we deem it appropriate to do so) close your account and alter your account information to remove all identifying characteristics, including your profile, signature and username.

Section 4 – Details of the Rules

Defamatory content must not be posted

Material which is false or defamatory must not be posted. This includes information naming individuals, corporations and businesses which is critical of that individual, corporation or business. An example would be a post titled

"I HATE PetPotatoes stores, they are cruel and disgusting".

Defamatory posts expose all members to legal liability. They shall be removed at the complete discretion of the AusAqua Team.

Offensive content must not be posted

**Freedom of speech rights do not extend to privately owned websites, such as this one**.

This forum is read by a variety of age groups. Any profanity, racism, sexism, homophobia or other overly insulting messages breach this Rule and will be removed.

Abbreviations, self censoring and attempts to circumvent the word censoring feature of the forum software also violate this Rule.

Political and religious sentiments may also be removed without reference to you.

Flaming of other members is not permitted

From time to time, discussions may grow heated. This is to be expected, and reasoned, passionate debates are fine.

However, you are required to respect your fellow members and you must not engage in personal insults and attacks. The Australian fish community is a small one and we cannot afford factions, alienation and in-fighting. Many of us saw what this did to the betta community a few years ago and a zero tolerance approach shall be taken to this sort of behaviour to prevent anything like that happening again.

This Rule requires you to refrain from inflammatory/provocative comments, flaming, taunting and general disrespect. Uninvited remarks about typos, duplicate posts, or members etc should not be made unless you are familiar enough with the member involved to know it will be taken in good humour.

If something is written on this forum which you find offensive, before launching into a public condemnation, please consider that the person may not have intended to cause offence. It is very easy to misinterpret a post on forums. There is absolutely no need to resort to insults. There is a Report Post function that allows you to bring the content you have issues with to the attention of the AusAqua Team.

Privacy of other members must be respected

Respect other members’ right to privacy by not giving out information in your posts that may identify them.

Posting a person’s name, address, email address or other private details on this forum is regarded as a serious breach of this rule. Such posts shall be deleted and the Administrator reserves her rights regarding the ability of the poster to continue to access the forum.

Please do not forward someone else’s emails/PM’s, or paste their content into a post made publicly on this forum. Frankly, this is rude. Not only can it be a breach of trust, but the original writer usually didn't intend it to be read by anyone else except the recipient. Hence their language & expression may not be necessarily 'tuned' to public reading.

You must not post any content that breaches someone’s copyright

Do not post copyrighted materials (articles, videos, audio, etc.) that you do not have permission to reproduce. ***This includes Aquabid photographs***, which you MUST NOT post without the consent of the seller. We do not care if you have now bought the fish, if you plan to buy it, or if you just think it is awfully pretty. The photograph does not belong to you and you may not reproduce it without permission.

Posting entire text articles, even with an acknowledgement of the source, constitutes copyright infringement. You may quote small bits and pieces of the article and link to/provide the source. Ideally, just link to the source.

You must not make posts that involve bandwidth theft

Bandwidth theft is posting images with tags from servers that you do not have permission to link to. This practice costs the server owner money and resources. It is therefore not permitted here.

If you wish to post an image using tags, please link to photographs on a photo hosting site of your own, e.g. postimage.org.

If you link to photographs on another forum, not all members may be able to view your photos.

Posts must be made in the forum to which they properly relate

Don’t, for example, start threads about breeding in the Classifieds forum. This helps people who have an interest in a particular subject, (e.g. breeding, wild species) to easily find posts.

This Rule is especially important when it comes to the Gene Pool forum. That forum is designed to allow Australian hobbyists to not only log their spawns, but see at a glance what other fish are being bred out there so they may contact other breeders for networking and breeder exchange purposes. Starting a Gene Pool thread with a title like “Is he a bad father?” with questions about egg-eating male bettas will result in your post being moved, at best, or even deleted (if the poster is a serial offender).

If in doubt as to correct forum for your thread, then you may wish to say so in the post or use the “Report Post” function to ask the AusAqua Team, and we will move it if we think it is appropriate.

Cross-posting is prohibited

Please do NOT start the same topic in more than one forum. This causes confusion and as well as irritating members, it reduces the value of AAQ as a resource and will most likely reduce the chance of any meaningful reply.

We will delete duplicate topics.

Use the Search facility before posting to avoid duplication and repetition

Before you ask a question, please either review the sub-forum it logically would fall under (e.g., hatching bbs would be under the Spawn talk forum) or conduct a forum search before asking.

Some preliminary enquiries and searches on the forum more often than not will reveal that your question or comment may have already been discussed, answered, or resolved. Frequently there is a wealth of information out there that you can enjoy if you just take the time to look. It is rather insulting and inconsiderate of the other members to post a question that forces them to either duplicate information already provided, or conduct the search you could have done so as to provide a link to the information you would have located with a fairly minimal effort.

Links to other forums

Posting links on AAQ to other forums is permitted, however, we ask that you please conduct discussions here, rather than linking to another forum where discussion is being conducted, where possible.

You may only create one account

You may not create multiple personalities. Each user is allowed to create posts and send private messages from ONE username only. Doing so from more than one username, at any time and in any circumstance, is not allowed and you may have all usernames banned. Your IP address may also be blocked, in the case of serial offences or malicious and deliberate breach of this Rule.

If you simply want a new username, please contact the AusAqua Team and, most likely, one of us can do it for you while you can keep all of your profile data, posts and other content.

Commercial posts must not be made without prior written consent of the Administrator

We do not charge for advertising, but by the same token, do not deserve to be exploited by commercial entities that otherwise contribute nothing to the AAQ community but take advantage of free advertising. Therefore, before you make a commercial post, we require you to ask our permission first.

If you wish to make a commercial/business post:

1. Please send a Personal Message to a member of the AusAqua Team first detailing the general subject matter of the proposed post(s)
2. The AusAqua Team will discuss the matter and confirm that the posting of the proposed subject matter is appropriate.
3. We reserve the right to impose conditions on any approval given, including but not limited to any or all of the following
   (i) setting a maximum number of commercial posts per person/entity per day,
   (ii) you providing reciprocal exposure for AusAqua on your site/in your business,
   (iii) you making fact sheets (which we will provide to you) available to your customers regarding AusAqua, fish care, etc.
4. Any approval given by us for commercial posts may be modified or revoked at our absolute discretion.

If in doubt about whether your post is commercial in nature, send a Personal Message to one of the the AusAqua Team first to check.

We reserve the right to delete any commercial post that is made contrary to these rules without reference to you.

Members are not allowed to post an affiliate URL that leads to the member earning cash, banner impressions, click-thrus, etc.

Trolling and SPAM are prohibited

Spamming is where you post to the forum just to advertise your own or another website. Even if the other site isn't commercial, such posts constitute spam and they shall be removed. The reasonable way to let people know about your own website is to use the signature feature of the forums. The reasonable way to let people know about an internet resource is via a link in the Library.

A troll is a person who posts something which is bound to stir people up and then sits back and watches as dozens of people jump in and start arguing. A good example would be something like "Bettas can live for years in a buffalo footprint."

The AusAqua Team will delete posts that, in our the opinion, constitute trolling. If you see a message like this, please try and refrain from replying to it - it will more than likely soon be deleted anyway. Please use the Report Post function to alert us to possible troll activity.

Posts regarding trade in illegal/noxious items

The Administrator and the Moderators are not, and do not purport to be, experts in the allowable import list. Nor do they purport to know the minutiae of various state-based legislation regarding legal and illegal fish and plants.

It is a condition of your use of AAQ that you acknowledge and agree that AAQ will not be used for the sale/exchange/trade or attempted (illegal) importation of such items.

It is also a term and condition of your right to use this forum that you agree to indemnify the Administrator, Moderators and all other forum members should legal action be taken against any or all of us as a consequence of content you posted concerning such matters.

To the extent that we know something is in fact noxious or not a legal import, posts seeking to trade in such items will be locked with a public explanation, and they may also deleted at the moderators' discretion.

Posts questioning or criticising decisions or conduct of the AusAqua Team

Posts and threads which question administrative decisions, such as on thread removals and closures, are not appreciated and will be removed. If you have a problem with an issue relating to the moderation or administration of the forum, please make a complaint to one of us directly rather than publicly on the website.

We realise we are not perfect, and if you feel that we have made a mistake, let us know and we will be happy to review the situation.

Section 5 : Disclaimer

The AusAqua Team are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness, legality or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message.

All messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this forum or its members or any entity associated with it.

Any user who feels that information posted via this forum is objectionable is encouraged to report it via PM or email to one of the AusAqua Team. We will make every effort to remove objectionable public messages within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, and we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.

The AusAqua Team reserves the right to delete any message for any reason whatsoever, and we are not obliged to provide a reason for doing so.

The Administrator reserves the right to disclose your identity (or whatever information we know about you) in the event of a complaint or legal action (or any threat thereof) arising from any conduct by you regarding this forum, or any threat of legal action or otherwise against the Administrator.

The Administrator has the final say on anything arising on the forum.