The Catholic Community Forum Acceptable Use Policy
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Although the administrators and moderators of Catholic Community Forum will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this site, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of Catholic Community Forum, nor vBulletin Solutions, Inc. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.
As this is a Catholic web site, we expect members to conduct themselves in the Christian virtue of charity at all times. While discussions here revolve mainly around the Catholic Church and Her teachings, we welcome members of any faith or lack thereof, but we expect all members to conduct themselves with respect for everyone else here. We have set out these rules as a guideline for member conduct in the interest of maintaining our spirit of Christian charity:
The user agrees to the following terms
1. No blasphemy against Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother, the saints or the Church will be tolerated. Slanderous, libelous and calumnous remarks about current or past Church figures will not be tolerated. Any accusations against current public Church figures must be verifiable and backed up with references. Accusations against private individuals that have never been reported in the public record will be immediately removed.
2. All information that you provide to us for your membership is correct. You must use a valid email address at which we may contact you under the terms of our privacy policy should the need arise.
3. You will not use your membership to harrass or exploit other members in any way. No mockery, insults, ridicule, threats, ethnic slurs, excessive sarcasm, etc. Do not slander other posters or denigrate their character. Do not impersonate another poster.
4. Personal attacks on other members are not allowed. Restrict your comments to the words the other members post, not to the member himself. You can say you do not believe someone else's facts are true, but you cannot call that same someone a liar. You are entitled to respectfully disagree but not to insult, demean or harrangue another member.
5. Vulgar, Abusive, Racist, and Sexist Language will not be tolerated. No obscenity, profanity, vulgarity, pornography, or links to same.
6. No mass posting or flooding of the boards is allowed. Off-topic posting is not allowed. Cross posting in general is not allowed. Choose the best forum for your topic and post it there only. Moderators will delete duplicate posts and move posts to the most appropriate topic. Every effort will be made to explain and link to the moved posts from their original location.
7. Please be honest about who you are and why you are posting. For example, do not represent yourself as an open minded seeker of knowledge, asking questions about the faith and doctrine of the Church, when in fact you are here to debate apologetics. Please know that we've been at this for years and we can usually recognize non-Catholic apologists, even when they aren't up front about themselves. Trust us, you aren't the first to visit here. Likewise, do not represent yourself as a faithful Catholic if you are not. (Any time someone leads off with "I was raised Catholic and I attended Catholic schools for 12 years and and I go to church every Sunday...etc." you know there is a big BUT coming.) Please say up front if you're a traditionalist and it's germain to your posts on the Liturgy. These are just examples, we're sure you get the gist of our intent. Any member who has a title in his username or signature, such as Fr., Sr., Rev., Bro., Brother, Deacon, etc. please explain the title and be explicit about whether it is a Catholic title or a non-Catholic one.
8. While remaining open, we hope to provide those looking for a refuge from attack and dissent to come to discuss Catholicism in peace with like-minded Catholics without being ridiculed or rebuked. In the interest of providing better organization and more friendly Catholic exchange we segregate posts containing debate or dissent to their own forums. Views in opposition to the Magisterial teaching of the Roman Catholic Church based on the current standard 1997 Catechism and Papal writings up to the present day including Vatican II and beyond are allowed only in the appropriate Forum labeled "Debate - ". Such posts in other forums will be moved or deleted at the moderator's discretion. People who oppose the Church, her teachings, pope, etc. are free to post in the appropriate Debate forum. All such posts will get at least one reasoned response based on Church teaching so that anyone interested in a topic or who may be looking for the Catholic answer can discover what it is. By including the Debate topics for those who wish to enter we'll all be better armed when we meet the opposing viewpoint in the real world. Way too many people leave the faith based on a misconception. Answering the people who use those misconceptions with the Truth will help save souls - we know it has right here - and we won't remove that possibility. Our prayer is that we have provided this possibility without alienating those who don't wish to get involved in debate or read dissenting views.
9. The forum called "Limbo" is for any threads that are seriously off-topic, have degenerated into same or are mainly revolving around matters personal to the parties involved. This is a spot for discussion to take place that most members and guests would ostensibly have no interest in, presuming they're here because this is a Catholic Web site. This is not to say the topics discussed here are de-facto not interesting, they're just, shall we say, "ecclectic" given that this is a Roman Cathoic web site. Again, rules violations and mean-spiritedness will not be allowed.
10.The forums are intended to foster open and public communication for the sanctification and edification of both participants and readers. While members may choose to engage in an exchange in private messages or email, this must be a MUTUAL choice. The use of our system to send unwelcome or inappropriate private messages or emails to members is prohibited. The use of our membership as a source for "leads" for any purpose is strictly prohibited, in other words, you may not use our system to PM or email other members because their use of this forum makes them an attractive 'prospect' for your purposes. We are particularly concerned with the use of our system to contact members in private in order to lead them away from the true teachings of the Catholic Church without opening your arguments to the scrutiny and wisdom of the community as a whole. As faithful Catholics whose goal is to lead souls to the Church and strengthen the faith of Her members we cannot in good conscience overlook this activity. Infractions in the above cases may result in loss of membership or other disciplinary action. Please report any such abuse to a Moderator or Administrator immediately, forwarding the PM or Email if possible.
11. Finally, like a police officer, a moderator is inherently due a degree of respect for their position of authority as long as they do not abuse it. I have given the moderators additional authority to remove posts that impugn their integrity and remove members who refuse to follow the rules and heed their instructions and warnings. If a member feels that a moderator has abused their position I ask that you please write to the administrator directly rather than make an issue of it in a forum.
By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.
The site administrator of Catholic Community Forum reserves the right to change the terms and conditions of the user agreement without prior notice to the user. It is the responsibility of the user to regularly review the terms of this agreement.
The site administrator of Catholic Community Forum reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.
The site administrator of Catholic Community Forum reserve the right to ban, suspend, limit or remove any member account for any reason.
