Post by eve on May 23, 2009 15:20:12 GMT -5
The mission of this board, its goals and its rules;
*The purpose of this board is to promote community and education, understanding and fun. The moderating staff is here to assist you in this endeavor, and will make all possible attempts to make this a fun, relaxing and educational place for you. We need your help, by following some basic rules and common courtesy.
This forum is built around Carl Strohmeyer's extensive aquarium/pond keeping library that is constantly evolving & growing. No other library can make the claims of ongoing cited research and long term experience. As well when new facts come to light, Carl is quick to correct himself, which few other articles do.
*The basic reason that we are here is to share our experiences and pool our collective knowledge in order to help members and others to gain understanding of how to better take care of their tanks. Basically we're here to teach and help people gain sound knowledge about aquariums that they can use to get better results from their hobby.
We are also here to learn, as often we can learn from those who disagree with oneself, so keeping an open mind is essential to a quality forum, otherwise Everything Aquatic will not stand above the many forums that continue anecdotal or outdated ideas/research.
*All posts (including pictures) become the copyright of Everything Aquatic for the purpose to help others in the future; this includes re-posting in our Everything Aquatic blog or for use in disease diagnosis, fish identifications, or similar.
*All posts promoting an item, products, service, etc. that is for sale (this includes a link/URL to said product/service) will be removed and the person in question will be warned. This will be at moderator’s discretion; however common sense as to an appropriate URL reference should be exercised.
Coming here solely to promote a product, even disguised in friendly information posts is also not allowed and is viewed as spam; this is a popular method of spamming on the internet and is not tolerated at EA.
Obviously we will have members that work with organizations or work at a LFS, please simply exercise good judgment in adding links; adding such links in a signature is a good place to start.
Forum Etiquette and Behavior
This is to remind all users about forum etiquette and behavior here at EverythingAquatic.com. While we try to keep an open mind and we try to keep things lighthearted, we do need to stay in line with the agreement everyone agrees to when signing up here.
(1) As a general rule of thumb, treat others the way you want to be treated. If you are not familiar with a person and you are typing a response you feel is clever and spiteful, rethink your post. At best, follow it up with a smiley face. Moderators will delete these types of posts, we are here to help, not berate.
(2) Please respect that this is a forum for discussion of aquarium or pond keeping.
Asking questions in private messages defeats the purpose of having this forum board and PM questions directed at Mr. Strohmeyer in particular are disrespectful of his time and the reason he pays to keep this forum going out of his own pocket.
Please also read the section about Private Messaging for more.
(3) If you have an issue over our moderation techniques, you are more then welcome to send an administrator a private message. Please do not belittle or undermine others in a public forum, and keep in mind that all staff members are here on a volunteer basis, are not paid for their services.
They help out in their free time here, so please give them the respect they deserve for it.
(4) Members from Yahoo answers or Facebook Groups/Forums are more then welcome, many of us did answer at one time, and many still answer there. However, what happens there stays there. If you're a new member or an old member here at EA, it really doesn't matter, but any feuds going on over there, should be kept there, and not pulled into here.
(5) We reserve the right to alter any of the posts if it comes to an open fight.
Please treat everyone with respect at any given time.
(6) You will under no circumstances start or participate in a forum war or personal attack against another member. Ardent disagreements not directly related to the content of a given thread should be taken to PM.
(7) You will not maliciously attack, harass, degrade, slander, and/or stalk other members. If you feel someone is maliciously attacking, harassing, degrading, slandering or stalking you, immediately contact a moderator to attempt to resolve the issue.
Please understand the definitions of these terms. As an example, stating to someone, both directly and indirectly that their outcomes of product use or experience is bogus, IS degrading!
(8) Have thick skin. It's a big world out there and not everyone in the world is going to agree with you. Try not to be easily offended when someone disagrees with you or doesn't like your idea about something. It is fine to disagree, as long as you respectfully disagree.
This said, "talking over someone" is a "polite" way of being rude and/or condescending and is not a respectful way to disagree.
Example would be failing to answer another member's question or address a statement and continuing the conversation as though their points were never made.
(9) Let's respect all religious & political views.
While this forum is NOT meant to discuss religion or politics, it is invariable that one's religious views, politics, and philosophy might come out.
We welcome all faiths including:
*Christian
*Judaism
*Muslim/Islam
*Buddhist
*And all others
As well using derogatory terms to describe another's political views is NOT tolerated!
Bottom line is attacking other's faith or politics, especially in Ad Hominem attacks is NOT OK
Forum Policy
* ACCOUNTS: “No Incognitos”
Duplicate Accounts
You are only allowed to have one account on the board. Please do not register multiple accounts on the board and pretend to be someone you are not. Your real name is not required or necessary to participate. This behavior is abusive, childish, deceptive and simply a waste of time. IP addresses will be monitored and any duplicate will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned from the forum.
* POSTING: “Getting Started, Cause & Effect”
Start With A Clear Subject Line
Not everyone has time to read all forum postings. To ensure that your message reaches the right people at timely manner, identify your topic clearly in the subject line.
In Most Cases, Don't Post To A Specific Person
This is what a Private Messages (PM) is for. It clutters the boards, and most people find this annoying. Even though it's tempting to try to get some of the “regulars” to answer, don't do it. If they're hanging out (and they usually are), they probably will answer anyway.
If They Don't Reply, They Don't Know
If you post a question and no one responds, you shouldn't take it personally. If someone knows, they'll contribute. If they don't, they won't. There are some really valuable minds in this group, but they don't have the answers to all the problems.
* PRIVATE MESSAGES:
These are just this, private messages
Do not post questions that would normally go in the forum to a private message, this defeats the purpose of having a forum in in the first place.
In particular, please do not post questions such as disease questions or aquarium design/set-up questions to Carl or other Admins. His time is very limited and his time is much better spent in answering these questions where others can participate or at the very least other readers can at least benefit from the question and answers.
Due to the volume of persons who join the forum and then immediately abuse the PM feature, he no longer answers such private messages
* REPLY: “The Beauty Of Giving & Receiving”
Continue the Thread Whenever Possible
If you have a follow-up issue within a couple of days of an original post, try to keep it with the original. If someone is trying to help, they don't want to search through days of other posts to find the original discussion. Keeping everything in a single thread makes it easier for others to help.
Stay On Topic
Replies should be answers to the original question. Try not to create sub-conversations in a thread as it complicates reading and really doesn't belong in the thread. If you have a discussion topic that was generated from reading a thread, just start a new thread.
Trim Your Quoting
Include only as much context as is necessary of the message to which you are replying. Remember that if someone wants to read the original message, they can. Highlight only the text you want to quote copy (ctrl + c) or right click it and paste (ctrl + v) it in between the quote codes.
* ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: “The Motivational Tool”
Post a Follow-up with Your Results (or at least acknowledge the help)
If you take the time to post a question and someone takes the time to post a possible solution, PLEASE be kind enough to acknowledge the help AND post a follow-up to tell whether it worked or not. Many people use this board as a reference point, and it's very frustrating to find possible solutions with no hint as to what worked or not. Even if you've figured out the answer for yourself, please post the result as there are many who could benefit from your experience.
Also, since we have the karma system activated, show anyone that has helped you your thanks by exalting them. (Note: if you get caught abusing the system by constant exalting one member, but smiting another member, this privilege will be taken away from you)
* DEMEANOR: “Notion in Motion with Emotion”
If your Post/Topic Isn't Your Common Language, Let Us Know
Often, things can turn out misleading, offensive, disrespectful, and even downright confusing. Even telling us what your common language is, may help you get more replies.
No Thread Hijacking
Thread hijacking is the act of taking a thread discussion away from the original poster. Often a person may ask a question, and another person replies with a question. Then everyone ends up helping the wrong person. Please don't hijack your own thread, its worthless reading to those looking for a solution to the same problem..
Sometimes a discussion will invariably veer from its original intent, as a discussion may broaden, so please do not feel intimidated that his is a hard and fast rule. A moderator may simply move part of the discussion to a new thread for better clarity.
An example would be a water chemistry problem that deals with marine aquarium, but this gives rise to a related freshwater question. However let’s try and keep a discussion for instance about calcium in aquariums from veering into breeding Mollys.
No Trolling
What is a troll? It's 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. Sometimes trolls get their friends to join in or post under different names. Generally they will do anything it takes to get attention. If you see a message like this, please try and refrain from replying to it - it will be deleted as soon as possible.
No Power Posting
Power-posting is when board members post empty, or short useless messages in order to simply increase their number of posts more quickly. Examples of power-posting are replying to a message with only 'LOL' or 'I agree', but failing to contribute anything further to the discussion. Power posting clutters up the forums, clutters up the 'new posts' function, and uses extra bandwidth and server space. While we appreciate your desire to let us all know you agree with a poster, too many of these posts will cause them to be deleted!
* BE PATIENT: “Let's Not Have Panic Attack”
Don't Duplicate Your Posts
Posting the same question two or three times in a row will not lead to a faster response. It just clutters up the board and frankly irritates everyone. Duplicates will be deleted as quickly as possible.
Don't Cross-Post
Posting your message in more than one topic is considered cross-posting. It doesn't speed up a response, and only irritates those trying to help. This keeps things organized for everyone. Cross-posts will be deleted as quickly as possible.
* USE COMMON SENSE: “The Common Understanding”
Welcome Newcomers
Make them feel welcome in the community. More users = more heads = more ideas & information = more issues & requests resolved.
Participate
The forum is a community, and works best when people share information and participate. We must participate to keep things moving. Remaining active is contagious, and will encourage others.
We Are a Public Forum
We are frequently visited by people of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds. Do not point out the typographical errors of others, this serves no purpose. What you find humorous, others may very well find crude, insensitive, or offensive. That is not our goal, we are here to help people.
*Please Do Not Link to these sites.
These sites often have information that is of poor quality, are not highly regarded within the professional Aquarium industry for the way they conduct business (including harm or personal attacks upon those who truly support the hobby/industry), are moving the hobby backwards instead of forward, and/or have links to very poor quality anecdotal sites:
• Dr. Fosters
• About.com
• Amazon.com
• FishLore
• NanoReefs
• Reef Central
• Pet Mountain
• My Fish Place
Any links to these sites will be removed, with spam links to Amazon whom is destroying the professional aquarium industry with their actions, resulting in one time warning and then a ban
*When in doubt about anything here, contact an administrator for clarification. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
The Staff Team
*The purpose of this board is to promote community and education, understanding and fun. The moderating staff is here to assist you in this endeavor, and will make all possible attempts to make this a fun, relaxing and educational place for you. We need your help, by following some basic rules and common courtesy.
This forum is built around Carl Strohmeyer's extensive aquarium/pond keeping library that is constantly evolving & growing. No other library can make the claims of ongoing cited research and long term experience. As well when new facts come to light, Carl is quick to correct himself, which few other articles do.
*The basic reason that we are here is to share our experiences and pool our collective knowledge in order to help members and others to gain understanding of how to better take care of their tanks. Basically we're here to teach and help people gain sound knowledge about aquariums that they can use to get better results from their hobby.
We are also here to learn, as often we can learn from those who disagree with oneself, so keeping an open mind is essential to a quality forum, otherwise Everything Aquatic will not stand above the many forums that continue anecdotal or outdated ideas/research.
*All posts (including pictures) become the copyright of Everything Aquatic for the purpose to help others in the future; this includes re-posting in our Everything Aquatic blog or for use in disease diagnosis, fish identifications, or similar.
*All posts promoting an item, products, service, etc. that is for sale (this includes a link/URL to said product/service) will be removed and the person in question will be warned. This will be at moderator’s discretion; however common sense as to an appropriate URL reference should be exercised.
Coming here solely to promote a product, even disguised in friendly information posts is also not allowed and is viewed as spam; this is a popular method of spamming on the internet and is not tolerated at EA.
Obviously we will have members that work with organizations or work at a LFS, please simply exercise good judgment in adding links; adding such links in a signature is a good place to start.
Forum Etiquette and Behavior
This is to remind all users about forum etiquette and behavior here at EverythingAquatic.com. While we try to keep an open mind and we try to keep things lighthearted, we do need to stay in line with the agreement everyone agrees to when signing up here.
(1) As a general rule of thumb, treat others the way you want to be treated. If you are not familiar with a person and you are typing a response you feel is clever and spiteful, rethink your post. At best, follow it up with a smiley face. Moderators will delete these types of posts, we are here to help, not berate.
(2) Please respect that this is a forum for discussion of aquarium or pond keeping.
Asking questions in private messages defeats the purpose of having this forum board and PM questions directed at Mr. Strohmeyer in particular are disrespectful of his time and the reason he pays to keep this forum going out of his own pocket.
Please also read the section about Private Messaging for more.
(3) If you have an issue over our moderation techniques, you are more then welcome to send an administrator a private message. Please do not belittle or undermine others in a public forum, and keep in mind that all staff members are here on a volunteer basis, are not paid for their services.
They help out in their free time here, so please give them the respect they deserve for it.
(4) Members from Yahoo answers or Facebook Groups/Forums are more then welcome, many of us did answer at one time, and many still answer there. However, what happens there stays there. If you're a new member or an old member here at EA, it really doesn't matter, but any feuds going on over there, should be kept there, and not pulled into here.
(5) We reserve the right to alter any of the posts if it comes to an open fight.
Please treat everyone with respect at any given time.
(6) You will under no circumstances start or participate in a forum war or personal attack against another member. Ardent disagreements not directly related to the content of a given thread should be taken to PM.
(7) You will not maliciously attack, harass, degrade, slander, and/or stalk other members. If you feel someone is maliciously attacking, harassing, degrading, slandering or stalking you, immediately contact a moderator to attempt to resolve the issue.
Please understand the definitions of these terms. As an example, stating to someone, both directly and indirectly that their outcomes of product use or experience is bogus, IS degrading!
(8) Have thick skin. It's a big world out there and not everyone in the world is going to agree with you. Try not to be easily offended when someone disagrees with you or doesn't like your idea about something. It is fine to disagree, as long as you respectfully disagree.
This said, "talking over someone" is a "polite" way of being rude and/or condescending and is not a respectful way to disagree.
Example would be failing to answer another member's question or address a statement and continuing the conversation as though their points were never made.
(9) Let's respect all religious & political views.
While this forum is NOT meant to discuss religion or politics, it is invariable that one's religious views, politics, and philosophy might come out.
We welcome all faiths including:
*Christian
*Judaism
*Muslim/Islam
*Buddhist
*And all others
As well using derogatory terms to describe another's political views is NOT tolerated!
Bottom line is attacking other's faith or politics, especially in Ad Hominem attacks is NOT OK
Forum Policy
* ACCOUNTS: “No Incognitos”
Duplicate Accounts
You are only allowed to have one account on the board. Please do not register multiple accounts on the board and pretend to be someone you are not. Your real name is not required or necessary to participate. This behavior is abusive, childish, deceptive and simply a waste of time. IP addresses will be monitored and any duplicate will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned from the forum.
* POSTING: “Getting Started, Cause & Effect”
Start With A Clear Subject Line
Not everyone has time to read all forum postings. To ensure that your message reaches the right people at timely manner, identify your topic clearly in the subject line.
In Most Cases, Don't Post To A Specific Person
This is what a Private Messages (PM) is for. It clutters the boards, and most people find this annoying. Even though it's tempting to try to get some of the “regulars” to answer, don't do it. If they're hanging out (and they usually are), they probably will answer anyway.
If They Don't Reply, They Don't Know
If you post a question and no one responds, you shouldn't take it personally. If someone knows, they'll contribute. If they don't, they won't. There are some really valuable minds in this group, but they don't have the answers to all the problems.
* PRIVATE MESSAGES:
These are just this, private messages
Do not post questions that would normally go in the forum to a private message, this defeats the purpose of having a forum in in the first place.
In particular, please do not post questions such as disease questions or aquarium design/set-up questions to Carl or other Admins. His time is very limited and his time is much better spent in answering these questions where others can participate or at the very least other readers can at least benefit from the question and answers.
Due to the volume of persons who join the forum and then immediately abuse the PM feature, he no longer answers such private messages
* REPLY: “The Beauty Of Giving & Receiving”
Continue the Thread Whenever Possible
If you have a follow-up issue within a couple of days of an original post, try to keep it with the original. If someone is trying to help, they don't want to search through days of other posts to find the original discussion. Keeping everything in a single thread makes it easier for others to help.
Stay On Topic
Replies should be answers to the original question. Try not to create sub-conversations in a thread as it complicates reading and really doesn't belong in the thread. If you have a discussion topic that was generated from reading a thread, just start a new thread.
Trim Your Quoting
Include only as much context as is necessary of the message to which you are replying. Remember that if someone wants to read the original message, they can. Highlight only the text you want to quote copy (ctrl + c) or right click it and paste (ctrl + v) it in between the quote codes.
* ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: “The Motivational Tool”
Post a Follow-up with Your Results (or at least acknowledge the help)
If you take the time to post a question and someone takes the time to post a possible solution, PLEASE be kind enough to acknowledge the help AND post a follow-up to tell whether it worked or not. Many people use this board as a reference point, and it's very frustrating to find possible solutions with no hint as to what worked or not. Even if you've figured out the answer for yourself, please post the result as there are many who could benefit from your experience.
Also, since we have the karma system activated, show anyone that has helped you your thanks by exalting them. (Note: if you get caught abusing the system by constant exalting one member, but smiting another member, this privilege will be taken away from you)
* DEMEANOR: “Notion in Motion with Emotion”
If your Post/Topic Isn't Your Common Language, Let Us Know
Often, things can turn out misleading, offensive, disrespectful, and even downright confusing. Even telling us what your common language is, may help you get more replies.
No Thread Hijacking
Thread hijacking is the act of taking a thread discussion away from the original poster. Often a person may ask a question, and another person replies with a question. Then everyone ends up helping the wrong person. Please don't hijack your own thread, its worthless reading to those looking for a solution to the same problem..
Sometimes a discussion will invariably veer from its original intent, as a discussion may broaden, so please do not feel intimidated that his is a hard and fast rule. A moderator may simply move part of the discussion to a new thread for better clarity.
An example would be a water chemistry problem that deals with marine aquarium, but this gives rise to a related freshwater question. However let’s try and keep a discussion for instance about calcium in aquariums from veering into breeding Mollys.
No Trolling
What is a troll? It's 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. Sometimes trolls get their friends to join in or post under different names. Generally they will do anything it takes to get attention. If you see a message like this, please try and refrain from replying to it - it will be deleted as soon as possible.
No Power Posting
Power-posting is when board members post empty, or short useless messages in order to simply increase their number of posts more quickly. Examples of power-posting are replying to a message with only 'LOL' or 'I agree', but failing to contribute anything further to the discussion. Power posting clutters up the forums, clutters up the 'new posts' function, and uses extra bandwidth and server space. While we appreciate your desire to let us all know you agree with a poster, too many of these posts will cause them to be deleted!
* BE PATIENT: “Let's Not Have Panic Attack”
Don't Duplicate Your Posts
Posting the same question two or three times in a row will not lead to a faster response. It just clutters up the board and frankly irritates everyone. Duplicates will be deleted as quickly as possible.
Don't Cross-Post
Posting your message in more than one topic is considered cross-posting. It doesn't speed up a response, and only irritates those trying to help. This keeps things organized for everyone. Cross-posts will be deleted as quickly as possible.
* USE COMMON SENSE: “The Common Understanding”
Welcome Newcomers
Make them feel welcome in the community. More users = more heads = more ideas & information = more issues & requests resolved.
Participate
The forum is a community, and works best when people share information and participate. We must participate to keep things moving. Remaining active is contagious, and will encourage others.
We Are a Public Forum
We are frequently visited by people of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds. Do not point out the typographical errors of others, this serves no purpose. What you find humorous, others may very well find crude, insensitive, or offensive. That is not our goal, we are here to help people.
*Please Do Not Link to these sites.
These sites often have information that is of poor quality, are not highly regarded within the professional Aquarium industry for the way they conduct business (including harm or personal attacks upon those who truly support the hobby/industry), are moving the hobby backwards instead of forward, and/or have links to very poor quality anecdotal sites:
• Dr. Fosters
• About.com
• Amazon.com
• FishLore
• NanoReefs
• Reef Central
• Pet Mountain
• My Fish Place
Any links to these sites will be removed, with spam links to Amazon whom is destroying the professional aquarium industry with their actions, resulting in one time warning and then a ban
*When in doubt about anything here, contact an administrator for clarification. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
The Staff Team