Introduction
Our Audiokarma forum is maintained by the generous support of donors, and by the subscription memberships. To help our Audiokarma community prosper, and to help you enjoy your membership, we have established the following rules.

Your Account
You are allowed only one (1) account on Audiokarma Forums. If you are found to have multiple identities, you will be banned. If you have problems with your account, do NOT create a second account. Instead contact an administrator, who can help you regain access to your account. Free email, parked domain, or certain other types of email accounts are not permitted to register with Audiokarma.
You are allowed to upload an image icon, called an "Avatar", that appears beside your user name when posting. We expect you to use this feature with "good taste": no nudity or crude images.
Any person who has won a contest on Audiokarma, whether from a specific forum, or board-wide, is ineligible to win again, for a period of 120 days, from the previous win date. A contest may start within the 120-day window, but if the closing date is past the ineligibility deadline, that person becomes eligible again. If you are outside the United States, you, the winner, will be responsible for any taxes/duties incurred, if any, when your prize enters your country's Customs agency.

Forum Etiquette
We expect you to respect the opinions of your fellow forum members. Please do not flippantly dismiss someone's opinion (Examples: "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard", or "that's bullsh*t").
Likewise, attacks on an individual “outside” of the forum are not allowed. (Example: "Barry Manilow is an *sshole!")

Harassment
If you insult, attack, or denigrate another member, either on the public forum, or in a PM (Private Message), that is harassment. If you post/pm a personal attack, you will be notified and depending on the severity of the attack, you may be suspended.

If You Are Harassed
If you feel that you have been harassed, notify us by using the "Report bad post” link at the left of each post, or by pm to the mod staff. Please note that the "Report this post to a Moderator" notification is confidential.

No Thread Crapping
"Thread Crapping" occurs when a person comes into a thread and posts something contrary to the spirit/intent of the thread, often derailing the discussion or turning it into an argument.

Profanity and racial slurs
If you make excessive use of profanity, you will be notified and asked to tone it down. Profanity aimed directly at another forum member, or at their opinion, is considered a personal attack (see above section) and can result in a suspension. For example, we consider calling someone's opinion "bullsh*t" a personal attack.
Racial slurs and discussions are strictly prohibited and are not allowed on the AK Forums.

Unacceptable Post Content
Please do not post any content or links with content of the following nature:
1. Politics
2. Race
3. Religion
4. Pornography or obscene material..
5. Unauthorized advertisements and/or solicitations outside of the Classifieds Forum without the express consent of Audiokarma are strictly prohibited. Marketing initiatives whether direct, indirect or veiled are also strictly prohibited. There zero tolerance for Spam, which will bring an automatic suspension.
6. “Board Wars”.
7. Retaliatory or critical posts against our moderation staff's actions, or our forum policies.
8. Audiokarma is not a venue for resolution of offsite disputes. This includes Ebay, Craigslist, other forums or bulletin boards, et al.

Private Messages
We expect you to use the PM system with your good judgment. Do not use it to spam (advertise), harass, or send personal attacks to people. If we learn of a user who is abusing the PM system, their account will be banned.

Removal of Threads and Posts
We reserve the right to close or remove any post or thread, at any time, for any reason, without notice. If and when we do so, we will try and send you an email or a PM, letting you know why we had to shut the thread down.
However, at times, the moderators are overloaded with work, and don't have the time to send PM or email. In cases like this, we apologize beforehand. However, do not post in the forum, asking why your post was removed. Instead, send us email or a PM asking why the post or thread was removed.
We know that this can be frustrating, but please remember that our moderators have lives also.

Attacks on the decision(s) of a Moderator
The Moderators are unpaid volunteers who help enforce the above policies. They work long, hard hours trying to make the Forum the best place it can be, and they deserve your respect. If a Moderator contacts you with an issue, please work hard at trying to understand the root cause of why you were contacted.

Do not fire-back a PM or email as a “knee-jerk reaction” in protest. This will not resolve your dispute. Do feel free to contact us for clarification, or if you feel a genuine misunderstanding has occurred. Under no circumstances, may you question a Moderator's decision in public or lash out at a Moderator. That will merit an automatic suspension. Repeat offenders could be banned. Forum members who have an issue with either our moderation staff or forum policies are required to contact the staff directly; forum threads regarding forum or member issues of this sort are not permitted.

Finally, we request that you contact only the moderation staff if you have issues with our decisions or one of our staff members.

Suspensions & Banishment
Typically, we work very hard with forum members before a suspension is issued, usually in the form of a warning to stop a certain behavior. Repeated offenses will result in a suspension. Multiple suspensions will result in you being banned from the forum.

Please note that a very serious first offense might warrant a suspension with no prior warning.

In addition, we reserve the right to suspend someone for an unforeseen reason not covered by the above harassment/personal attack sections. All suspensions and banishments are considered a private matter and are not made public on the Forum nor privately via PM or e-mail. Questioning this in public is not permitted as outlined above.

Suspensions are deemed temporary. They can range from 1 day to several weeks. At the end of the time period suspensions are lifted automatically,

Banishments are considered permanent, and reinstatement to the forum is not possible, though rare exceptions have been made. Banished members found signing up under a new user ID will have their account terminated immediately without prior notice.

Subscribers who do not follow Audiokarma’s rules are not exempt from suspension or banishment. If a subscriber is banished the subscription fee is non-refundable.

Questions
Questions regarding the policies of this board can be sent to any site administrator. Please view the “Forum Leaders” list, on the Forum Index page.