1. This is an Internet discussion forum, and what happens here, stays here. Personal threats to "take things to real life" in any form whatsoever will not be tolerated. Evidence that such activity has occurred outside the board, whether threatened on the board or not, constitutes grounds for banning.

"Real-life" social gatherings among members of Graysharbortalk.com, on the other hand, are not only welcomed but encouraged. Especially if someone other than the moderators buy the drinks.

1b. On the internets, people often choose anonymity. Revealing someone's identity or other personal information with malicious intent won't be tolerated.

The operators of this Web site also intend to fully cooperate with law enforcement should that become necessary. Play nice.

2. Graysharbortalk.com has a designated area for flaming, handily named "the flame pit," where it is recognized and encouraged that you go to vent. The other forums are intended for civil discussion.

Violators of this policy will be censured and failure to control yourself after repeated censure will be grounds for banning. In general, be nice, unless you are in the pit, in which case wear a cup and protect yourself at all times.

2b. Hate speech, on the other hand, isn't acceptable even in the Flame Pit. There are plenty of creative ways to insult one of your fellow Harborites without using hate speech, so don't.

2c. If they become volatile, discussions may be moved to "The Flame Pit" at the discretion of the moderators and administrator. If this occurs, a notice will be placed in the discussion's original location with a link to the new location.

Warning...don't click on the link and participate there unless you are ready to take the heat!

3. Commercial advertisement (including ads for other Web sites) is prohibited and grounds for banning. If you want to use our bandwidth to hawk your goods, pay for a banner ad (contact user DanJones for more details on how to do this). We may at some point add a classified ads section if there is sufficient interest.

Until then, mentioning that you have something for sale, something you might otherwise do in a classified ad, is OK, but we'll be keeping an eye out and deleting any such posts that we feel cross the line into commercial ads.

Referring someone to a personal Web page is also OK (your MySpace page, for example) or to read something you've come across on another Web site. But again, we'll be keeping an eye out and deleting anything commercial--referring someone to your blog is acceptable, referring someone to your Web store isn't.

4. Multiple accounts waste bandwidth. So do endless threads complaining that someone is or isn't revealing their true identity. Please don't waste our time or yours with either.

5. Lengthy copy-and-pasting of entire articles from other sources onto this discussion forum is a no-no. It wastes space--a link to the original article and a sample paragraph or two will get your point across and give people the opportunity to look at the material without wasting our bandwidth. The cheaper this place is to operate, the better the chance it will stick around.

6. No pornography. From a philosophical and especially liability standpoint, there's no place for porn here--but don't construe that to mean that we are passing judgment on anyone's choice of media consumption. The sole exception being child pornographers, who deserve to be painted with high fructose corn syrup and staked out on anthills.

Porn in this context includes naked pictures of people of any sort, unless of course it is of local public officials, in which case you can PM it to the moderators immediately. We have a few things we'd like to see get done around these parts, and we'll take all the leverage we can get.

6.b. Please note that the above blackmail inference is a joke. Which leads us to

7. If you don't have a sense of humor, you'll need to obtain one to enjoy your participation here. If you think you have a right not to be offended, you're mistaken. If you're not an adult, and/or can't take a joke, go away.

8. We reserve the right to add or modify rules. We pledge, however, to do so only after proferring the proposed change or new rule for discussion among the users of this Web site. The moderators' decisions will be final in any event, but this is a community and we intend to take the community's input before making decisions that affect the user experience.

There may be some instances in which an emergency rule change is necessary and may take place without public input. In such an event, we as moderators pledge to thoroughly discuss the reasoning behind the actions we have taken with you. Again, the final say is ours, but we do not intend to make rules lightly or arbitrarily.

Also, if you really, really disagree with a decision we make, bribery is always an option.

P.S. See the note above about having a sense of humor.