RULES OF CONDUCT AND TERMS OF SERVICE

   1. You must have an active SAMAS membership to post on our forums. Your forum account is linked to your member account. Guests may read the public forums, but may not post. If you are suspended or banned from membership, you will not be able to post. If you are suspended from the message boards, your membership account will be reviewed and you may be banned from site membership as well.

   2. Posting links and images on the forums is permitted under the following guidelines:

      a.  Signature graphics are not permitted. However, you may post photos for the purpose of explaining a suggestion or question. All content must be in good taste.
      b. Links in signatures or posts must be restricted to two (2) personal links to your school website(s). Links marketing services and goods that you are promoting to the martial arts business community as a whole are prohibited. (In other words, don't try to use our forums to get free marketing for anything other than your school. See item 17 below for further clarification on this.)

   3. Additional photo restrictions are as follows:

              * No more than one image may be used per post
              * Maximum height: 50 pixels
              * Maximum width: 50 pixels
              * Maximum file size: 25 kb

   4. Be respectful of others at all times. The purpose of the forum is to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas. Occasionally, there will be conflicts that arise when people voice opinions. Be courteous when disagreeing with others. It is possible to disagree without being insulting.

   5. Ranting is prohibited. A rant is a post which is long-winded, redundant and filled with angry, non-constructive comments. A free exchange of ideas is essential to building a strong sense of community, but rants are disruptive and incite flaming and trolling. Please post your thoughts in a concise, clear manner and avoid going off on rambling tangents.

   6. Personal attacks are prohibited. Commonly known as flaming, personal attacks are posts which are designed to personally berate or insult another. Text of this nature is not beneficial to the community spirit and will not be tolerated. Keep offline disputes offline and off the forum, please.

   7. Trolling is prohibited. Trolling is the word used to describe a post that is deliberately designed for the purpose of angering and insulting the members of the forum community. Posts of this nature are disruptive and do not convey a friendly attitude.

   8. No posting of personal information. Please respect the privacy of other MASAI members and do not give out information such as phone numbers and addresses.

   9. Private communication between MASAI staff members, moderators and administrators of the forum and the forum users is not to be made public on these forums or by any other venue. You are not permitted to publicize any private correspondence (including petitions) received from any of the aforementioned.

  10. Warnings and bans are not to be discussed on the forum. Such matters shall remain private between the MASAI staff members, moderators and administrators of the forum and the user. Questions or comments concerning warnings and bans will be conveyed through e-mail or private messaging. Likewise, discussions regarding moderator actions are not permitted on the forum. If you have questions regarding a post or thread, please use our contact page.

  11. Immediate banning from the forum can result from any of the following: The posting of pornography; discriminatory remarks which are sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive; excessive obscene or vulgar language; posts which discuss or illustrate illegal activity; providing links to sites that contain any of the aforementioned.

  12. Spamming, bumping and pyramid quoting are prohibited. Spam is considered to be repetitive posting of the same topic or text or nonsensical posts that have no substance and are often designed to annoy other forum users. Bumping posts in order to keep them near the top of the list is also prohibited. Petitions or "/signed" posts are a version of bumping and likewise are not permitted. Pyramid quoting is a response to a forum thread which contains the quotes of four or more previous posters, sometimes with additional spaces added unnecessarily. Posts of this nature are not conducive to community spirit and are unwelcome.

  13. Do not post about site bugs and exploits. Bugs and exploits should be reported through the proper method by filing a report for the MASAI staff members, moderators and administrators of the forum. To do so, use our contact page. When there is an issue the community needs to be aware of, we will make an official statement about it.

  14. Redundant threads will be deleted. As a courtesy to others before beginning a new thread, please look to see if an active thread on that topic has already been established. If so, place your comments there instead. Multiple threads on the same subject clutter up the forum needlessly and many good ideas may be lost. Keep discussions about one topic to one thread only.

  15. Impersonating another forum user, moderator, volunteer, administrator or employee is strictly prohibited. You are expressly forbidden from impersonating anyone else, including those named above, on the forum, even in jest. This may be grounds for permanent loss of your MASAI account.

  16. "Newbie" bashing will not be tolerated. Regular forum users are encouraged to be helpful and courteous in their responses. All flames will be automatically deleted and the poster may be warned or permanently barred from future forum use. The answers to many new members' questions may be found in previous SAMAS forum posts and we encourage our members to seek information there before posing questions on the boards.

  17. All posts must be about or related to starting and running a martial arts school and/or the services provided by this site. Posts promoting other websites, companies, products or services not related to MASAI are not permitted.

  18. You may not post advertisements for our competitors. Posts discussing or linking to competitor sites or for the sale of competitor goods or services are strictly prohibited. However, you may feel free to post notices for the personal sale of used equipment and educational resources.

  19. Avoid using profanity. Using partial masking (such as asterisks or punctuation marks) to bypass the profanity filter is prohibited and will result in the same action as if the actual word had been typed. (Note from Mike: "My language gets a little loose when I get riled up too, but let's do our best to keep it clean here, folks.")

  20. Post constructively. Negative feedback can be very useful, provided that it is presented in a civil, factual manner. Tell us what you don't like and why and how you feel it could be improved. Posts that are insulting and rude may be deleted, no matter how valid the ideas behind them may be.

  21. Disputes which cannot be resolved between forum users and moderators may be arbitrated by the forum administrators. To discuss problems or concerns, please use our contact page to contact the site administrators.