The HOUSE RULES for you to play by:
..... and remember, the house ALWAYS wins it all back at the end. . .
. . .That's a fact.
The House Rules were last amended Sunday, January 9, 2011 at 6:45 PM EST

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Catchride's forums, chat, blog, gallery, and any future services which are not enumerated in this statement are to be considered a privilege, not a right.
The site is not a public site, it is a private board that selectively reviews requests for membership. We may revoke your rights for any reason at all, at anytime, any day, and without any notice.  This Conditions of Service lists just one main rule, the legal age one must be to join the board by US law which is where CR is hosted, and suggested guidelines to avoid breaking that rule [amended 1/9/2011]. It is not a complete list of all rules. Do not think for a second that doing something wrong is allowed simply because it isn't mentioned in this document. Conversely, do not imply that if another member does something 'wrong' and there are no repercussions, that you have leeway to act in the same way. You will probably be suspended for breaking the first rule (Rule #1 explained below) The rules have been left ambiguous on purpose to give moderators and administrators a wide latitude to decide what is acceptable behavior and what is not. This ambiguity is intentional and is designed for Rule #1 to be most effective
 
YOU MUST be over 13 years old to use these boards. This is the law. We do not check up on this information, but if proof comes to us that a certain member is under 13, they can't post without parents written approval. Permission must be a signed copy, fax, or scanned copy of the COPPA forms. Though technically children under 13 can post if procedure is followed, this website is very much not suitable for children under 13, so we encourage parents to keep their children away.

 
 
RULE #1: Don't piss off the Moderators. This will result in disciplinary action (note: posters are welcome to have differing opinions than those of the moderators and debate with them vigorously, but actively pursuing annoying or harmful actions toward the Mods or other members of the boards goes above and beyond simply disagreeing with them)
There is no definition of what pisses off a moderator, and this definition has been left out purposely. Catchride is known as a rowdy bunch, and when members cross the line and piss off the mods, the mods know it.
This rule is very much in the vein of the United States' First Amendment that guaranteeing free speech but not obscenity. The supreme court could not come up with a quantifiable test of what legally is considered obscenity, but Justice Stewert said "I know it when I see it." Thit is how Catchride's #1 rule works. (ie, You can say that Catchride is horrible and you hate it and give reasons why, but if you spam it in multiple forums resort to calling everyone a words elementary school children use, you've pissed off the mods and will be punished


Below is a list of guidelines for basic behavior boundaries for users to follow (note that this list is just a guide to remain a member who can post in all forums here, as painfully clear as the text above should have made clear, moderators reserve the right to decide exactly what is and is not allowed):

  1. Be polite! Don't be rude or abrasive. If you're pleasant to others, they'll be pleasant back. We all have disagreements now and again but "agree to disagree" in a civil manner.  Remember to be articulate and witty, we like that. Forget about being rude or annoying, we don't like that!  Also, offensive, illegal or mature-themed material is not allowed.
  2. Catchide has a unique culture that seems very abrasive, but people really do care for each other and are friends. The site has been around a long time. Take a little while to say hello and get the inside jokes before you end up starting a fight by mistakenly trying to fit in. If you do find this happening, stay calm, explain the misunderstanding, and the other person will back off. If they don't, they're an idiot, and you can PM me, Richard, and I will tell them they are an idiot.
    3.  
  3. Following in the vein of the above suggestion, have fun...but not at the expense of others! We like to have fun; we enjoy a laugh and a joke as long as that's all it is. We don't like the ridiculing of fellow community members. If you keep clear of doing that, we'll keep clear of doing that to you.

  • Harassment is not allowed. The definition of harassment is defined by the Catchride Moderators, not the users. Light banter and heated debates are always allowed here.
  • Keep all your topics in the correct forum. -- horse debates in horse themed forums, and light, playful banter in the immature forum. Pictures may be posted in the PICTURE FORUM ONLY. If you post pictures in another forum, they may be selectively moved, locked, or made invisible. Picture Policy Changed 1/9/2011 officially, since bandwidth and server space are not a consideration as they were when these rules were first written. Pictures are allowed in forums, but only so long as they pertain to the forum's theme and the thread's theme. This also goes for embedded YouTube videos. Note, some members still use dial up to go on the boards or connect over cell networks. To make the reversal of this rule feasible, Catchride.com has a 'skin' that makes the board load more quickly without any extra graphics than is necessary. If you have a slow connection - on a mobile phone or dialup modem - you can choose the IP.Mobile skin in the drop down menu on the lower left side of any screen when you are on the boards.

  • Avatars and Signatures -- like you, we enjoy them and don't mind anyone having them, but try to keep them reasonable.  Huge pictures (either in pixel or byte size) can get really annoying, especially to those on dial-up.  Visit for a  visual guide of the maximum signature size allowed -- please note that this includes lines of text and/or images.  We'll ask you to change your sig if it's too big, if our request is ignored, your sig will be deleted.  Also do not post pornography or anything that will violate 'RULE #1.'
                                       
  • NO SPAM!! The Boards now have STRONG anti-spam features. In the unlikely event that a bot makes it through, the first post will be marked as spam if the algorithm is working. If you see spam, please hit the report to moderator button. Inividuals may not spam either for their own websites, services, or anything else without prior consent from Richard or Akasha - - - and we don't give this permission often.

    • We don't like it and we're sure you don't either. We're proud of our site and want it to be the best. We don't mind it if you're from a competing site but we don't like it if you spam your site here. So don't advertise your site on ours and we won't come and advertise our site on yours. We're also not at all keen on you posting and asking for people to visit your site and become members. We wouldn't do that to you so it's only right you don't do it to us. We can ban your site's name from our forum.

    • Posting same topic on multiple forums, because you feel it might get more posts, is also considered spamming.

    • Posting frivolous posts in order to gain post counts for whatever reason is considered spamming.  Post counts accumulated in this manner will be reverted. 1/9/11 update: Generally we deal with this by setting people's postcount to negative 100. This means it will take quite a while to access the good forums on CR. Just don't do it.

    • CLASSIFIED ADS ARE NEVER ALLOWED. Classified ads and spamming are one of the only things we are strict about, aside from 'RULE #1'.  If you post classified ads and spam the board with them, you WILL be suspended. Perhaps even you WILL be banned! [Update 1/9/2010: See how mad Akasha was when writing about people advertising their stupid stuff on our forums? I think that if you advertise your old bottle of Koppertox Alexa, I, or Akasha will have a brain aneurysm…….. Actually, used bottles of Koppertox are OK, because that's hilarious. You get the point. Suspension, ban, etc.]
  • Free speech is very important to us. If you notice, we almost never ever edit a member's post or delete a post altogether. Actually, no posts are ever truly deleted, they are saved in an invisible archived forum incase they are needed in the future for some reason. We very rarely edit the content of a post, except to remove personal information. Moderators will edit out title lines of posts that are misspelled or misleading. Topics may be locked when they violate 'RULE #1'.

  • Our moderators are a fine bunch, but you might not always agree with them and they may not always agree with you.  If you happen to disagree with something one of them has done, or your topic or post has vanished or moved with no explanation, don't get all angry about it and begin posting rude messages. Instead, contact one of the Admins by PM or e-mail and explain your point of view. These things can generally be resolved pleasantly.

  • Sometimes, people might post an inappropriate topic or reply, or it may be in a place where a moderator hasn't noticed it. If you stumble across one of these, please use the Report Post to Moderator feature. You don't need to respond to the post saying it's in the wrong place or not really acceptable. Just report it and we'll deal with it.
  • Do not give your password out to anyone ever. Only one person is authorized to use each account. Failure to comply will result in your termination (on all accounts involved).
  • Alter Egos fall into a gray area. They are not allowed, but we do not actively enforce this rule. New members are usually screened sometime after they register. Generally, we let alter egos slide, as long as they don't violate Rule #1.  Be advised that what you do on an alter ego may result in complete suspension of all privileges to ALL ACCOUNTS ATTACHED.

  
FINALLY, we're a forgiving community. We realise that sometimes things can be said that aren't meant or are taken the wrong way. We also realize that sometimes people's emotions get the better of their judgement. We're not quite so forgiving of people who just seem to want to cause trouble. We will normally contact you at first and ask you to remember these guidelines. If the guidelines continue to be ignored, then a warning might be issued. And if you're a serial spammer or insist on causing problems, we have many ways of dealing with you. updated 1/9/11 We are not a typical pansy board that sweeps things under the rug. Instead of posts vanishing and people disappearing, the entire community will be hostile. It works quite well, as we have almost 11 years to back up our methods.

Here is a list of what we may do (although not limited) to troublemakers:

  • We can totally ban your IP address, your e-mail server, and everything else. We can disallow you from even viewing the entire website.  Please note that by hiding behind proxies or disposable email addresses will not fool us.  We are a pretty tech savvy bunch here, and we are quite good at tracking the real identities behind proxies and free email accounts.  This is the reason we don't have any proxies blocked from our site, we are that confident.
  • We can restrict just your posting ability, and you can still use the PM system, Blogs, Gallery, and Chats.
  • We can place members in the 'Naughty Member' group if they don't follow RULE #1. This restricts you in several ways, one of which is that you may only post in the Immature Forum. If one seems to enjoy this, we make it so they can post only in a forum by themselves.
  • We can suspend you, which automatically disengage after a preset number of days or hours. This disallows you from viewing the boards and all services included. Our standard procedure is to suspend someone for 3 days or one day. Longer suspensions may be given as needed. Sometimes a 12 hour suspension is placed upon a member by a moderator until an administrator can review it. When you are banned for 12 hours only, expect to have that time period lengthened. If you are suspended, check your email account that you registered with or your PM acccount, it will have mail.
  • [Added 1/9/2011] Each new release of the IP.Forum software has new ways to isolate problem posters from the general population. This newest version is a total rewrite from the past, and it has many ways to deal with posters that cause issues. On the bright side, generally as a strict rule we don't employ any of that unless someone acts like a two year old having a temper tantrum for days or months.
Oh, one last thing. . . To comply with Twitter's policy of integration, Catchride has to put up its own private policy. Below are the links.
See Catchride's Privacy Policy to Comply with Twitter Integration

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