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Indianapolis Colts

Guidelines

1. Absolutely no profanity or obscene, vulgar or violent posts, period.

2. Zero tolerance for personal attacks on anyone including the mods.

3. Don’t write in all CAPS! It’s “YELLING” and unnecessary.

4. No soliciting, selling tickets, merch or anything else. No spamming or illegal activity.

5. No political or religious discussions.

6. No “nonsense” posts, this includes rumors.

7. Fans from ALL NFL teams are welcome. They get along in real life and we expect the same here. No exceptions

8.) No posting or requesting illegal online streaming links. No discussion about your use of illegal streaming links.

 

9.) No discussion of taking or placing bets here.
 

Our mission
 
As the Official Fan Forum for the Indianapolis Colts, our goal is to provide a well moderated community where NFL fans can enjoy a family-friendly welcoming environment for discussing Colts football, the NFL, and other topics of mutual interest. This is a place where Where 'football gurus' and casual fans can meet and enjoy each others company on a shared topic of interest.
 
Civility, a welcoming atmosphere, tolerance, humor, mutual respect and individual commitment to the community are our over-riding goals.
 
In addition to individual adherence to the community norms (but equally essentail) are our volunteers who moderate the site and aim to lay out clear boundaries of socially acceptable behavior that facilitates quality discussion.

If you'd like a further explanation of the Code of Conduct, please continue reading below.

Compliance with these rules is mandatory and the guidelines are recommended as they encourage appropriate behavior and were written with the intention of preventing potential conflicts from arising. Ignorance of the rules will not be considered a viable excuse for a violation of the code of conduct.

Your first responsibility of membership is to read, understand and abide by the code of conduct.

If you are a New Member, WELCOME! We are glad you are here. Note: as a new member,you have limited posting privileges for a brief time. New Members may post 5 replies per 24 hour period until they reach 10 posts. They may *not* create a thread. Your 24 hour posting window is tied to the time of your first post. For example, if your first post was made at 4:34 PM, then you are allowed 5 posts between 4:34 PM and 4:33 PM. Once a new member has reached 10 posts, they become part of the 'Member' group and have the same posting privs as all other members. These policies are in place to help us keep our site spam free and to encourage new members to take some time reading and responding to posts. In other words, it's a good idea to get to know the members here at least a little bit first.

We invite new members to introduce themselves in the members' introduction thread

By becoming a member of the Indianapolis Colts Forums, you agree to abide by the code of conduct as follows:

RULES

(1) Each member is allowed one registered account. If you have an issue or problem with yours, please contact a member of the moderation team and we can help you. Don't just create a new one and actively post with more than username. Additionally, please make sure that your display name is an acceptable, family-friendly username. Vulgar, insulting and trollish usernames will be banned or disabled. Duplicate accounts will be merged with the posters previous account.

Do not attempt to create additional registered accounts to bypass an issued ban, If you have been banned and you want to post again you must discuss this with a moderator.

Accounts believed to belong to previously banned members will have their posting restricted. If this happens, you must discuss this with a moderator.

Lying about your identity, either by denying that you are an existing member under a different name is prohibited. Please also refrain from registering inappropriate user names, including, but not limited to, racial slurs, profanity and explicit or implicit vulgarity, else your membership will be revoked. Do not register a username with the intent of impersonating or assuming the identity of someone you are not. If you chose to register the name of a player, coach, media member or any other person that is not you, please register some variation of that person’s name. For example, do not register the user name “Andrew Luck.” Register “Andrew Luck 12.”

(2) Please be respectful of your fellow members. Every registered member agrees upon registration not to use these forums to post material or topics which are knowingly false, defamatory, deceptive, inaccurate, racist, insulting, abusive, inflammatory, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually graphic or lewd, physically threatening, invasive of another's privacy or otherwise in violation of any law, including stalking or otherwise harassing individual members. If you respond to abusive speech with abusive speech, you lose your right to seek moderator intervention (it does not matter "who started it") "Smack" talk, insults, disrespect, starting flame wars, *trolling* ; *inciting* other members to "take the bait" are not allowed. . The simple rule of thumb here is "don't be a jerk".

Insulting "nicknames" are not respectful and not appropriate to use in the forum. Even if you think it is clever.......odds are no one else does so don't do it.

(3) Personal attacks are not Allowed. While you may argue about the football-related actions, decisions or comments of an individual, you may not attack the individuals themselves. The Ownership, Coaching, Players, Staff and all members should be afforded the same respect as one another. Threads with the intention to "call out" another member or question their "fanhood" are not allowed.

(4) Do not post messages that are inflammatory and serve solely to incite (bait) other members into an argument

(5) Do not post copyrighted material or links to illegal NFL game feeds *anywhere* in the forum, chat room or on the site. This is especially true of online game day feeds. Requesting and posting online links to NFL games that are not sanctioned by the NFL are illegal and will be deleted and posters subject to restricted site/forum access. Please make sure that any other videos you post do not include copyrighted material.

(6) No discussion about your use of illegal streaming links or invitations for people to message you for an illegal streaming link.

(7) Please do no attempt to avoid the profanity filters. Profanity and vulgarity in posts, veiled or otherwise, is unacceptable and prohibited. The intentional misspelling, replacing letters with special characters (@, $, etc.) words constitutes masked profanity and vulgarity. Posts containing such content are subject to editing or deletion. Members posting in this manner are subject to warnings/posting restrictions.

This is a family friendly site . That means that *masked* profanity and sexual innuendo are prohibited. Don't post it and don't try to be clever and "get around the filter".

(8)Please refrain from posting meaningless threads. Please put some thought into your contribution to the community discussion. Very short (one - three word) responses or nonsense posts do not add value to the topic. For example, only the words, "I dunno," or "lol cool," is considered spam. Do not make an effort to "bump" threads by posting "bump," "up top," "high five," or other short comments in order to move a thread to the top of the list. Such posts are subject to deletion to keep the threads uncluttered and clean looking for better reading.

(9)Strictly Prohibited: Spamming, Advertising, Promotional Posting, and Trolling, and Illegal Activity. Any and all advertising, chain letters, pyramid schemes, solicitation, spamming and trolling is are not allowed on our site. This includes any request for an illegal streaming link, or invitation to contact a member to receive an illegal streaming link

Please do not discuss illegal activities on our forums. Any material or posting that advocates or discusses illegal activities, with or without the intent to commit them, is prohibited. This includes activities such as gambling, software and music piracy, and other intellectual property violations. All postings should obey copyright laws. If a member cites articles or information from other sources or areas of the Internet, a URL should be posted with no more than a small portion of the article's text. Such a practice provides credibility and attribution to the source of the information. Legally, the article copied from a website belongs to that particular website and pasting the full text in a posting is an infringement of copyright laws.

(10)Selling of items, including game tickets or Colts merchandise, is also prohibited. We realize that fans may feel they are doing a service to other fans by offering to sell Colts game tickets on our boards, but this is a place of football discussion. If you are looking to sell tickets or other merchandise, please do so on an appropriate web site such as Ticketmaster.

Please note, we advise our members NOT to enter into any transactions with other members. If you choose to do so, you assume all risk for your choice

(11)Soliciting is not allowed: Soliciting is requesting something desired and we ask that you not use the forums for soliciting This includes threads created to ask for prayers or donations, posts created to seek favors from members, and requests to buy, sell, or trade anything.

Do not post messages soliciting prayers, donations, or participation in foundations, charities or other organizations -- even if they are Colts-related. Do not solicit or advertise /promote other websites or blogs, including via personal messages

This is a discussion board and while we understand and sympathize with many posts of this nature, such posts detract from the purpose of the boards which is discussion.

(12) Post politely. REFRAIN FROM POSTING IN ALL CAPS. On the Internet, posting in all capital letters is considered shouting, and therefore deemed rude and offensive. Overuse of capital letters also creates a strain on the eyesight, and makes it difficult to read text. Excessive shouting will be deleted and repeat offenders will lose their membership privileges.

Please do not attempt to call attention to your posts with excessive use of bold, font size, italics, color emoticons or ANY formatting options.Formatting options are intended to highlight and should be used sparingly. We ask this for the benefit of those reading the forums. If a moderator advises you to limit your use of formatting, please respect that this is done so for the benefit of these reading the boards.

It is permitted to use videos or links to videos in threads to assist in clarifying your point or view. However, because of the processing burden it puts on viewers computers, posters are asked to use video only when necessary to the post or in video specific threads. Since this is a subjective guideline, the moderator team will make all decisions regarding misuse or overuse of videos in posts.

Look for posts about what you want to discuss before starting a new one. In other words--please search! If you cannot find your thread or post and it was similar to one already on the board, then it has probably been merged or moved - NOT deleted. Please place your new threads in the appropriate discussion sub-forum, including the off-topic (Off the Field) discussion area. Otherwise they will be moved to the correct location.

(13) Explicit picture in posts and/or signatures is strictly forbidden. Neither explicit nor implicit content will be tolerated and will be grounds for an immediate loss of your membership privileges. This includes hardcore/softcore pornography, animated pictures, written language, etc. content. Please recognize that these message boards are designed to be enjoyed by Colts fans from all walks of life. Use discretion and plan on erring on the side of caution in instances where material you are considering posting might be considered a violation of the code of conduct. Political and/or religious messages should also not be included in your signature or profile picture. Remember that respect for your fellow members is the first rule of the code of conduct and that the majority of our traffic occurs during work, in public environments, and could be seen by individuals under 18 years old. This rule is strictly enforced.

(14) Your Signature appears with all of your posts. For the sake of keeping the boards easy to read we have built in restrictions for the number of lines of text and the size of pictures. Do NOT increase the font size for your signature.

(15) Please do not discuss taking or placing bets here.

GUIDELINES


Please post your message in the appropriate forum. As a member, you should familiarize yourself with each forum description before making a post. Please be considerate and respectful to the members who frequent particular forums to gain knowledge on particular topics. Resist the temptation to post irrelevant topics on a forum to achieve a wider audience. Moderators reserve the right to move your post if it is more relevant in another forum. Postings that impede communication or disrupt discussions will be removed.

Please avoid political, religious and personal relationship discussions. Keep in mind that this forum is dedicated to the Indianapolis Colts and related issues. In order to avoid argument, if it is not directly related to the Colts, do not discuss political, religious or personal relationship issues.

Off-topic issues are only allowed in the Off the Field forum provided they fully comply with the Code of Conduct. While we support the right of free speech, our forums are not here to support political parties or their initiatives, individual politicians, or any religious affiliation, nor for discussing personal relationships and online dating. We reserve the right to remove all posts that violate this policy without notice.

Please do not post in an inflamatory manner: Flaming, also known as bashing, is hostile and insulting interaction between forum members. Intentional and unintentional 'Flames' include questioning someones intelligence or fandom as well as any other post that is likely to increase arguments on the forum such as linking to another teams forum. Do not link to or promote other boards as it causes issues with their fans, especially where they are discussing something concerning our team. This only serves to create board wars and all such links will be deleted and posts/threads edited. Such links can also be viewed as 'promotion' (which is also NOT Allowed)

Please include your original thoughts and opinions when referencing and/or quoting outside sources. Not only do copyright laws need to be respected when crediting an outside source, but we want to hear from you! Please be sure to include your own original thoughts and opinions when posting a URL to another site to help initiate discussion over the content. If you would like to respond to part of a particular post, you may quote the sentence or idea that you are commenting upon without re-posting the entire thread.

If you post an news, blog, magazine or other type of written/published article...please provide a URL link and do not quote or post the entire article in the forum. This is generally a copyright violation and it also takes up a lot of space. Usually 10% of the original material as a summary is acceptable, along with the link back to the full article.

Please use descriptive and accurate subject titles for your posts. Abiding by this rule assists members in utilizing discretion when selecting content to read. It also serves to notify members if a particular topic has already been posted and discusses, and potentially prevents multiple threads being started on the same topic. False posts, including unfounded rumors, or misleading subject titles are deceptive at the expense of the membership, devalues the forums and the content it provides, and is considered a serious offense.

Adhere to the advice and recommendation made to you by the Indianapolis Colts Forum Moderators. Moderators are appointed because they exemplify the characteristics, attitude and values consistent with the standards set for the site. They have been instructed to enforce the code of conduct and prevent forum clutter, while encouraging free expression, debate and discussion.

While the Indianapolis Colts do allow for a wide range of discussion, please refrain from unfounded charges of censorship or other moderator actions against a member on the grounds that the content was not of his opinion. Content will never be removed based on our own personal views or the validity of the opinion. As a member, you are entitled to form an opinion in opposition of those at the Indianapolis Colts; however, it must not violate the code of conduct.

We reserve the right to remove posts in violation without notice.We also reserve the right to take punitive action, up to and including permanent closure of the account, against any member who does not abide by the code of conduct. While the code of conduct covers most common situations, we reserve the right to take any action we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused and continue to facilitate discussion amongst members.

Check personal messages/Acknowledge Warnings (if any) each time you login. The personal message system is how other members, moderators and administrators can contact you. If you receive a warning from a moderator, you will not be able to post before first acknowledging the warning.

Moderators issue warnings for violations of the Forum Code of Conduct via the Warn Panel. Your warn panel is accessible to you at all times by clicking the Warn Points link. This link appears to YOU alone beneath your profile picture on all your forum posts as well as on your profile page. Warning points disappear over time however, you should be aware that if you accumulate several points within a 30 day time period, subsequent warnings will include restrictions on your posting privs here. The more points you have, the greater the restriction. In addition, all moderators have the discretion to limit your posting privs even though you may not have accumulated any points.

To discuss a warning or violation with the issuing moderator, please message the moderator. Do not discuss warnings or violations in an open forum.

If you have a problem with the rules or with moderation, PM (private message) a member of the mod team. Public discussion of site and forum moderation (including in the blogs or profiles) is against the rules.
Several common violations for which moderator warnings are issued:

- Profanity and vulgarity (text or images)- Personal attacks and name calling

- Posting in ALL CAPS- Smack talk and trolling behavior

- Spamming and advertising.

-Flaming and Baiting: Remember that communication across the web is different from face-to-face interaction, in which only the words are seen, not your facial expressions or tone of voice. Please be cognizant of how you use your words.

The words you post in a burst of passion or indignant anger will be there for you and other members to see, often long after those intense feelings have subsided. While we are not discouraging spontaneity and emotion, we do ask you to recognize the long-term affects of the content that you post.

While debate, discussion and even criticism is acceptable, we will not tolerate abusive speech, harassment, personal attacks, purposeless or inflammatory postings, or posting misinformation in the title of a thread. There will be no flexibility in our policy.

You may find that you do not always agree with someone else's opinion. At those times, please remember that it's safer and more polite to take issue with the comments than with the person. While free debate within the outlined parameters is encouraged and diversity of opinion is what fuels a good debate, each member is entitled to his own opinion, so long as it is expressed in a civil manner and does not violate the code of conduct.

Please recognize the difference between attacking an opinion and attacking another member personally.

One way users can help in the moderation of the Colts Forums is to use the Forums' Reputation system. Click here to learn more about our reputation system.

 

 

 

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