Forum Rules

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Although the administrators and moderators of LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

The owners of LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.

Mission Statement

Let me first state what I see as the "mission statement" of LotusTalk is. A community forum that allows members to discuss their Lotus cars and more. A forum to store information and develop solutions. A forum to increase understanding and channel information back to Lotus. A forum to allow community involvement including meets, track days, and more. A forum to allow vendors to reach the userbase and offer solutions. A forum for people to develop a community.

Public or Private?

Let's start by going over the idea of a "public" forum. It has been suggested that this is a "public" forum. Well, no....It is not. Just about any forum on the internet is not public in that it is not owned by everyone. It might appear public in that membership is open to just about anyone, but that is the limits of it. Forums are more of a benevolent dictatorship.

The forum is actually private and owned by me. What this means is that your participation on the forum and the content are subject to my allowing you and your content to exist here. That can sound a lot more heavy handed than it really is. What it does mean, is that I can limit spammers and porn and anything else I feel does not add to the content of the site, and does not add to the positive experience of the community. I can set rules and enforce them. Agree with me or not, I have to make the final determinations and decisions. The buck stops here.

Censorship vs Moderation

There is no automatic right to free speech here (nor is there anywhere). You can't yell fire in a theater. You can't post offensively here. You can't attack the other forum members because you disagree with them. Nobody should think they have the right to post anything they want.

The basic rules

Personal Attacks. A common thing about online communication is to read into other's posts a perception of being attacked when someone is just disagreeing with you. If the response is to then attack the other person, then the thread turns into a flame war, grudges are made and held and carried over to other threads. Threads become less valuable for research. Other posters become less willing to risk being attacked and will just lurk, post less, or go away. We lose the more valuable members and left only with those that enjoy stirring the flames. The rule is... NO PERSONAL ATTACKS. That is the big one. You can debate the message, but don't make it personal. I think the distinction should be pretty clear.

Personal information will be kept personal. Do not post Private Messages or Emails without the creator's consent.

Spamming and "one trick pony" posters.

Don't flood the forum with posts about the same thing. Make your point. Agree or disagree, respond to counterpoints... then move on. If you are here to make one point only, and post after post are about that one point, I will probably remove your posts and limit your posting ability. It does not help the community to have thread after thread hijacked about your pet peeve.

Competing forums

It is not cool to come onto LotusTalk and post to drive traffic to another Lotus or Elise forum.

Duplicate identities

Not allowed and the user may be banned.

Offensive posts

There is always those shades of gray, but we all need to keep in mind that not all users have the same tolerance and perspective. My goal is for LotusTalk to be easy to come to without a fear of opening a thread and seeing something that is not cool to see. And a bit of my own personal bias also comes into play. I strongly feel that vidoes or images that are gory have ZERO place on ET. Racism... nope. Nudity? None. Sexually suggestive images may also be removed. The forum exists for many users from all backgrounds. I respect that and ask you to respect my request.

Liability issues

Agree or disagree.... it does not matter. As I own the forum, I seek to limit my liability. This means discussions about illegal matters and also threads about your street racing. Don't post about it here.

Commercial Advertising

Most forums do not allow this. We agree with this. Going back over the goals of ET, if it contributes to the community, I am all in favor of it if permission has been given by administration. If you are interested in developing parts for Lotus, please contact "Administrator" for permission to post. Those who develop and sell Lotus products are a positive for the community and should also be supported. LotusTalk does not exist as an advertising revenue generator. On the other hand, there are some limits. Constant posting (see "spam" above) is not adding to the forum and will be dealt with. Slamming a competitor may also require intervention. Key word there is may. Posting about products that have zero Lotus relevance is probably not cool too. Specially if it is about penile enlargement, buying cigarettes in bulk, or how hot females in your area want to hook up. We do not allow spam. If you are interested in advertising on the site including banner ads or putting links in your profile, you must contact sales@autoforums.com to be set up as a supporting vendor. Exceptions to the rule will only be made at the Administrator's discretion. Violations of these rules can result in the loss of one's posting rights or a complete banning from the forum.

Violations of these rules can result in the loss of one's posting rights or a complete banning from the forum.

Copyright and ownership. By posting anything here, you agree that you have control over the copyright of the material. If ownership of text or images is determined to belong to some other entity and they ask for it to be removed, it will be complied with. Copyright of what you write will always belong to you if you don't knowingly assign it to another person with your informed consent. A forum owner however has legal liability over the contents of his forum - this usually means ownership of the posts - but not necessarily the copyright. In other words, it is your work, but you assign ownership. By using this forum, you grant LotusTalk permission to own rights to your publishing, and posting (meaning, by using this forum and submitting any information, you hereby give site owner all rights of your submission and content). By accepting this agreement, you agree all previous submissions made by oneself are owned by site owner.