><((((º>General Rules and Posting Guidelines

[MotherNature]

Effective 05-30-10

At All Times:
•   First and Foremost this is a Family Friendly Site please keep that in mind when you post.
•   Insults directed towards other users or the staff will not be tolerated. Coarse/insulting language will not be tolerated. Keep all commentary civil, and be courteous at all times. Constructive criticism is welcome.
•   Any post in any of the forums that have a racial tone or undertone of any sort will be immediately removed.
•   No advertising is permitted except by sponsors of UltimateBass.com. Any posts deemed to be advertising, for personal monetary gain, or spam can and will be removed. NO SPAM - NO ADVERTISING
•   Classified ads have been moved. You can find a link at the top of every page on Ultimate Bass. See specific classified ads FAQ for further questions. If you would like to have commercial access to the Classified Section as a Preferred Dealer contact the Administration.
•   If you have a club or non-profit fundraiser please contact admin first before posting about it.
•   This is not the place to settle a commercial disagreement or to be a 'wall of shame'. Any posts deemed to be of this nature will be removed. Settle your disputes in private please.
•   Failure to abide by these rules may result in negative moderation, removal of your posts from public viewing or deactivation of your account. We reserve the right to ban abusers from the site without notice. We reserve the right to change these rules at any time.



Ultimate Bass Forum Guidelines and Post Rules:
•   Only one account per person is permitted. Violators will be ban or deactivated without notice.
•   Keep all posts on-topic.
•   If you are providing an answer to a post, put your answer within your post and DO NOT redirect members to other sites or forums for answers.
•   Do not post links to other forums or bass fishing sites in your posts. They will be deleted by staff if determined it is necessary.
•   Do not discuss illegal activities. Our server is hosted in the USA and so is subject to US law. Please do not expose us to any unnecessary legal liability.
•   Post your comment/question to the most appropriate place. Any posts deemed to be in the wrong forum will be moved.
•   Do not cross-post, double post, or re-post the same question to multiple places.
•   If your thread is falling and you are not getting an answer do not bump, TTT or To The Top the thread. Make an additional post with valid information in it. You may not be getting an answer because you have not provided enough information so be specific.
•   Use your own words. If you wish to use the words of somebody else, quote them, citing the source. Plagiarism is unethical and is illegal.
•   Choose an appropriate subject line. Try to summarize the problem briefly in the subject, and elaborate in the message itself. Repeat the subject in the body if it will make things clearer. Do not use all caps and do not add false information just to get attention (e.g. ;read this or you will be arrested;). An example of a bad subject would be ;HELP ME;. A good subject might be, ;How do you use a spinnerbait;.
•   Include as much information as you can when seeking help. This may include water temperature, location of lake or river, time of year and weather conditions. Nobody will be able to help you if you don't give sufficient detail.
•   Thank those who help you. Acknowledgment of a helpful suggestion not only placates those who helped you, it may also help others with a similar problem. All those who have been helped on this forum are invited to help other users by responding to their questions when they know the answer.
•   Do not link to any site that contains any material that is not appropriate for all age groups or might otherwise be considered offensive. Any post containing an inappropriate link (whether typed out or hot linked) may be deleted.



Signatures:
•   Must be setup in your Profile (link up top, next to logout) , and not manually added to your messages.
•   May NOT consist of a sponsor image alone.
•   May not contain any pricing, sales, product etc. details.
•   May contain a maximum of two smilies. Or one animated smiley.
•   May include four clickable links. URL's or mailto:
Only exact URL's allowed ie not < a href="www.domain.com">LOOK HERE; an acceptable example would be < a href="http://www.ultimatebass.com/index.php>Ultimate Bass
•   Must be kept to a maximum of three lines to include any graphic.
•    All graphics will be held to a maximum size limit of seventy five (75) pixels in height and 468 pixels wide.
•   All graphics must be no more than 20Kb in file size.
•   Signatures may not be animated.
•   Please center all siggys so that the look of the site is uniform.
•   Siggy Images may not contain links to other threads or posts or websites. You may not link it to another site.
•   Your signature is your signature. It is not for sale or rent.
•   Any signature that is offensive or insulting to us, our members, or our staff, is prohibited.
•   We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your signature at any time, for any reason. If you are in violation of these rules your siggy may be removed without notice.

•   If you need a place to store you siggy please send it to [Please enable JavaScript to see this content] attached to an email with username and a request for it to be uploaded to the Ultimate Bass server.

Avatars:
•   All avatars must be no larger than 20Kb
•   Please resize all avatars to no more than 85 pixels wide before uploading.
•   Your avatar is "your" avatar". It is not for sale or rent.
•   Any avatar that is offensive or insulting to us, our members, or our staff, is prohibited.
•   We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your avatar at any time, for any reason. If you are in violation of these rules your avatar may be removed without notice

These rules help to keep our forums a 'safe' place to hang out. We appreciate your assistance in complying with the rules.

Anyone found to be violating the rules will be warned, but be assured we (the site administrators and staff) will not hesitate to ban any non-compliant users. Signatures and Avatars found to be violating the rules will just be deleted until you can come up with one that is compliant. Any questions, please ask in the correct thread in this forum.



Getting good customer support:
•   Remember there's a human on the other end. Treat them with dignity and respect. Their sole purpose is to help you so be kind and thank them in advance for their assistance. The nicer you are the nicer they'll be in response — this is simple human nature.
•   Provide useful, descriptive, relevant information. This can be a tough one since people don't always know what's relevant, but think it through before you send your support request. If you are having trouble logging in, don't just say "I can't login. Any ideas?" Instead say "Whenever I try to login, the login screen just reloads without an error message. I know my username and password is correct. Any ideas? Thanks." That extra bit of information will help considerably and will reduce the number of back-and-forth posts/emails between you and the support person.
•   Don't write overly detailed, wordy support requests. The longer your post/email the more of a burden it puts on the customer support person. They have to read the entire thing (I've seen simple support requests balloon into two printed pages), sift through to find what's meaningful, and spend more time figuring out exactly what's wrong. Since they're trying to help you, you want to reduce their burden. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to help you. So, be clear, concise, and brief. More words often confuses instead of clarifies the issue. Save the wordiness for the thank you email once the problem has been solved.

Summed up: be polite; be prepared to wait; even if you're in a bad mood because something doesn't work, don't blame the software straight away, it can be a million other things; useful, descriptive and relevant information- nothing to add;
get to the point.

If you do not know what the problems origin is/could be, try to describe steps to reproduce it, including your setup (browser/OS/user knowledge level...)



Restrictions & Warnings:
•   Removal of posts - If you wonder why your post was removed from public viewing, study the above rules!
•   Staff members here at Ultimate Bass may also take any immediate action including banning members if an extreme situation calls for it.
•   The posts on this forum are never deleted. Please be sure to think about what you are typing.
•   Read the rules. Being misinformaed is not an excuse for misbehavior.

*Finally remember this, these rules and guidelines have been posted for those members/guests who might like to push the envelope. We want you to enjoy the site and feel comfortable here. We are publishing this mostly to protect yours and our lower posterior end.

These Guidelines will be updated as needed and without notice.