Reopening of the Off Topic Forum

Over the past 5-days there have been lengthy discussions amongst the moderator/administrator community concerning recent forum disruptions. We've reviewed site rules and included member inputs and suggestions as appropriate. As a result, we hereby announcing the following:

• The formal rules you signed when you registered remain unchanged. They are sufficient for maintaining site compliance with legal requirements and adequately reflect the site's goal of providing a family oriented site with a high degree of civility. A copy of these rules have been posted as a sticky in the Announcements forum.
• The name of the Site Comments and Suggestions forum has been changed to Rules, Site Comments and Suggestions.
• We have posted Site Rules of Conduct in that forum. These Rules of Conduct summarize the important aspects of the formal rules and specify additional Conventions and Traditions of conduct. We've included a copy of the Conventions and Traditions below for your convenience:

1. It is expected that you will post your questions and remarks in the correct topical forum. [i.e., you post about straight razors in the razor forum, about soaps in the Soap forum, etc.] and that posts you make to a thread will remain on-topic.
2. An Off-Topic forum is provided for all other situations. While the OT forum is open to discuss anything you wish (within the limitations of our site rules, of course), we strongly urge that you refrain from starting threads on topics that traditionally become highly opinionated, such as politics, religion, sexual preferences, free speech, etc.
3. It is your responsibility to maintain the decorum of any thread you start. If members in your thread are uncooperative in that regard, report their posts to a moderator.
4. The moderators will extend little tolerance to rules violation, particularly in the areas of civility and respect.
5. You must comply with the requests and/or directives of the moderators. Failure to do so may result in the revocation of your forum privileges (i.e. you will be banned) for a duration of 24-hours or more, depending upon the frequency and severity of your infraction(s).
6. If you disagree with an action a moderator has taken specifically against you and/or one of your posts, contact the moderator off-line (i.e., via PM or email) and discuss the matter.

• And most importantly, we are pleased to announce that the OT forum will be reopened shortly.