Terms

The providers ("we", "us", "our") of the service provided by this web site ("Service") are not responsible for any user-generated content and accounts. Content submitted express the views of their author only.

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We may remove or modify any Content submitted at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice. Requests for Content to be removed or modified will be undertaken only at our discretion. We may terminate your access to all or any part of the Service at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice.

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These terms may be changed at any time without notice.

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Forum Rules and Etiquette

Rule 1: Remain civil and respectful

There are several hundred people who actively participate here. People come from all different backgrounds and will have different ways of seeing things. You will not agree with everything you read here. Back-and-forth discussions are fine but do not cross the line into rude or disrespectful behavior.

Conduct yourself as you would at any other place where people come together in person to discuss their hobby. If you wouldn't say something to somebody in person, then you probably should not be writing it here.

This should be obvious but, just in case: profanity, threats, slurs against any group (sexual, racial, gender, etc.) will not be tolerated.

Rule 2: Stay close to the original topic being discussed

If you are starting a new thread choose a reasonable sub-forum to start your thread. (If you choose incorrectly don't worry, we can fix that.)

If you are responding to a thread, stay on topic - the original poster was trying to achieve something. You can always start a new thread instead of potentially "hijacking" an existing thread.

Rule 3: Contribute something meaningful

To put things in engineering terms, we value a high signal to noise ratio. Coming here should not be a waste of time.

• This is not a chat room. If you are taking less than 30 seconds to make a post then you are probably doing something wrong. A post should be on topic, clear, and contribute something meaningful to the discussion. If people read your posts and feel that their time as been wasted, they will stop reading your posts. Worse yet, they will stop visiting and we'll lose their experience and contributions.
• Do not bump threads.
• Do not "necro-post" unless you are following up to a specific person on a specific thread. And even then, that person may have moved on. Just start a new thread for your related topic.
• Use the Private Message system for posts that are targeted at a specific person.

Rule 4: "DM/PM Sent!" messages (or, how to use the Direct Message system)

This forum has a direct message feature that we want people to use for messages that are not of general interest to other members.

In short, if you are going to reply to a thread and that reply is targeted to a specific individual and not of interest to anybody else (either now or in the future) then send a direct message instead.

Here are some obvious examples of when you should not reply to a thread and use the DM system instead:

• "PM/DM Sent!": Do not tell the rest of us that you sent a DM... the forum software will tell the other person that they have a DM waiting.
• "How much is shipping to ....": This is a very specific and directed question that is not of interest to anybody else.

Why do we have this policy? Sending a "DM/PM Sent!" type message basically wastes everybody else's time by making them having to scroll past a post in a thread that looks to be updated, when the update is not meaningful. And the person you are sending the DM to will be notified by the forum software that they have a message waiting for them. Look up at the top near the right edge where it says your name... if you have a DM waiting, the envelope will have the number of unread DMs on it..

Rule 5: Copyright and other legal issues

We are here to discuss vintage computing, so discussing software, books, and other intellectual property that is on-topic is fine. We don't want people using these forums to discuss or enable copyright violations or other things that are against the law; whether you agree with the law or not is irrelevant. Do not use our resources for something that is legally or morally questionable.

Our discussions here generally fall under "fair use." Telling people how to pirate a software title is an example of something that is not allowable here.

Reporting problematic posts

If you see spam, a wildly off-topic post, or something abusive or illegal please report the thread by clicking on the "Report Post" icon. (It looks like an exclamation point in a triangle and it is available under every post.) This send a notification to all of the moderators, so somebody will see it and deal with it.

If you are unsure you may consider sending a private message to a moderator instead.

To find out how our discipline sections works, you can go the Warnings and Discipline section.

Moderated Users