Forum Code of Conduct

A little while back the owner of this website and some of the moderators collaborated to establish a set of rules and ethics for this forum. None existed prior to that meeting. I have searched the forum in an effort to find that topic to no avail.

In light of recent postings, mostly from outsiders, I feel those rules need revisiting. I do not remember the exact wording of them, nor do I remember all of them. What I will post is what most of us comply with already:

1) No libeling, slandering, or defaming of another's name, person or character will be allowed on this forum. If you have a personal issue with another party, take it off site.

2) No personalized quarrelling, bickering, or fighting. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. Such postings are subject to removal by any of the moderators at any time without notice. This is not to be confused with a professional debate over industry issues. I can respectfully agree or disagree with any of you at any time on any topic without it degenerating into name calling, and unprofessional, juvenile behaviour.

3) No offensive, profane, or insulting language is allowed. Remember, there are many visitors to this website. We are all required to behave in a professional manner at all times when posting here. Rule of thumb: If what you post here is not suitable for a minor child to read, then it doesn't belong here.

4) No postings of inappropriate pictures will be tolerated.

5) Continued violations of these rules may result in the offender being permanently banned from this forum.

One last observation: Alot of people from all walks of life visit this website on a daily basis. We are then subjected to scrutiny by the general public of our behaviours. We all have our names, businesses, contact information, etc. listed here so in our efforts to being taken seriously by the public at large we have to present ourselves in a professional manner at all times. Because of unprofessional behaviours and personal attacks we have lost several members to other boards. Negativity drives people away.

Just my opinion. Take care and God Bless,

_________________
River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

amen

_________________
Robert Graff
Pro-Tec Recovery Agency
(402)208-0044
Omaha, Nebraska.

I think this is what you were looking for, Ruffin. I copied and pasted it from the original post.

Forum Moderator Policy

"All of the moderators on this discussion board are volunteers. They provide their time and their good judgment to this website free of charge, and the administrator of this website is grateful for their help."

When moderators are performing their duties, they are acting on behalf of Fugitive Recovery Network. Their judgment should be respected. They are human, and they occasionally make mistakes. But in most cases, they do the right thing. Moderators are allowed to participate in all discussions, just like other visitors to our site. When they do so, they are speaking for themselves only. They do not represent any official position of Fugitive Recovery Network.

However, when moderators participate in discussions that are unrelated to their official duties, they are expected to do so in a manner that respects differing points of view, and promotes solidarity rather than division. Even when they are not performing their official moderator duties, moderators are required to hold themselves to a higher standard than other members of this discussion board. (Like there is such a creature)

With this in mind, moderators are expected to observe the following guidelines:


They are expected to behave themselves at all times in a way that reflects positively and complies with all the Rules and Regulations(1) of this website.

They are expected to share and help promote unity and solidarity.

They may not engage in personal attacks against other members of this site or elsewhere.

They may not use their powers as a moderator to threaten or ban someone with whom they do not agree.

They are expected to be fair and even-handed at all times, especially to those with whom they disagree.
* If you feel a moderator has acted inappropriately, please contact the site administrator. The site administrator will decide what response is appropriate, if any.

Moderators have the following duties:


Answer questions from and provide guidance to website visitors.

Move, close, merge, split, delete and edit threads when appropriate and for various reasons.

Deal with copyright violations by website visitors.

Delete disruptive and offensive posts.(1)

Keep conversations flowing in their assigned forum(s).

Help mediate any arguments between members and be available to answer general questions from them.

Alert the administrator of any issues they need to know about.
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What is an 'inappropriate post?'
An inappropriate post is one that transmits any defamatory, abusive, obscene, threatening or illegal material, or any other material that infringes on the ability of others to enjoy the Forum or that infringes on the rights of others. The moderator has the power to allow more - or less - leeway when he or she deems it appropriate. Entire threads can be closed, moved or even deleted, individual posts can be split from the original thread and moved or removed, members can be banned.


What are the powers of a Moderator?
Moderators can lock, unlock, move, sticky, split, merge, bump and even delete an entire thread if necessary. Initially this may sound very complex and technical but it is actually quite easy. If in doubt please ask the admin before doing something. A deleted thread cannot be recovered.


Sticky. Also known as "pin". Puts a thread at the top of a forum.

Bump. Put an older thread back to the top of the list. This is different from "sticky" as the thread will not remain at the top always but will move down over time like all others. (threads are sorted by the time/date of the last post).

Lock. Close a thread. No more posting.

Unlock. Reopen a thread to allow more posting.

Delete. It's gone for good.

Move. Moves a thread to a new/different forum (with or without a redirect)

Merge. Merges two threads into one.

Split. Split one or more messages of a thread to form a new thread. Can be moved to a different forum afterwards.
Under what circumstances can they delete a post or thread?
If the post or entire thread is clearly a violation of the rules(1) then the decision is easy - they will delete it. However, most of the time it is not that easy. In cases like this is is best to discuss it with the other moderators.

For minor offences - e.g. tone of a thread getting out of hand or argumentative, they may simply post a message at the end of the thread stating that members should be more civil to one another and then lock the thread. Please also report this in the Moderators forum so the rest know about it.

(1)- being that at present there are no Rules or Regulations in place this may be extremely difficult to enforce.
_________________
Administrator
Fugitive Recovery Network

_________________
Kathy Blackshear
Blackshear Investigations
Blackshear Bail Bonds
Sales Associate, Prepaid Legal Services, Inc.
Walsenburg, CO

Proud Member of the AB Reject Club

I agree wholeheartely with the above posts. When I come here to read I don't enjoy namecalling or posts that make fun of people, their looks or their families.

This is a nice board with good, informative posts. It is interesting for "outsiders", (those of us who are not BEAs) to read also. But if I have to read posts making fun of Duane Chapman, (dudu as some of you call him), his lady and his family, then I will go elsewhere.

There are other sites for information and they don't make fun of him or others who don't fit your pattern all of the time. These personal vendettas have no business on this board. These type of posts belong on a group especially set up to bash or make fun of these people or any others who do not fit your expectations.

I have noticed you make fun of people who do not spell or use proper grammar. Yet, in almost every one of your posts there are misspelled words and poor grammar. I don't claim to be an expert on spelling or grammar, but I don't make fun of other people either.

This is just my opinion and I fully expect to be bad-mouthed and made fun of because I posted it.

I had brought this topic back to life a little over a month ago after someone was attacking myself and questioned about how nice it was that I was a moderator. After bringing the rules back to light back then things became more civil..... either that or my sabatical from this forum did it I, guess I will find out soon enough.

Thank you Kathy. For some reason I was not able to find it.

_________________
River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

Jake,

If your comments regarding proper English were directed at me I am professional enough to accept them. I am not perfect, no one is and I do make my share of mistakes. However, I do strive to be as "perfect" as possible in my writings. I always check and double check my posts for errors before submitting them and I still manage to miss a few mistakes. I then use the edit function and attempt a third correction. 1 flaw with this feature is that it will only allow me to edit 1 time. So if I find other mistakes later on I cannot correct them.

Additionally, my purpose in bringing illiteracy issues to a person's attention is an attempt to persuade them to pay more attention to thier writings and be more professional. People will pay more attention and participate in discussions that are well written, professional, and interesting as opposed to debates that are hostile, juvenile in both behaviour and spelling, and derogatory.

Like I keep saying, negativity turns people away.

Take care and God Bless,

Ruffin.

_________________
River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

I was in no way insulting anyone's way of writing. I agree with you. When a post is full of errors, silliness and useless drivel, I stop reading and I do believe others do also.

You have brought up such good points in the Code of Conduct but it seems, from reading threads posted after yours, that the Code is ineffective. The insults and name calling goes on and on. A post was deleted because of its foolishness and it should have been. However, in one of the following posts, there is just as much foolishness and drivel.

I will not be back to read at all if this persists. Probably no one cares, but as was pointed out by one of your members earlier, lots of people stop by here to read. You will build a reputation.

I regret your departure from us here, but you should be where you feel comfortable.

Take care and God Bless,

_________________
River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

Jake, most of us are guilty of saying or writing something negative about Chapman. I for one have never said or written anything negative about his family I, only comment on his lack of professionalism. I do not have the time or energy to spend on him or his lack of professional work ethics. When someone comments on his work ethic I will respond with my opinion which is what this open forum is about. We can make an informed opinion on how, what, where, why and when he does his comedy tour on T.V. and you should not take offense to this, it is after all, our opinion based on how he makes a joke of our industry and how many of us that take pride in what we do take offense to that.

As always this is just my opinion.