Website Rules

This website is our home. Do not fuck with us.

You're a guest here, so please be polite. We reserve the right to keep our house in order by removing posts/accounts, closing threads, editing post content, permanently banning people, and taking any other actions we deem necessary to keep the board on topic. We will not tolerate racist, sexist, homophobic, fascist, nationalist, and purposefully inflammatory comments/images/media. While we respect others opinions, we are the ones ponying up the money and time to create this space.

It is NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY to host opinions that we do not agree with, are offensive to the community, or irrelevant to the purpose of this message board. The great thing about the internet is that there are plenty of other places you can go and start your own website to debate these topics. Please do so.

Just to be clear: we're not here to take your shit either; even if you're not breaking the rules. If any of the staff deems your content offensive, whether it's directed at themselves, the website in general, or anyone else, we reserve the right to ban you outright. Just because we're nice people doesn't mean we're going to let you shit all over us with abusive remarks or shitty attitudes. Our policy is ridiculously simple: don't be a dick. If you play nice, we'll play nice.

Please search before posting!

Please remember to use the search page before asking questions. If you need more clarification on the answers you find via search, please post a response in one of the found threads. If your question remains unanswered, please create a thread in the appropriate section. This helps keep clutter on the board down so we don't have 100 threads asking the same question. If you search before posting, it'll make all our lives a lot easier.

Hate speech will not be tolerated.

We will not tolerate hate speech in any form. This includes but is not limited to:

• Racist slang terms
• Hateful comments based on skin color or background
• Religious bashing or intolerance
• Gay bashing (includes using the term 'gay' to describe something negative)
• Sexist or misogynistic material
• Victim blaming
• Faith-based prejudicial statements
• Derogatory remarks
• Poor taste jokes about these topics

Remember, these boards are open to all walks of life and with that comes the need to respect them all. So please, leave your hate at the door.

Also, we are not interested in censoring a negative slur if it's used in the context of a civil discussion. For example, we all know the difference between using the word 'nigger' in a discussion, and using it as hate speech towards someone. The latter will not be tolerated.

Do Not Flame or Troll Other Users

In the context of a forum discussion, flaming is defined as two or more users deciding that insulting each other is more important than having a civil discussion about the subject they are having a disagreement about. Since flaming does not contribute anything useful to the community it is strongly frowned upon and will result in being issued a warning.

Trolling is when a person tries to sow discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people for personal entertainment. They do so by posting inflammatory or off-topic messages with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion. Obviously, this is contrary to the community's purpose, so trolling on these boards will result in receiving a warning.

Do Not Post Spam

We consider spam to be any kind of content that is either purposefully wasteful of our time or serves no purpose to the community. 

We have expanded our spam rules to include people that message us asking for money, bus tickets, or train information via phone/email. For example, if you create an account with no avatar, no profile information, and no posts other than to ask us to call you with train information because you're 'stuck' somewhere, we will ban your account. This website's benefits are for folks that participate in the community, and not for those only looking to take from it.

The above also applies if you post in the Road Dogs, Ride Board, and Crust Surfing areas and do not have an avatar and profile information filled out.

Purposely spamming the website with senseless, vacuous, or empty messages is highly frowned upon. This includes such things as party posts, chain letters, two-word "I agree" or "me too" responses, merely posting an icon, one word replies, bumping old topics, +1, "didn't read" or "old", continually posting the same topic or post, posting a topic with the same copied and pasted text across several boards and using the Quote feature without contributing anything new to a thread.

While you are allowed to post links to your own websites and promote your own projects, posting any pyramid schemes, free offers, money making ventures, or other for-profit or spam-like promotions will get you banned. Spam advertising via the Private Message system will result in immediate termination of your account.

Read all sticky threads before posting.

Occasionally we have rules and other important information that is specific to only one section of the forum. This information is contained in 'sticky' threads. These threads are permanently 'stuck' to the top of the list of threads in each forum area. It is your responsibility to read the information in these threads, as they are designed to make you aware of not only the rules of that forum section, but also give you information that will help you in your research on that subject.

Rules stated in sticky threads will always have the Read This First thread prefix attached to them. All other sticky threads are optional (but you should read them anyways!).

Do not create multiple accounts

We take many steps here to keep the site from becoming flooded with accounts no one uses, and to make sure that people listed on the member's list are real people you can meet with in real life. To help us in this task, we ask that you DO NOT register more than one account on the site. If you have forgotten your password, or even you have forgotten your user name, please use the password recovery tool. Your user name and password will be sent to the email you used to register for the site. Registering multiple accounts for any kind of nefarious purposes will result in both accounts being banned permanently.

If you need to change your account information such as birth date, user name, ecetera, please use the contact form. We'd rather edit your current account than have you create multiple accounts.


What happens when you break the rules?

Squat the Planet runs on a 'three strikes' policy. If a user decides to break the rules of this website they earn a warning 'point' against their account. Warning points are issued by the Admins and Moderators of StP and expire after 90 days from their issue date. This way, a user can redeem themselves if they made an honest mistake; if the user no longer violates any of the rules, the warning point will disappear after that time, essentially giving them a clean slate.

The following actions are taken against the user upon receiving each warning.

1. First warning - there are no punishments for the first warning.
   
   
2. Second warning - If a user breaks the rules a second time within 90 days of receiving their first warning, they will earn a second warning point. This warning will 'mute' their account. This means that the user will be able to view and read the website as normal, but will be unable to reply or post any content, including in the chat room and private messages. After thirty days, the user will be able to post and reply to content normally.
   
   
3. Third warning - Upon receiving a third warning (within the 90 days of the first warning) the user will have their account permanently banned. Banned accounts cannot access any part of the website.

Warning Point Expiry Example

Just to make things clear, here's an example of how point expiry works.

• Jane violates the no hate speech rule, earning their account one warning point.
  
  
• Jane goes ninety (90) days without violating the rules, so their warning points expire. This essentially returns Jane to zero (0) warning points.
  
  
• If Jane was to break the rules again, they would again earn one point against their account, raising them from zero (0) points to one (1) point.

Another example:

• Joe already has one warning point against their account for violating our no hate speech rule.
  
  
• Joe continues being a dick for several days after the first incident, thus earning them another warning point from a moderator. Joe now has two (2) warning points against their account. His account is muted for 30 days.
  
  
• Realizing they need to chill the fuck out (or they'll get a third point = banned), Joe is a model community member for 90 days from the date they earned the first warning for being a dick. This reduces their warning points from two (2) to one (1). If Joe continues to behave, their warning points will reduce to zero (0) 90 days from the date of the second warning.
  
  
• Joe is good for a while, but can't seem to control themselves before the 90 days is up for their second offense (current warning points = 1). After posting some hate speech, a moderator issues another warning, bringing the total amount of warning points back up to two (2). Joe has now been muted for 30 days for the second time.

So yeah, you get the idea. It's important to remember that an Admin or Moderator may choose to skip the entire warning process and ban your account immediately if the situation warrants it. On the opposite side of the coin, the admin/mod might choose to simply give a verbal warning which doesn't affect your account and isn't registered in the system (i.e. zero points).

Account bans can be appealed by emailing the staff at [email protected].