Fresh hope board rules and guidelines:

[Cindy]

BOARD RULES AND GUIDELINES:

Fresh Hope is committed to being a place where God comes first in all things. We are a community of people who have come together to build each other up, encourage one another. learn and grow together, and to enjoy each others company. Fresh Hope is also committed to always speaking the Truth with love and doing our best to provide our members with the Truth from God's Word. We believe in using the discernment and wisdom the Lord has given us, to determine if and when a person or a church is preaching a false gospel. When someone is suspected of teaching something that isn't scripturally sound, we will point it out just as God's Word tells us to do, so that everyone will be able to avoid Satan's schemes and traps.

BASIC RULES:

No vulgarities or profanity

No blasphemy

No cultic material (except in apologetics or today's teachers forums) or links to immoral sites

No posting email addresses, physical addresses or phone numbers on the board. If you feel the need to give them to someone, please do it via PM's.

No spamming - Do not post the same thing in more then one forum. (unless you're posting it in apologetics for them to debate as well as on the main board)

No slandering the character of another member

No commenting on another posters posting style or spelling mistakes

No selling of products or services or asking for money.

No date speculation - As far as I can tell, all previous predictions for the rapture have proven to be in error. To save the moderators from having to stone incorrect date setters, do not post that the rapture will or must occur on a certain date. "Could" or "might" or "maybe" are acceptable.

No posting of discussions from other board's threads - We have plenty of quarrels here. We don't need to import them from other message boards. Please refrain from commenting negatively about other boards you visit on the net. Do not "link" to specific posts on other boards! This will help to avoid controversy down the line.

No arguing various end-times positions outside of the apologetics forum. This is a pre-trib friendly board.

Discussion And Debate: Discuss the position, but do not attack the person.

No Questioning another posters salvation!

Don't come here just to advertise another site. That is simply not good etiquette and we are not an advertising agency. If you have another site you want to advertise put it in your siggy after you get 100 posts. Then whenever you post, people will see it. This does not apply to other message boards, for the sole reason of avoiding having people come here to do nothing other then advertise.

Conspiracy theories will only be allowed to be discussed in the apologetics forum. More info about this is here:
Conspiracy Theory Threads here at FH

Please use only English on this board as other languages are not understood by everyone so it would be rude to use them here. This includes siggys too. You may of course use hebrew, greek, or latin within a post to explain an exact Bible term or phrase

We will not tolerate the mocking of our board, our members, our faith, and most importantly, our Lord

If you disagree with our statement of faith then please keep all posts that disagree in the apologetics forum

You can find our Statement of Faith here:
The fresh hope statement of faith:

Generally a staff member will only post a "verbal warning" in a thread publicly when the staff wants to give everyone who might view the thread notice that something won't be tolerated, or that people need to pay more attention to the rules etc. When this is done however, it is NOT an open invitation to question or discuss the staff members "warning".

Any questions or discussions about an action taken by the staff should be done in a pm, not in the thread itself. This is to prevent the thread from being thrown further off topic then it already has been.

Arguing with anyone on the staff about a staff decision including what forums threads should or should not be posted in, will not be tolerated for any reason!

Posting about a staff members mistakes or failings will also not be tolerated.

We expect you to show respect to all members of the staff and their decisions, including in Pm's, even if you disagree. Anything less then that will not be tolerated and you will be given further infractions or banned outright for it. You will be expected to follow any directions given you by the staff even if you disagree with them. (In other words, if a staff member says you were attacking someone and that you are not to post in such a manner again, you are to refrain from doing so even if you don't consider it an attack--what counts is that the staff considers it an attack (or whatever the issue may be.)

That being said, if you have legitimate questions about something and you have already carefully read these rules, then you can post your question in the How To, Help & Questions Forum near the top of the Index page, or of course you may pm any member of the staff.

All pm's or emails sent to anyone on the staff in regards to a warning, a reported post, edited post, removed post, or any problem, staff decision or policy will be posted in the staff forum for the entire staff to read so that we are all on the same page as we deal with the issue.

Administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit, relocate and/or remove any message, at any time, for any reason.

[Cindy]

Copyright Rules for posting things here that you get off the web:

You may NOT copy entire articles off the internet as that is infringing on someones copyright. If you post anything from the web, you need to include a link back to the source. Copyright law specifies that up to 500 words (some say 300 words) can be copied as long as the source is cited (why we require links on everything)We need a direct link to the article itself, not the parent site.

I have been told that this area is gray -- so let's stick to only a couple of paragraphs, never the whole article. Make sure you also post the link that goes directly to the article itself. (NOT a link to the main page of the site the article is on)

There seems to be some confusion in this copyright area. If you have permission from the author to post their article's ON FRESH HOPE, and you have sent me a copy of the written permission to do so, THEN you can post their entire article here. This isn't because we don't trust you, because we do, it's the people who can sue us that we don't trust.

Please don't post pictures here unless you have the sites permission or unless you yourself have hosted it! This is stealing bandwidth which is wrong. Also the site can switch the picture on you and you have no control over what may show up. I used to post a lot of pics but won't do it anymore. From now on just post the link and people can click on it to see the picture

[Cindy]

Fresh-Hope's Warning and Infraction System:

The way this board's software works, the staff can issues warnings to posters who are not following our rules. The warnings are a way of telling a member that they need to pay more attention to what they are doing so that they do not continue to break the rules and receive an infraction.

When a member continues to break the rules, an infraction will be issued to them. I think you will be able to clearly see what is most important to us, by the number of points the various infractions carry. When a member racks up 15 points, or 3 infractions, or more, they are temporarily banned. At 50 points the ban becomes permanent. All points stay on the account for 2 weeks, after which they are deleted and the member has a clean slate to start from once again.

No one but you and the staff can see if you have infractions or warnings, how many etc.

Here are the various infractions and the number of points they are worth:

posting non pretrib on main board 2
Rapture date speculation 2
posting on main board/disagrees with our faith 2
putting down others jokes or humor 2
Inappropriate Language 2
first copyright Rule Violation 2
breaking signature or graphics rules 2
not contributing to topic when posting in apologetics 3
purposefully taking thread off topic repeatedly 3
Posting link to another sites threads 4
Spammed board 5
Asking for money 6
additional copyright rule infractions 6
attacking author of article 6
arguing with staff over decision 7
being disrespectful or mocking toward a staff member 7
Mocking our faith 7
Insulted (put down) Other Member(s) 7
troll 50
Troll trying to circumvent prior ban by re-registering 50



custom infractions and points can also be given by admins.

These have been our rules since the day the board first opened. The only thing we have changed is adding the point system to them, as that's how this boards software works.

Arguing with anyone on the staff after having received a warning or infraction will lead to an immediate additional warning.

Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned user-name, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account to evade an email ban.

Contacting anyone on the staff personally through pm or e-mail or on the board and posting insulting, sarcastic, indecent or vulgar things will be just cause for an immediate permanent ban. That being said, however, if you have received a warning and feel it was issued unfairly, you are welcome to contact a staff member and discuss it civilly with them.

All pm's or emails sent to anyone on the staff in regards to a warning, a reported post, edited post, removed post, or any staff decision or policy will be posted in the staff forum for the entire staff to read so that we are all on the same page as we deal with the issue.

Publicly disputing a warning or editing or any staff decision, will not be tolerated and such posts will be edited or deleted without prior notice. If you have a problem with a warning, infraction, editing or staff decision, PM the staff. Publicly disputing or questioning a warning, infraction, editing or staff decision is grounds for another immediate infraction.

Permanent bans are done as a last resort and are not something we enjoy doing. Therefore a lot of thought and prayer go into these decisions. It is against our policy to discuss another members account with anyone else. Therefore if you want to know why someone was banned or disciplined, you must ask them, not the staff.

If you get banned permanently and later decide that you want to return, you need to email me using the "contact us" link at the bottom right hand side of the board, and tell me:

that you want to return
why you want to return and
why you think we should allow you to do so.

Then I will show that email to the staff, discuss it with them and make a decision.

[Cindy]

Please refrain from asking staff members questions about why someone has been banned. It is our policy to not discuss our members with anyone but the member. Now I'm not talking about when you all ask us how someone is doing or something like that. I'm specifically talking about asking for info on why a person was banned or why a person was warned. That is between the staff and that person, so the only person you can talk to about it is the member that you want to inquire about.

The Fresh-Hope Staff, serves this ministry on a voluntary basis. We are human beings and make mistakes. Please respect the job that we are here to do, and take any concerns to us to the How To, Help & Questions forum, PM or by using the report post button. If your concern involves a post, the report post button is the best way to alert us to any problems or concerns.

You should also be aware that any pm's that are about something concerning Fresh Hope that are sent to any member of the staff, are copied and shared with the entire staff, so that the concern can be addressed fully and so that everyone on the staff is on board. This also prevents the possibility of the more unscrupulous from trying to pit one member of the staff against another. Personal pm's are not shared. However, if you pm a staff member about something that concerns FH and attempt to say it's "personal" that will not be respected. As I said, all of those types of pm's are shared with the entire staff. This is not a new policy; it has been in effect since the board opened.


Please feel free to copy or print any material I've personally written as often as you'd like to. All I ask is that you include a link back here to Fresh-Hope.com

For the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus & in His Name
http://www.fresh-hope.com/

[Cindy]

More about debates:

which are only allowed in specific forums such as Politics, Today's Teachers, and Apologetics:

Please keep in mind that we are here to share and defend our faith and that all of our posts should glorify our Lord. We should always be sure that what we post would be acceptable in the sight of our Lord.

Remember that posts are very easy to misinterpret as it is next to impossible to tell the posters emotions or thoughts behind what they have posted. If you start to get upset or offended, remind yourself that you are making a choice about how you respond. You can choose to be offended, or you can choose to simply assume that the other person really wasn't intending their post to be interpreted that way, or that perhaps they are simply having a very bad day today, or that perhaps you are the one having the bad day and that's coloring how you are viewing the posts.

Keep in mind that behind each post is a face and a real person with real feelings just like yours. If you still feel that the other person has said something that has offended you then you can make the choice to be a better person and bring glory to the Lord by not responding in kind..

Everyone should always remember that these little tricks just won't wash here:

1. Starting a post with "I don't mean to be rude but" (yes you DO mean to be rude, you just don't want to be held accountable for it.)

2. Ending a rant toward another person with a smiley face doesn't make it fun, funny, or nice.

The very BEST WAY to handle a person who is behaving inappropriately or who has offended you is to report that post to the staff and to then IGNORE the person and their post and any further posts of theirs on the same topic. Ignoring them is equally as important as reporting the post.

[Cindy]

I updated the picture in the opening post because I realized that it wasn't the right size LOL The one in there now is however. I uploaded it to photobucket on their medium setting so I could be sure.