Registration to this forum is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you agree to the terms, please check the 'I agree' checkbox and press the 'Register' button below. If you would like to cancel the registration, click here to return to the forums index.

Intro

The *HOW* (Heart Of the Web) Cafe is privately owned by Karyl & Rusty and, although donations are very much appreciated to help defray costs, it is free for all of our community members to use. It is our hope that it will become a dynamic community driven place made up of and accepting of a variety of people with all sorts of interests and geared towards the online auction and small business community.

Privacy Policy

Although the owners, Admins and Moderators have access to some personal data, we value the privacy of our members and hate spam so we will never deliberately sell or give away any of your personal information to any party unless legally compelled to do so.

Please be remember that your profiles are available for public viewing and just as with other boards that have profiles viewable to the public there is a risk that your email and other info posted there and on the board may be harvested.

Terms of Use

Please treat other members with some respect. Refrain from personal attacks against other members of this discussion forum. Although we know that not everyone will agree with each other all the time (that would get boring fast eh?) members are expected to be generally civil to each other even in the heat of debate (The Fire Pit is the only place where we are more lenient on this issue). When addressing a post that you disagree with go after the opinions and/or facts in the post itself, not the poster. You own your words, try to keep them so they won't be to bitter if you have to eat them later.

Do not post messages that are deliberately divisive, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate. Do not engage in anti-social, disruptive, or trolling behavior (there is no way to list every negative behavior so just because it's not covered specifically doesn't mean it will be tolerated). Do not post bigoted or insensitive statements about a persons: race, age, gender, ethnicity, affection orientation, weight/height or religion. Do not proselytize.

Keep comments, discussions and pictures geared towards the general public. Think of the majority of the board as PG with The Fire Pit again allowing more leeway.

When posting graphic details or pictures (normally allowed only in the Fire Pit) please post a warning (ex: “Warning” “Graphic” “Violence”) in thread title. Please try to keep the thread titles, even in The Fire Pit, toned down a bit since we want to be able to leave that area available for all of our members to see and search.

Some here have "history" with each other from other boards. If this is negative and impacts this board in a negative manner you will be asked to keep it off this board or leave. Do not follow someone into another thread to try to continue a disagreement you had elsewhere. Do not talk negatively about an individual in a thread where they are not participating.

You are permitted to criticize public figures, who are not protected under our rules against personal attacks unless they are a member of our community. If they are then that person is protected by our rules and you are not permitted to attack that person on a personal level.

Do not post messages that advocate harm or death to anyone, threaten the livelihood of anyone, or otherwise harass anyone. Do not post personal/private information about a community member or any other non-public figure even if it is publicly available without that person's consent. Refrain from posting in all capital letters unless you are trying to "yell" or emphasizing a word.

When quoting someone or a source please give proper credit when known. When referencing a copyrighted work, post a link back to the original or info as to your source. All copyrights belong solely to the original author.

Members have the option of including a short signature line at the end of each post as well as uploading a small avatar image which appears below your user name. Your signature line and your avatar image must adhere to the community standards for this message board. Your signature line may include one small graphic at any time. That graphic should be in either .jpg or .gif format, and should not exceed 500 pixels wide, 200 pixels tall, or 20 kilobytes. Please keep the text in signature lines as brief as possible. The reason we ask the members keep picture sizes down a bit is out of consideration of those still on dial-up.

Please try not to steal another person's bandwidth by posting a picture hosted on another site without the owner of that site’s express permission. If you like a picture please download it to your PC and then upload either to here as an attachment or to a picture host. (There are many free ones for personal use like Photobucket.)

The views presented by community members are their own and are not necessarily those of the owners, administrators, moderators or other community members.

Violations Of TOU

Although we are a rather easy going and tolerant bunch we will not put up with anyone constantly and deliberately breaking and testing the terms. For most violations we normally have a "3 Strikes and You're Out" policy. "Strike" One: a poster is given a verbal warning; "Strike" Two: the poster will be given a one week "cool down" suspension; "Strike" Three will result in the poster being permanently suspension from participating in the forums and website use.

The owners of HOW Cafe reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason. They also reserve the right to ban someone sooner if needed due to their choice of poor behavior. We also reserve the right to give a second chance or more rope to posters who are well established (in a positive manner) within the community.

All of our moderators are unpaid volunteers. They are selected from the membership of our community. The owners/administrators have the final authority on all matters relating to this website. You can help make the admin and moderator's jobs easier by alerting on the post by clicking the little red triangle at top right corner in the offending post. You may also email, PM or IM us about any post that might need our attention. The moderators and admin work as a team and have broad discretion to remove inflammatory and counterproductive posts in the interests of keeping the peace on this message board. If you have a concern about an action a moderator or Admin has taken (we're all human too), or have any questions about our policies please feel free to contact the admin.

The terms of use listed above cover the most common disruptive or inappropriate postings only. The admin and moderators reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is horribly disruptive or inappropriate, even if that post is not specifically forbidden by our published terms. The administrators and moderators will try their best to be fair, and make *HOW* Cafe a comfortable place for those who enjoy being here. Although we'd like it if everyone were comfy, and will strive to find a balance where it will be for most, we realize that is not truly possible for everyone. Therefore if you truly do not like the board or the way we handle things we suggest that you exercise your right to leave before we need to exercise our right to show you the door

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will follow the above rules or otherwise post anything that is violative of any laws.