There have been requests over the last month or two to better define the rules in this forum regarding commercial posts and, more recently, by Sanjeev Kumar to enforce the use of real names in posts. I agree with the need of both of these requests and am going to take advantage of the occasion and the New Year to (hopefully) clearly define the rules and etiquette for this forum.

MESSAGE CONTENT RULES

All messages posted to the forum must adhere to the following rules. Any message that fails to adhere to any of these rules may be deleted by the forum moderators.

1. ON-TOPIC. All messages posted to the forum must be on-topic. "On-topic" means the message must be related in some meaningful way to the 8052 microcontroller and derivatives, or to the community of developers that work with them.

2. COMMERCIAL POSTS. Unsolicited advertisements for products or services may not be posted to the forum. However, a response to a question posed by other forum participants may reference or even suggest any commercial product or service. In other words, don't use the forum as a a "classifieds" section to sell your products; but if someone asks a question and your product or service is a worthwhile solution, please feel free to reply with that information.

3. REAL NAMES. All messages posted to the forum must be posted using your real full name (first and last). Aliases and handles are not acceptable as this is a professional forum.

4. EMAIL ADDRESSES. Users must provide their correct, valid email address when posting messages. If you do not want to reveal your email address to the public you may select the "Don't Publish Email Address" checkbox to conceal this information. But in all cases a valid email address must be provided when posting a message, regardless of whether or not this information is made available to the public.

5. NON-OFFENSIVE. Posts should not be offensive or ridicule others. This is a technical forum where there is no need or justification for such comments. If you wish to participate in a positive manner, we encourage your participation. If you find yourself only able to participate in a negative manner, please refrain from participating.

6. ENGLISH. All messages must be posted in English since this is the single language that most forum participants have in common. This is not because we believe English is a better language, it's just the most convenient given the demographics of the users of this website.

7. LEGALITY. Messages may only contain information that may be legally shared with the public.

8. COMPLAINTS. Complaints about the way the site or forum are operated, managed, or moderated should be addressed to the webmaster from the Contact Page. Such messages posted to the forum are off-topic, unless in reply to a thread created by the webmaster or moderator specifically created to discuss such issues.

9. DISCLAIMER. The content of each message is the responsibility of the user that posted it. The moderators will attempt to enforce these forum rules as completely as possible but the poster of each message is ultimately responsible for the contents of the message. 8052.com and VIS makes no guarantee as to the accuracy or usefulness of any information obtained herein.

CENSORSHIP

It is the desire of the webmaster and moderators to delete messages and threads as infrequently as possible. In the past, we have tolerated various types of off-topic messages, including those that have criticized the website, the fact that we have banner advertisements, or that have accused us of censoring and deleting posts without reason. I hope that the fact that many (even most) of these messages were not deleted bares testimony to the fact that we have been very tolerant and have not aggresively censored anyone.

That being said, when messages have been deleted it has always been due to a violation of one of the rules above. No message has ever been deleted but for one of the above reasons.

MODERATION

The forum, in general, allows anyone to post a message without having to first register with the website. The posts immediately are available to everyone. We have been able to do this for years since, luckily, very few people have chosen to abuse the open and anonymous nature of the forum.

However, some users have demonstrated an intentional effort to push and bend the rules by repeatedly posting messages with handles, aliases, invalid email addresses, or by posting messages that are off-topic or inflamatory.

As a result, I found it necessary to invest development time in adding a feature to the forum that allows selective moderation of posts. Users who consistently fail to join the rest of us in observing the above simple rules will find themselves added to the "moderated list." Messages posted by moderated individuals will not be available to the public until they are approved by one of the moderators. The moderators will either approve the message for public display or will delete it.

Again, this moderation process only applies to those that have a history of flagrant disregard for the forum rules. Posts written by the vast majority of users will be available to everyone immediately.

CONCLUSION

I regret that I must post a message with such detailed rules. A year or two ago this wasn't necessary and we were able to converse about the 8052 without bogging ourselves down in silly forum rules. The moderation filter applied to some users wouldn't have been necessary even a few months ago.

However, times change and users come and go. While most of today's users are as cooperative as users of years-passed, some are not. These rules apply to everyone but are being spelled out in this message so that those that are uncooperative will not be surprised and will not wonder why their posts are occasionally deleted. Likewise, if you wonder why certain messages do not appear immediately, you will know why.

In this thread, I welcome your comments about these newly defined rules. However, these rules apply to this thread, too. Replies that do not conform to these rules will be deleted due to technical violation of the rules; such deletions are not censorship but rather enforcement of the rules.

Finally, I'd ask everyone to please continue to enjoy using this forum. I'm happy so many people find this forum useful and valuable enough to spend their time visiting it frequently. I hope these rules will allow the forum to continue to be a pleasant place to interact with others in the 8052 community for years to come.

Craig Steiner
8052.com Webmaster