Japan Forum Forum Rules

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PREAMBLE

The Japan Forum is a community of people who share an interest in Japan and Japanese culture. We invite you to join our discussions, but ask you to adhere to the Rules outlined below:


1. MUTUAL RESPECT

a. We have built the Japan Forum on mutual respect. Feel at home and behave as if this forum is yours. Indeed, before you post, pretend you run this forum: would you accept the message you intend to publish on your own forum? We encourage controversial discussion as long as you show respect to other members and their views/opinions. Avoid flaming and other offensive or profane behaviour. Don't launch personal attacks.

b. If you feel a discussion is getting out of hand contact the forum administrator or a moderator, by using the report button, in order to resolve the issue.

2. WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

When new members arrive, welcome them to our community. Help them learn about how to find information and resources, so they will get involved in the community much faster and easier.

3. KEEP YOUR POSTS (FAMILY-)FRIENDLY

Please avoid explicit, obscene or vulgar language, graphics or behavior. Forum posts that contain explicit, obscene or vulgar language will be removed. We do not allow links to websites with adult, hateful or other inappropriate content as well as sites that offer pirated software ("warez").

4. STAY ON TOPIC

Avoid posting messages that are out of context or irrelevant to a topic. While we encourage your participation, such posts will either be moved to another forum or deleted in order to ensure a thread's consistency. If you do want to write a post that is too off topic you can always start a new thread.

5. AVOID DUPLICATE POSTS

Do not post the same message more than once on a forum or on many forum sections. Duplicate posts will be deleted. Reposting the same message repeatedly can be interpreted as spam and could result in receiving an infraction and in the worst case the loss of your membership.

6. POST OWNERSHIP & POST DELETION

Posts are considered the opinion of the poster, and are not necessarily endorsed or approved by Japan Reference (JREF). When posting on the Japan Forum, you grant perpetual non-exclusive rights to Japan Reference (JREF) to republish, in any form, the posted material. Please note that we do not delete accounts, posts and/or threads unless they violate our Forum Rules or ToS.

7. COPYING FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES

A link to the original website should be provided for any copyrighted materials or articles taken from a source other than Japan Reference (JREF).

8. ADVERTISING

Non-commercial advertising is only allowed in specific fora. Self-promotion and advertising in other forum sections will be removed. We consider such unrelated messages as spam and will revoke your membership without prior announcement.

9. MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS

We do not permit multiple accounts. If you want to change your username please contact one of the administrators.

10. PROFILE LOCATION

The location in your profile as well as the country flag should reflect the country where you currently reside. If you would also like to indicate your home country you can do so in your signature.

11. ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS/UPLOADS

Japan Reference (JREF) does not permit posting hyperlinks to torrents, MP3s, yousendit/megaupload/rapidshare, and other filesharing services due to the sensitive nature of copyright protection. You are neither allowed to request these kind of files on the Japan Forum.

12. SIGNATURES

All signatures should not exceed the following size limits: for text images 4 lines normal size, 8 lines small size and up to 90 characters per line. Empty lines are also counted. Font sizes above 2 are not allowed; for images in signatures: one image up to 500 pixels wide, 130 pixels tall and 100k in size; for text and image, you can have a maximum of 2 normal lines (or 4 small lines) and one image (in a new line) up to 500 pixels wide, 90 pixels tall and 100k in size. When including smilies into your signature, the line with smilies will be counted as 2 lines.

Please note: we do not allow graphics and/or hyperlinks to commercial and/or business-related websites in signatures.

13. PERSONAL INFORMATION AND COOKIES

Japan Reference (JREF) collects personal information including your email address and your IP address for all activity. This information will not be sold or rented to any third party entity. The forum software uses cookies to track certain information including read posts and fora. They are also used, at your option, to automatically log you into the software. In order to protect you all email addresses are verified before registration is finalized. For more information please refer to our Privacy Statement.



IMPORTANT NOTICE

Neither Japan Reference (JREF) nor any administrator of the Japan Forum can be held responsible for the behaviour of any Team Member of the Japan Forum, or any dispute among or between a Team Member and any other member. Team Members are not employed by Japan Reference (JREF) and have no legal affiliation with Japan Reference (JREF). Team Members are considered as equal to any other forum member, and are only distinguished by their capacity to help moderate the Japan Forum according to their own judgement and availability.

Please note that Team Members are in no position to monitor all posts at the Japan Forum, and that the compliance with our Terms of Service as well as our Forum Guidelines is up to each Team Member's judgement, without any liability to the administrators.



WE RESERVE THE RIGHT

Japan Reference (JREF) reserves the right to organize forum sections in order to best serve the majority of members. Furthermore, we reserve the right to remove unrelated posts as well as posts that violate the Forum Guidelines. Ultimately, we reserve the right to revoke your membership if you violate these Guidelines. Finally, the section headings used herein, including descriptive summary sentences at the start of each section, are for convenience only and shall not affect the interpretation of the Forum Rules.