The Official Forum Rules, Guidelines, Conditions, and Terms of Service (TOS) PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!


GENERAL AGREEMENT

This Terms of Service Agreement ("Agreement") sets forth the terms of your use of CrowdTopic.com ("this Website"). By using this Website, you signify that you unconditionally agree to be bound by this Agreement and that you will comply with all state and federal laws and regulations. You further agree to comply with all local laws and rules regarding online conduct and acceptable content. If you do not agree to be bound by this Agreement, you must discontinue your use of this Website immediately.

The owner(s) of this website reserve the right to modify this Agreement at any time without giving prior notice to you. Therefore, you should regularly review this Agreement in order to determine the current terms of use. Any modification of the Agreement becomes effective upon posting of the modified Agreement. Your continued use of this Website signifies that you agree to be bound by the Agreement as modified.


Age Restrictions

You must be at least 13 years of age to use or become a member ("Member") of this Website. By using this Website, you certify that you are at least 13 years old. If you are older than 13 but less than 18 years of age, you may only use this Website under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by this Agreement.

Administrative Note

CrowdTopic.com wants to promote a clean, healthy, respectful atmosphere where people are not afraid to ask questions, participate in this community and have great discussions in a fun environment. While we do understand that discussions and debates can invoke emotional responses, we ask that members remember to respect each other's opinions even in the heat of debate. After all, it's just an opinion.


With that in mind, here are the rules:

Section 1
THE BIG RULES: A violation of these rules is grounds for the IMMEDIATE banning or termination of your account. This can be a temporary ban or a permanent lifetime ban at the discretion of the staff member who implements it. If your account is banned you will no longer have any of the priviliges associated with being a registered member at CrowdTopic.com and you may not be allowed to interact with the website in any way beyond merely browsing. Attempting to circumvent a ban will result in your access to this website beign restricted all together.

[1] Respect the privacy of other members and individuals. Do not post personal information about them (i.e. addresses, phone numbers, passwords, etc.) without their consent.

[2] Be respectful of other members. Conflicts and debates will happen. However, personal attacks or name calling will get you a warning. Multiple infractions will get you banned.

[3] No bombing forums or threads with pointless posts.

[4] No linking to or posting of material that is pornographic, obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any US federal or state laws.

[5] No linking to or promoting other sites that you own or are affiliated with. Signature links are OK, however the owners and administrators of CrowdTopic.com reserve the right to dissallow any links we deem innapropriate on this Website.

[6] Spamming is strictly forbidden and will result in an immediate and permanent account ban.

[7] Do not impersonate other individuals or falsely represent yourself.

[8] Do not discuss, suggest, engage, or encourage any illegal activity on the forums. Linking to locations that deal with any such activity is also forbidden.

[9] Posting under secondary usernames or alias user names other than your main account for any reason is grounds for having your posting privileges revoked in all accounts.

[10] You must have a valid e-mail account in your profile so that you can be reached by a forum moderator or administrator.


Section 2
These are here to help you (and others) have an enjoyable experience here. Repeated infractions in reference to these rules can still result in an account ban.

[1] Respect the final decisions of forum moderators and administrators.

[2] SHOUTING. Try to avoid using all caps for multiple words when posting.

[3] Try to post to the forum that is most appropriate for the topic being presented.

[4] No cross-posting. (Starting multiple threads on the same topic)

[5] No excessive profanity (aka swearing or curse words) in subject lines, signatures or the body of your messages.

[6] Observe and comply with all copyright laws when posting copyrighted material.

[7] Do not post messages that violate Federal, State, Provincial, or Local laws which include, but are not limited to, anything that violates a copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or is bound by NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement).


Section 3

TERMS OF SERVICE

Paragraph 1
By contributing or submitting content to this website in any form including forum postings, articles, photographs, or any other media, you automatically grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) the owner(s) of this website an irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable and worldwide right and license to use, copy, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from and sell or distribute such materials or incorporate such materials into any form, medium or technology without compensation to you. In addition, you warrant that all moral rights for those materials have been waived and that you agree that none of the materials shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of the owner(s) of this website.


Paragraph 2
Considering the real-time nature of this bulletin board, it is impossible for moderators to review all messages or confirm the validity of information posted. Please remember that the administrator and the moderators can not actively monitor the contents of every posted message and are not responsible for any messages posted. The administrator and the moderators do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of an entity living, dead, or imaginary. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email or using the report post feature. The administrator and the moderators have the ability to remove objectionable messages and will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if determined that removal is necessary. However, this is a manual process, so please realize that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.


Paragraph 3
You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this discussion forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or CrowdTopic.com, or you have permission, and you cite it appropriately.


Paragraph 4
The administrator and the moderators reserve the right to delete any message for any reason. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the administrator and the moderators, the authors of the forum software, and the hosts of the forum, with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).


Paragraph 5
The owner(s) of this discussion forum also reserve the right to, under force of subpoena, reveal your identity or whatever information we know about you in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you. We will not disclose this information to any third party including law enforcement without the proper legal documentation and even then we may decide to have our own attorneys review the order and make a decision based on their advice.


Paragraph 6
A valid email address is required for registration so that your password can be sent to you personally. This has been done to prevent and safeguard the CrowdTopic.com forums from random attacks and people looking to cause problems and spam these forums. CrowdTopic.com does *NOT* sell or distribute your email address to any third parties. The option to have your email address visible in your posts on these forums is controlled and determined by settings in your profile which you control. If you feel uncomfortable submitting your email address, you can go to a number of free email services on the Internet to get a second email address for the purposes of registering on bulletin boards like this one.


Paragraph 7
The operating costs for this site are paid for via advertising revenue, donations, sponsorships, and paid memberships. Attempts to subvert the advertising on the site with ad blocker software may result in the loss of your ability to view this website. Though we do not block ad blocking software users presently, we reserve the right to do so in the future.


Paragraph 8
Please note that advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are inappropriate on these discussion forums in posts by users. CrowdTopic.com reserves the right to change this policy at any time. Such changes will be posted on this page. You will be notified via your registered email on this site whenever such changes are applied.


Paragraph 9
You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this Website, and or any related websites to this Website, its staff, and its subsidiaries.

Paragraph 10
Moderators and administrators frequently review forum messages for those that are in violation of these rules. Any messages found to be in violation may be deleted without warning or explanation. The Administrators also reserves the right to ban or issue an infraction to any user, at any time. This is a privately owned web site.

Finally - By using this site you are agreeing to and accept the following general disclaimer.


Section 4

General Disclaimer
THIS SITE IS PROVIDED BY CROWDTOPIC.COM ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. CROWDTOPIC.COM MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE OPERATION OF THIS SITE OR THE INFORMATION, CONTENT, MATERIALS, OR PRODUCTS INCLUDED ON THIS SITE. YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THIS SITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK.

TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMISSIBLE BY APPLICABLE LAW, CROWDTOPIC.COM DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, CROWDTOPIC.COM DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THIS SITE, ITS SERVERS, OR E-MAIL SENT FROM CROWDTOPIC.COM ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. CROWDTOPIC.COM WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM THE USE OF THIS SITE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, AND CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.