Forum Rules

[The Moderators]

Rules of Engagement

The Deep Politics Forum

[A MESSAGE FROM THE FOUNDERS OF THE DEEP POLITICS FORUM: At first blush, the following material may present as overly harsh and restrictive. Please be aware that the legalities attendant to the creation and maintenance of an Internet venture such as this are complex and must be addressed in as comprehensive a manner as possible.

Further, exploration of the subject matter upon which this forum is focused invites the scrutiny of powerful agencies and individuals who perceive in our work various levels of threat. These entities have penetrated, disrupted, and otherwise attacked, via the application of human and/or technological assets, Internet ventures with themes and areas of interest similar to those of the Deep Politics Forum. We must guard against the interference and the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the very forces we seek to understand, expose, and defeat.

Thank you for your patience, understanding, and support.]


RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Failure to abide by forum rules posted below may result in your suspension and/or banishment from the Deep Politics Forum.

Such actions will be taken at the sole discretion of forum owners and moderators.

Through your membership and participation in the Deep Politics Forum (hereinafter DPF), you agree to abide by the following Rules of Engagement:

1. You will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, hateful, harassing, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, pornographic, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law.

2. This forum champions free speech. In this regard, its founders� role models include Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and certain framers of the United States Constitution. The use of profanity is acceptable when artistically rendered and contextualized within larger expositions of thought � which is to say, when such usage is not gratuitous. You may offend those sensibilities you deem to be in dire need of being offended � but you also must present a cogent and compelling argument in justification for doing so.

While it is difficult to define and express in a comprehensive manner the standards of this or any other �community� regarding these issues, suffice to state that �shouting �fuck� in this crowded theater� is acceptable when �fuck� is used as a synonym for, or admonition to �think.�

3. The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: �quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.�

You will make every effort to understand and conform to the so-called �Fair Use Doctrine� as described above.

4. You will not post, encourage to be posted, or in any way facilitate the posting of spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations � all of which are forbidden on this forum.

5. You will not engage in �threadwasting,� another difficult-to-quantify term. Forum owners and staff include in its definition the posting of off-topic material and excessive social exchanges. Use the forum�s Private Message function to chat; the world could not be less interested in how you take your tea.

Further, when responding to a lengthy post, you will not re-post the original in its entirety. This practice results in the waste of valuable and finite bandwidth. Quote only those passages to which you are directly responding.

6. You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this forum, any websites related to this forum, its staff, and its subsidiaries. The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of the filing of a formal complaint and/or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum, AND if the owners conclude that you deliberately set out to defame said complainant and cause this forum to be liable for civil damages and/or criminal penalties. In all other instances, we shall make every effort to protect your privacy.

7. You agree to register on this forum with your real name as User Name, i.e., your first name and family name.

If you feel you must use a pseudonym please discuss this with the admin prior to registration.

8. You have the ability, as you register, to choose an avatar, or image, that will serve as a visual identifier. If you do so, your avatar must be a true representation of your physical appearance and include a clear view of your face.

9. You never will give your password to another person except an administrator.

10. You never will allow another person to post under your name or otherwise use your account.

11. You never will post under the name of another user, and you never will use another person's account for any reason.

12. After you register and log in to this forum, you may choose to fill out a detailed profile. You are not under any obligation to do so. If you do, however, it is your responsibility to present accurate information. Any information the forum owners or staff determines to be inaccurate or otherwise in violation of forum Rules of Engagement will be removed, with or without prior notice.

13. All members, including DPF moderators and founders, should receive identical treatment from the DPF moderators, and abide by the agreed rules of engagement.

14. Our fundamental objective is for DPF to be an arena where research can be seriously discussed, and thoroughly refuted if appropriate, without name-calling or member abuse. It is acceptable to be robust and even dismissive of the arguments of other members, if analysis and evidence are provided. It is acceptable to state that a particular argument serves the agenda of the powerful, again if analysis and evidence are provided. However, since DPF is primarily intended as an arena where serious informed research can be developed and debated, it is not acceptable to describe another member as, for instance, an agent provocateur.

15. The deep politics forum is not an arena for the right and the left to bait each other. There are plenty of forums on the internet for keyboard warriors to call political opponents names, or to post crude propaganda.

DPF will close the membership of any poster whose rationale, as revealed through their posts, is to engage in crude political baiting, and who shows no understanding of, and no desire to learn, about deep politics.

This is, and will remain, the deep politics forum.

PLEASE NOTE: The owners and staff of this forum do not actively monitor the posted messages. They are not responsible for the content contained within. They do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented. The posted messages express the views of their respective authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of this forum, its owners and staff, and its subsidiaries. If you are of the opinion that a posted message is objectionable, you are encouraged to notify an administrator or moderator of this forum immediately. The owners and staff of this forum reserve the right to remove within a reasonable time frame what, in their reasoned and informed judgments, is deemed to be content which violates the forum�s Rules of Engagement. This process is manual and time-consuming in nature; accordingly, there may be a noticeable time lag between complaint and removal (if any). This policy applies to member profile information as well.

PLEASE NOTE: With each post, your IP address is recorded.

PLEASE NOTE: The software places a cookie (a text file containing bits of information [such as your username and password]) in your browser's cache. This is used only to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.

[The Moderators]

All,

Please note that the forum rules are being amended to include the following:


"Firstly, all members, including DPF moderators and founders, should receive identical treatment from the DPF moderators, and abide by the agreed rules of engagement.

Secondly, our fundamental objective is for DPF to be an arena where research can be seriously discussed, and thoroughly refuted if appropriate, without name-calling or member abuse. It is acceptable to be robust and even dismissive of the arguments of other members, if analysis and evidence are provided. It is acceptable to state that a particular argument serves the agenda of the powerful, again if analysis and evidence are provided. However, since DPF is primarily intended as an arena where serious informed research can be developed and debated, it is not acceptable to describe another member as, for instance, an agent provocateur."

[Jan Klimkowski]

Further, when responding to a lengthy post, you will not re-post the original in its entirety. This practice results in the waste of valuable and finite bandwidth. Quote only those passages to which you are directly responding.

I'm bumping this.

Please can members highlight the part of a lengthy post to which they are responding, rather than quoting the post in its entirety. Being specific lends pace and focus to thread conversations.

Thanking you all in advance.

[Jack White]

In very lengthy posts containing quotes from a second party,
I frequently lose track of the party of the first part and the
party of the second part.

I do not mind length per se, but length without knowing who
is talking is something I usually scroll right through. If it is
too hard to know who is speaking, I lose interest.

Jack

[Jan Klimkowski]

In very lengthy posts containing quotes from a second party,
I frequently lose track of the party of the first part and the
party of the second part.

I do not mind length per se, but length without knowing who
is talking is something I usually scroll right through. If it is
too hard to know who is speaking, I lose interest.

Jack

Jack - a most fair point.

However, when one hits the "quote" button, as I have done to your post, you will see the following within square brackets.

QUOTE=Jack White;18387 and /QUOTE

If one wants to quote a particular part of a post, or a particular part of an exchange, then as long as one preserves these codes within square brackets, then the identity of the original poster(s) will still be clear.

What I personally find most irritating is a long post which is immediately quoted in full for the new poster to offer a couple of words of new commentary. It can lead to an entire page of a thread containing no more than three or four fresh thoughts.

My own judgement is that if one is responding to a post immediately above, it creates a much more fluid discussion to state: "With regard to post #3 above" or to select within quote marks the particular point being addressed.

My post #23 here:
http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...800&page=3

is an example of where I have used the square quote brackets to extract the two parts of Ruben Mundaca's post which I want to address. It's clear who is talking when and, in my judgement, leads to a more fluid conversation than quoting an entire post.

[The Moderators]

All,

Please note that the forum rules are being amended to include the following:

15. The deep politics forum is not an arena for the right and the left to bait each other. There are plenty of forums on the internet for keyboard warriors to call political opponents names, or to post crude propaganda.

DPF will close the membership of any poster whose rationale, as revealed through their posts, is to engage in crude political baiting, and who shows no understanding of, and no desire to learn, about deep politics.

This is, and will remain, the deep politics forum.

[David Guyatt]

Rule 5 has been expanded as follows:

5. You will not engage in thread wasting or confusion tactics, thread deflection, thread dilution or other attempts to hijack the thread from its intent and purpose - also admittedly difficult-to-quantify terms. As a general guide members are recommended to read, digest and absorb the Guide to Forum Spies with a special emphasis on the COINTELPRO tactics outlined there. Forum owners and staff include in its definition muddying-of-waters posts as well as off-topic material and excessive social exchanges. Use the forums Private Message function to chat; the world could not be less interested in how you take your tea