Myself and the rest of the team, are becoming more and more annoyed about some of the conduct by certain elements of the forum population. Lately some of the content of postings in this forum have bordered on the downright disgraceful, from today it needs to, and will stop!
Some key points of friction:
1. Total disregard for forum rules, and a general lack of any kind of respect for members, moderators and admin.
2. Threads being taken well off subject/topic in idiotic ways, using important and informative subjects as an excuse for general pub talk.
3. Abusive, rude and threatening behaviour to fellow forum members.
4. Racist comments, this includes linking to offensive material (pics etc)
5. Unsavoury comments and threads, the over-use of bad language and "text speak"
6. Claiming to represent SEATCupra.net, using the site for financial gain and generally dragging the name of SCN down.
This forum was set-up more than 5 years ago, for like minded SEAT owners to discuss, and share information about their beloved SEAT cars, and has equally welcomed other members of other brands, and ex SEAT owners who have moved on to other brands.
It has a reputation as a well-natured, friendly forum, a good reputation that has seen us become respected and recognised by SEAT, the motoring media and many other linked motorsport and tuning companies.
Just lately though, we feel the image and nature of SCN is beginning to lose its focus!! And the mud is starting to stick.
Now some seem to think, because this is a 'public forum', and its my freedom of speech, blah blah., I can say and do what I like!!! etc, etc..
Well you couldn't be more wrong, everything that goes on on this forum, is the responsibility of myself and the other admins that manage it. Your so called freedom to do and say as you please, can have direct legal consequences for me and my admins.
So with the greatest of respect, we will protect the interests of this site, if that means we bin, or close your posts/threads that we feel are not in the interests of the forum, or public at large then we will at our discretion and without your permission if necessary:
1. Those whose content is deemed to be illegal, or even bordering on it.
2. Potentially racist, or inciting abuse or violence to anyone, for any reason, whether they are resident to the forum or not.
3. Anything that could be legally challenged, defamation of character, slander for example.
4. Worthless threads, stupid stunts or bragging rights.
Some people are using the forum as a doss house, and frankly are taking some pretty big liberties. Well no longer, the land lords are serving notice!!
WHO RUNS THIS SITE!
YOU do not own this forum or website. We do not ask or demand any money from members, you are not in anyway asked to contribute to the financial burden or upkeep and never will be.
Its a considerable cost don't let anyone kid you otherwise into thinking its cheap to run a forum and website this size, because it isn't.
Myself and the other admins, moderators, take no money from this site, it has its own bank account, it has always been designed to support itself financially with the aid of sponsorship, which it has done very successfully allowing it to grow.
We input everything back into the site, over the coming few months we intend to purchase new promotional items for the benefit of the group, for BTCC meets etc.
Myself and the rest of the team, have and continue to give up many many hours of our free time to serve and support this community, and the only thing we ask for in return is a little respect, we don't want you to bow down and lick our shoes or anything, and we don't want to cramp peoples style, only the ones that blatantly shirk the rules will be dealt with in the manner laid out before and here again.
Our aim is for SEATCupra.net to remain a welcoming forum, an informative forum, and a good place to spend time for everyone, including ourselves.
If it starts becoming a job or a chore and we're taking abuse from people, then, Im sorry but the site will close.
So i'd like to make it absolutely clear that WE run this site, and from now on we will take a dim view of anything i've pointed out above.
Furthermore we the admins, can and will delete content which we feel doesn't satisfy the interests of the forum community. This is a wide remit, we're pretty easy going, but if were not happy about anything, or we receive complaints about deleting your thread/post slagging off X Y and Z it and possibly you will be history on SCN, simple as that.
PENALTIES
The rules of the forum will be updated in due course to reflect these latest additions and changes.
Any member publicly arguing with anyone from the admin and moderation team on the forum, from today will be subject to the following penalties.
You will be warned ONLY once, and be advised to take your grievance to email or PM for private discussion.
Failure to comply with this request, will result in an instant 24 hour cool-off ban from the use of the forum, if this happens we advise you to respect it.
If persons persist in abuse of the admins or any other members of the forum after they have already been penalised, will then receive a further ban anywhere from a week, to a full permanent ban depending on the seriousness. That is at the total discretion of the admins.
You are quite free to appeal against any decision made by the Admins, but these are to be done privately by email.
REPORTING OF POSTS
Now i've said this many times before, but we can't be everywhere all the time we have real lives and commitments too, so frequently we miss stuff.
Much of the time we have better things to be doing rather than reading 30 pages of 'willy waving' just to see if anyone has decided to start an argument.
We rely on YOU to tell us when something is getting out of hand, the
REPORT POST function is there for a very good reason. It sends a message to every admin so that we quickly become aware of any situations that might be brewing and we can then act to knock them on the head, before the issue becomes a
problem.
Please DO help us to help YOU. All received report posts are in the strictest confidence, they are not shared with anyone but the admin team.
TAKING THE LAW INTO YOUR OWN HANDS
This has also come up recently, where one or two people feel they have the right to attack other members over their conduct.
I'll make it clear, that only the admins and moderators of the forum hand out the punishments, bottling stuff up over weeks then exploding at someone on the forum does you no good, and makes you look just as bad in our eyes and ultimately causes an online argument.
Report it to us, and let us deal with it.
FINAL NOTE:
We are fully aware this is mainly directed at the minority, but this minority is having an effect on the majority who are becoming dis-illusioned with the forum and are visiting less often as a result.
This isn't meant to antagonise anyone in particular either, so don't take it personally, its a general view shared by myself and the other admins
Things MUST start to change, and we want your help to help yourselves.
As always we welcome feedback, offers of
help etc and everything is taken into consideration.
We don't want to cramp the FUN, the banter is all good, and fine if its kept well-natured and most importantly in the right section, but some of the attitudes have got to go!!
IF YOU DON'T LIKE ANY OF THE ABOVE, AND CAN'T FOLLOW OUR RULES THEN YOU KNOW WHERE THE LOG-OFF IS.
As from now on your not going to be welcome if you continually cause problems.
Thank you for reading what i know is an exhaustive post, but we felt it needed saying.
ZBOYD & The rest of the admin team.
)
As Lawrence Of Arabia once said.'No prisoners.......
