TimeBomb 2000
Doomers ™ 'R' Us
Welcome to TimeBomb 2000.
What we are: This board is for those who have a serious interest in preparation for natural (and not-so-natural) disasters, as well as in discussing the latest news, potential world crises, and information off the net.
What we are not: We are not a religious board per se. While we have many varied discussions on religious topics, TB2K is not "dedicated" to religious discussion. Nor are we a site that deals with (in general) the more "wild and unexplained" stuff that happens around the cosmos.
We’re a pretty laid back (though very opinionated) bunch, so feel free to pull up a crate and chat. There are just a few rules, in order to maintain the integrity of the board, and assure that each Member is treated with respect. These rules are:
1. No commercial content or advertisements unless approved in
advance by Staff. These will be deleted on sight.
2. Use only ONE username.
3. Please categorize your posts. Although not "required",
it helps the members to quickly locate threads that interest them.
4. Thread Owners (those that START a thread) have certain "rights". These include:
- The right to request that their thread be moved, locked or deleted
- They may notify the staff that unwelcome thread drift is occurring.
Upon review, and if it appears
a valid complaint, the posts contributing to the thread
drift may be edited or removed.
- Threads pulled egregiously off topic may be locked or edited at
the Thread Owner's or Staff's discretion.
All opinions are welcome, so feel free to take exception to a posted opinion. Just keep it civil and polite please.
The Guiding Principles of the Board:
1. For better or for worse, the staff is in charge.
2. With the exception of TIO, adult civility is required.
3. Member, moderate thy self.
4. Private info STAYS private.
5. Regardless of religious overtones, the "Golden Rule" applies.
6. The staff's door is always open.
7. All members are created equal, and NO member is more equal than another.
Rules do not work in social settings, because rules are too inflexible to accomodate variations in personalities and circumstances. Additionally, TB has a long history of having a small number of members that carefully exploit the rules to achieve specific goals, such as pestering other members via exploiting their "hot buttons" without actually crossing the line between disagreement and flaming.
To that end, TB's rules have been augmented with a set of principles that apply to varying degrees to ALL social situations and contexts. Principles allow for defining acceptable and unacceptable behavior with enough flexibility to apply universally without being overly rigid and specific.
However, this system requires a level of discernment, as few items are spelled out as forbidden in a principle-based system. If you have a question as to what would/not constitute a violation of a principle, please PM a staff member.
1. For better or for worse, the staff is in charge.
TB is a moderated board. Its staff has final say on all aspects of its operation and on the resolution of
all disputes and violations of TB's Principles. TB's Principles are, as is the case with any principle,
subject to some measure of interpretation, and the interpretation of TB's staff members counts as final.
Staff members are subject to internal peer review as well, and member-submitted complaints and concerns,
along with major decisions, are weighed by all staff before actions are taken. Once action IS taken on
an issue, that action is final.
Any disagreement with staff decisions must be made through private channels. Any public posts to that effect will be immediately deleted and the poster subject to administrative action. A staff member may interpret a publicly posted query as a violation of this principle, if it is worded so as to convey an aggressive or belligerent tone.
2. With the exception of TIO, adult civility is required.
The baseline for what is defined as "adult civility" is "any discussion carried out about a subject and
in a manner that would be acceptable in an average small group of adults meeting in the living room of
a private home." If it'd get you thrown out of someone's house, it's not a welcome behavior here. Obvious
violations include behaviours like flaming, ad-hominem attacks, threats against other members, hate speech,
and discussions of illegal activities - this is certainly not an exhaustive list.
Posting while apparently or admittedly intoxicated or under the influence cannot be tolerated. Repeated instances of "PWI" could result in warnings, Timeout(s), and ultimately removal from the community. This is particularly true if the Member posts personal/contact information, which might result in the forum Owner or ISP being held responsible for undesirable real-life events taking place for that Member (or for any Member that the person might come into contact with).
As is the case in "meatworld," HOW you say something is as important as WHAT you say. It is possible to ask an innocent question in a belligerent manner and draw administrative action because of the tone and not the text, just as it is possible to ask an innocuous question with a hostile tone in a face-to-face exchange and get a bad reaction. On a message board, "adult civility" also includes attention to the tone of a discourse as well as its text.
"Adult civility" in the Internet sense will also preclude actions that are widely considered as annoyances, such as spamming. This also includes such things as not using multiple personas/accounts and other technically disingenuous or misleading actions.
TIO is the "back-forty" to the "living room" analogy - very light to no moderation and anything (legal) goes. Personal disputes and material too risque for other areas of TB should be posted there. (Pornography will NOT be permitted, ever.) If you must take a verbal beatdown to someone, please do it there or off-board. However, consistent abusive profanity or flaming in TIO, if the member has no other "positive contributions" to make to the board, will be acted upon. In other words, if all someone does is hang out in TIO and flame/curse people or the board, they will be subject to administrative action.
3. Member, moderate thy self.
Since TB is a moderated board, staff members will move threads into SIGs when necessary. However, members can
help make everyone's life easier by posting material to the proper SIG to begin with.
Also, the more members take care to treat each other with a modicum of respect even if in the midst of a heated disagreement, the better for everyone. In fact, if a dispute gets personal it would be best taken to private channels.
The more self-moderation the membership does, the less involvement is necessary from the staff.
4. Private info STAYS private.
If you post private information in a public venue, ANY public venue (including outside TB), without the permission
of its original poster you will be subject to punitive action. If the original poster wanted the material to be
public, they would have posted it as such.
Action may be taken at the staff's discretion to discover the identity of anyone crossposting private information to outside sources, and any member caught doing so is subject to immediate revocation of membership. Please note however, that this does not include reading members' PMs or similar invasions of members' privacy.
5. Regardless of religious overtones, the "Golden Rule" applies.
It's NOT "do unto others BEFORE they do unto you." Couple this Principle with number 2, above, and it should be
clear that there is a line between disagreement and insults/flaming/trolling.
Careful avoidance of outright violations with the intent to cause any negative response (e.g. pressing someone's hot buttons so as to troll a specific person without actually "trolling" in the broader sense) is implicitly disallowed - attempting to skirt the Principles for any reason is itself a violation of this Principle.
6. The staff's door is always open.
Principles require discernment, the ability to understand the reasoning behind them. Gone is the "no this, no that,
no the other" spelled-out rules. This can cause a bit of confusion in the minds of some. If you are unsure as to
whether a post or course of action would violate a principle, please contact any member of the staff and we'll
be happy to help clarify.
Any VALID / CONSTRUCTIVE suggestion, concern, complaint, or disagreement between members can be sent via private channels to any of TB's staff members. We welcome - and indeed encourage - suggestions and concerns. We do request that you be realistic though.
We also encourage members to bring complaints and problems between members to the staff, and will do what we can to help resolve any issues.
7. All members are created equal, and NO member is more equal than another.
No member, regardless of length of time on the board, should consider themselves "protected" or immune from
enforcement of the Principles outlined above. There is no "grace period" - the Principles apply instantaneously to
all TB members from the first registered user to the latest newbie.
Further, the staff is not immune. The staff will NOT threaten a member because of their beliefs, nor attempt to stifle discussion of topics that they disagree with. (This would be a violation of Principle 2.) No threats of administrative action will be made due to post-content, with the obvious exceptions of hate speech, discussions of illegal activites, personal threats, and other violations of Principles.
NOTICE ON USERNAMES:
TB2K's policy is that each registered Member may only have a
single Username. However, because of extenuating circumstances, a
"change of Username" has been allowed for some Members
at various times for various reasons that the Staff have deemed
appropriate. We ask that the membership respect the need and
necessity of maintaining such Members' privacy. One change we are
making is that we will no longer allow a member to maintain both
their old and new identities - they must pick ONE USERNAME and
discard the other (which will be locked or deleted).
In order to maintain privacy, the Member changing their Username is not under obligation to disclose their name change publicly. Further, the Staff will not tolerate other Members disclosing a Username change of which they may become aware. Starting immediately, disclosing such a Username change ("outing") is grounds for banning of the Member who willfully or malicously discloses the change. (Any post disclosing such information will be subject to immediate deletion.) Any member found to possess multiple board identities without the consent of the Staff is subject to immediate and permanent revocation of their posting privileges.
Privacy and sensitive information policy:
Members may occasionally post material that they consider highly sensitive.
Such material would be posted in a venue on the board that has limited access (such
as the SIGs), or discussed in the chatroom in the context of a "this is for chat only"
discussion.
If a Member posts sensitive material (and labels it as such) in a restricted venue, or
if there is an implicit understanding that where the material is posted is not for
public consumption, other Members may not redistribute said material via
any means without prior consent of the original poster. This includes,
but is not limited to, posting Private Message (PM) communications to the main (public)
board, posting chat logs when the discussion was of a sensitive nature, reposting
sensitive material on other boards, and the like.
Quoting sensitive material as a normal part of posting a reply to the same thread
(or in the same venue) as the sensitive material would be considered normal activity,
and does not fall under this rule, nor would any original posts to the public areas of
the board.
A Member that knowingly retransmits sensitive/private material without the owner's
consent may be subject to having their membership revoked. Any Member that deliberately
retransmits sensitive/private material in order to effectively harm either the board
and/or any specific member(s), will have their membership immediately terminated
without warning or recourse.
Thanks.
The Staff
NOTICE: Timebomb2000 is an Internet forum for discussion of world events and personal disaster preparation. Membership is by request only. The opinions posted do not necessarily represent those of TB2K Incorporated (the owner of this website), the staff or site host. Responsibility for the content of all posts rests solely with the Member making them. Neither TB2K Inc, the Staff nor the site host shall be liable for any content.
All original member content posted on this forum becomes the property of TB2K Inc. for archival and display purposes on the Timebomb2000 website venue. Said content may be removed or edited at staff discretion. The original authors retain all rights to their material outside of the Timebomb2000.com website venue. Publication of any original material from Timebomb2000.com on other websites or venues without permission from TB2K Inc. or the original author is expressly forbidden.
(Revised 11/19/2007)