Site Policies, Usage Guidelines and Other Important Information
Site Mission Statement
Inspired by US Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, this site is dedicated to facilitating grassroots initiatives that aim to restore a sovereign limited constitutional Republic based on the rule of law, states' rights and individual rights. We seek to enshrine the original intent of our Founders to foster respect for private property, seek justice, provide opportunity, and to secure individual liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
Usage Guidelines
Code of Ethics: Site members are expected to uphold an ethic standard as follows:
+ Be honest and truthful.
+ Respect others life, liberty and property.
+ Respect others copyrights, intellectual property and contracts, per legal standards.
+ Work to promote a peaceful, freedom loving, compassionate society.
+ Operate within established morally sound laws.
Treatment of Others: Site members are expected to use the following standards in the treatment of others:
+ Be respectful of others users.
+ No insulting, antagonizing or personally attacking other users.
+ No posting of anyone's personal contact information.
+ Ad hominem attacks on any individual or groups is strongly discouraged, use proper names.
Content Guidelines: The following guidelines regulate site content:
+ No promoting agendas that counter our Mission Statement.
+ Positive energy should be used with content relating towards the achievement of our Mission Statement. Negative content should be approached with the goal of finding constructive solutions to existing problems.
+ Controversial informational claims should include a verifiable source of the information or note that the information is "unverified".
+ No rude, disruptive or disorderly behavior, including excessive low value posting.
+ Posts should not promote negativity in collectivist mindsets that view humans as members of groups rather than individuals. Such forms of collectivism include sexism, racism, antisemitism; they will not be tolerated here.
+ Posts should respect the intent and desires of the Topic Starter.
+ No posting of graphically offensive material, use links with warnings.
Promotion Guidelines:
+ Thread starters who are promoting their own material will be limited to two personal thread bumps.
+ For any commercial interest see the "Commercial Business and Self Promotions Policies" below.
New Topic Starting Guidelines: When starting new thread topics:
+ Post topic in the best fit forum.
+ Use relevant and descriptive topic titles.
+ Topic titles should not include unverified information or vulgar language.
Supporting the Site
Partnerships, Collaborative and Site Volunteering: In pursuant of the sites achievement towards its Mission Statement, the site staff is open to solicitations for partnerships, collaborative works and those wishing to volunteer skills and services to the site in advancement of the Mission Statement. The site staff will not engage in trust based arrangements with non-vetted entities, nor will it risk the integrity of its community. Terms of any possible arrangements are open for negotiations.
Membership Subscriptions: RonPaulForums.com / LibertyForest.com is in part supported by donations from our membership community though Membership Subscriptions. Subscriptions are $20 annually and provide you with the following site enhancements:
+ Private Message Space increased to 1500 Messages.
+ User can use up to 90px x 90px Animated Avatar.
+ User Can Upload Static Image for Signatures. Max width 600px Max height: 100px.
+ User Can Set Self to Invisible Mode.
+ Custom user title.
+ Allowance for one forum name edit. PM an admin.
Subscriptions can be ordered here: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/payments.php
Commercial Business and Self Promotions Policies
Commercial Business and Self Promotions Policies Back Story:
RonPaulForums.com / LibertyForest.com has a 6+ year history of being an organizing hub for pro-liberty grassroots activists. The site staff has worked tirelessly to provide a functionally vibrant environment for activists to communicate, the work performed includes the moderation of millions of posts, interfacing with ten of thousands of users and maintaining the computing infrastructure to support it all. Additionally, all successful online political communities receive countless internal attacks from opposition that must be contended with as well as seemingly endless automated spam-bots.
The site staff recognizes the importance of the Mission Statement to advance liberty during troubled times and takes maintaining the site as a critical labor of love due to its success. The site has become an indispensable tool for promoting worthy grassroots projects, liberty candidates and more. With this success however comes individuals who wish to take advantage of the good nature of the grassroots and try to use the site as a conduit for scams, or otherwise as a means to profit from. While there is nothing wrong with making a profit, constant promotion of commercial businesses is not compatible with the objectives of a grassroots activist website.
The site staff has reviewed the issues at length over the years and understands the fine balance that the site needs to have to be an effective grassroots tool that supports the free market of ideas, yet not be a conduit for others to take advantage of members and other readers. To this end, various policies have been established for the use of the site to promote businesses, personal web sites, projects or for the solicitation of any funds.
Commercial Business and Self Promotions Classifications:
The site classifies all businesses and promotions in one of the following categories:
- Class 1: Grassroots project / website / fundraiser from vetted individuals that are declared to never make a profit from.
- Class 2: Pro-liberty candidate running for public office.
- Class 3: Grassroots project / non-commerce website from unvetted individuals or where any profit motive is unpublished.
- Class 4: Political for-profit businesses or otherwise has product sales.
- Class 5: Non-political for-profit businesses.
- Class 6: Campaign fund-raising businesses.
- Class 7: Highly suspect fraudulent ventures and scams. Spam. Efforts intended to permanently divert the community to other sites. Fundraisers from unvetted individuals.
Commercial Business and Self Promotions Policies:
+ All promotions must be inline with the sites Mission Statement and support the sites Code of Ethics.
+ All users promoting anything they have a vested interest in must disclose this interest.
+ Any venture that requires a level of trust may be limited if that trust has not been established.
+ Personal websites can only be linked to when the link contains original content.
+ Promotions considered as "Class 7" are not allowed.
+ All promotions can have limited posting volume as determined compatible by the site staff before advertising fees are required.
Advertising Fees and Forum Usage Schedule:
Note: The site ownership will pledge all ad revenue received from political entities to be funneled into liberty based, grassroots projects.
Forum usage and advertising fees are based on the class of the entity and use the following schedule:
Class 1: Forum postings volume in harmonious with other posting traffic: free. Banner ads: free, as available.
Class 2: Forum postings volume in harmonious with other posting traffic: free. Banner ads: $250 / month, discounted and pro bono ads available. Inquire to negotiate.
Class 3: Low volume postings: free. Banner ads: $250 / month.
Class 4: 12 months of low volume postings. Cost: $500. Allowance for 4 months of banner ads. Cost: $800
Class 5: No forum posting allowed. Banner ads: $800 / month.
Class 6: 12 months of moderate volume postings. Allowance for 4 months of banner ads. Cost: 10-70% of all business revenue as reported to the FEC for the highest revenue year over the last 4 years. Minimum of $10,000 per year. Inquire to negotiate.
In addition, a dedicated sub-forum can be added:
- Class 1-3: free of change, availability based on user demand.
- Class 4-6: $3,000 per 12 months with allowances for above normal posting volume. Posts will not show up in "New Posts" or any other searches.
Site Policies
Moderation Process: Users are welcome to report activity destructive to the community as specified in the guidelines by using the "Report Post" facility by selecting the triangle "!" at the bottom of each post.
Topics starters are welcome to report violations or hijackings of their threads. As there is no grand consensus on what is offensive and what isn't, if you take exception to a personal remark someone has made towards you please use the Private Message facility of this forum to work out a resolution and understanding. It is understandable to publicly post a stated objection to the statement and indicate that the issue will be taken up in private.
Moderators will investigate reported posts and take appropriate action for guidelines compliance, this can include:
+ Editing the post so it conforms to the guidelines.
+ Deleting the post or moving it.
+ In some cases, a user will receive a PM warning or "infraction" about a violation of the guidelines. These will be kept private and no other user knows they happened. One main purpose of these is for the site staff to leverage a forum feature that keeps two moderators from dealing with the same issue.
+ For extreme violations a ban can be issued, such as for advocating violence or for obvious spam-bots.
If you would like to appeal the decision of a moderator send a PM to both JoshLowry and Bryan with all relevant details.
If you were banned and would like to appeal the ban send an e-mail to josh.manuel@gmail.com.
Guideline Changes / Clarifications: If you would like to see a guideline changed you should start a discussion thread detailing the issue. If you have a question on the current guidelines you can start a thread in the Forum Feedback sub-forum or PM a site administrator.
Statement of Site Profit Motive: RonPaulForums.com / LibertyForest.com is a grassroots website with the site staff dedicated to its Mission Statement. Working to achieve this Mission Statement requires significant resources including man power, intellectual resources and computing infrastructure. In order to keep the site viable and growing the site staff must obtain funds for the acquisition of these resources. Resources can be obtained thought site advertising, membership subscriptions, fundraising drives and other possible channels. The site owners and staff pledge to use all revenue obtained from grassroots activists to be channeled into grassroots efforts in support of the sites Mission Statement. Revenue from non-grassroots entities may be used in direct or indirect means to help advance the sites Mission Statement.
Site Privacy Policy: RonPaulForums.com / LibertyForest.com wishes to respect the privacy of its users to the highest means possible. Any private information that is collected will never be sold outside the scope of this site or otherwise distributed in mass. The site staff may, in extreme and rare cases that are carefully considered, privately share a single piece of information so long as there is no possible perceived damages that could result. Law enforcement operating with a court order will have information provided to them as required by law.
Registration Problems: If you have any problems registering an account, please email: josh.manuel@gmail.com
