WATCCHGEEKS MEMBERSHIP AND ONGOING ACCESS TO THE FORUM REQUIRES ACKNOWLEDGMENT, ACCEPTANCE AND COMPLIANCE WITH ALL OF THE FOLLOWING TERMS OF SERVICE.
DIVERSITY
We’re a community of watch enthusiasts, from different backgrounds and with different perspectives on our hobby and life in general. At all times, we expect our members to respect that. .
RESPECTFULNESS
We expect our member to show respect for others. Respecting their person, their views, their time, their opinions, and their beliefs is a core requirement of membership.
INTELLIGENCE
We’re a community with quality standards and expect our members will make a sincere effort to contribute their thoughts on interesting subjects in a meaningful and respectful manner. Posting messages and otherwise interacting on WatchGeeks is completely optional; many members often prefer to just read what others have to say. But if you do post, we expect that you’ll be respectful of the time of others by posting meaningfully. Power posting is addressed in more detail below.
HARASSMENT
Harassment occurs when a member insults, attacks, and denigrates another member at any time. We have zero tolerance for taking an argument about any topic to a personal level. For instance, the use of terms such as "idiot, moron, "stupid" and other derogatory terms constitutes harassment. The idea is to make this a pleasant environment to discuss watches not a schoolyard, or name-calling and rock-throwing festival. Repeated critical and sharply negative posts toward a forum member can also constitute harassment. This applies to all content submitted by users including posts, avatars and signatures. Offenders may be warned, given a "vacation" from the forum or an outright ban depending on the severity of the harassment.
BRAND, VENDOR OR REPRESENTATIVE BASHING
Unsubstantiated negative and opinionated material in reference to certain brands and their broadcast marketing venues will NOT be tolerated at Watch Geeks. Specific problems and opinions are welcome, but piling-on of negative comments, insulting or derogatory comments about vendors, hosts, and brands WILL NOT be allowed and may result in the offending posts being locked and/or deleted - repeatedly offending members may also be banned.
MEMBERSHIP ACCOUNT
Each member may open only one membership/user account with their chosen username and password. Members are not to share their account with others. Where multiple accounts are discovered, a member may be warned, or both accounts may be permanently deleted at the sole discussion of management. Even in households with more than member in residence, each should have their own account.
DISRUPTION
Posts which intend to disrupt the topic off conversation or steer the topic away from the focus of the forum. Disruption can include harassment, multiple user accounts, multiple posting of the same post and posting completely off topic messages. Please do your best when it comes to grammar, punctuation and spelling. Private messages are to be kept private and never posted in the forums.
VULGARITY
As a community with a diverse variety of members and readers, we ask that our members to post without using vulgarity. Vulgarity not only includes vulgar language and pictures but also sexist, racist, anti-religious, images of graphic violence, political statements and homophobic language which may offend other members. In addition, the "masking" of vulgarity by inserting * or another keystroke in place of one or more letters in a vulgar term is unacceptable in most cases. This applies to all content submitted by users including posts, PMs, avatars and signatures.
SOLICITATION
Without prior permission from an owner, refrain from using WatchGeeks to advertise your site, items for sale, commercial services or website. Posts of this kind will be locked/deleted.
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
You may post links to appropriate articles but posting articles from other sources in their entirety without prior permission from the copyright owner is a violation of our Forum Guidelines. If you must repost quotes or sentences, please credit the source.
HIGH MAINTENANCE CLAUSE
Any member who occupies a majority of admin or moderator time unnecessarily will be shown the door.
CONTENT
Any messages you post in these discussion forums will remain available to the public for as long as this discussion board is online. Once you have posted your message, it will stay online. Please post carefully and with due consideration to the content of your post.
SOCIAL GROUPS
Social Groups are subject to the same guidelines as the main forums, and if these groups become a problem for the Administrators and Moderation staff, appropriate action, ranging from changes in the group founder to an outright disbanding of the offending group may be taken.
PERSONAL DISPUTES
Please do not use these forums for personal disputes, heated debates, flame wars etc. You are expected to treat each other with respect in the forums and take any personal disputes to a private mode of discussion off the forums. If you should find that your discussion is becoming too heated or someone is becoming far too passionate about their argument, please take the discussion to private message or email.
PERSONAL TOPICS
Personal topics are threads that, while posted in public forum, are intended for a discussion between only a few members. These kinds of topics are frowned on and will be locked/removed as soon as they are discovered. Public posts should be open and inviting to all members. Personal discussions among a select group of users should take place in private message.
RESPECT OTHER USERS
Sometimes people can write something that you may find offensive. Before launching into a public condemnation though, please consider that the person may not have intended to cause offense. It is very easy to misinterpret a post on forums, especially when dealing with multinational citizens. There is absolutely no need to resort to insults. Respect others' views even if you disagree with them.
PROHIBITED CONTENT
Off-topic subjects of a political, religious, sexual or generally contentious nature are not allowed under any circumstances.
Promotion or discussion of replica/counterfeit watches is not allowed. Watch Geeks will not be a party to this illegal activity.
ASK JIM
We ask everyone to keep in mind that the Ask Jim portion of the forum is...well....Ask JIM. If you have a question that could readily be answered by another member or your post begins with the phrase "Can anyone tell me", then it does not need to go in the Ask Jim section. If you need to know which way to wind an ETA 2824-2 movement, there are lots of members on the forum that can answer that for you (clockwise and counter-clockwise by the way). If, however, you want to know the diameter of a yet to be released watch that Jim has mentioned on a show, then Jim is going to be your best bet. So, as a general rule of thumb, we ask that you please keep questions in this area to a nature that would be specific to Jim and that even if you may know the answer to a question in that area, allow Jim to answer it.
SUB-FORUM GUIDELINES
Certain of the sub-forums, such as the For Sale and Trading forums, Geek Reviews, etc., have their own guidelines or requirements generally posted as a “sticky” at the top of the forum. Members are required to comply with those standards which are hereby incorporated by reference into the Terms of Service.
NO TROLLING
What is a troll? It's a person who posts something which is bound to stir people up and then sits back and watches as dozens of people jump in and start arguing. Sometimes trolls get their friends to join in or post under different names. Generally they will do anything it takes to get attention. If you see a message like this, please try and refrain from replying to it - it may well be locked/deleted anyway.
Trolls are generally deceitful and may use ambivalence as a method of covertly insulting, intimidating, or inciting a person or persons for their own sadistic pleasure. They often pick their words very carefully and are therefore able to defend their masked attempts at creating unrest, often redirecting the blame onto the community and its failure to understand them properly.
Trolling is further considered one of two things; Either running a topic into the ground incessantly, or dragging up old arguments against a specific user/group/etc. long after the original discussion gas been put to rest and then targeting them/it specifically and needlessly. Trolling is the first step toward outright harassment of other members. This is the single biggest no-no in the community. Letting every argument drop isn't always a possibility, but learning when to let things go is a valuable tool, and not just in this community.
There is no explicit list of topics considered to be trollish, but in the past, questions pertaining to Religion and Politics have been closed.
POWER-POSTING
Power-posting is when board members post 'empty' messages to the board, in order to simply increase their number of posts more quickly. Examples of power-posting are replying to a message with only '+1', 'LOL' , 'Thanks for the heads up' or 'I agree', but failing to contribute anything further to the discussion. If you reply to a message, make sure you have something to say. Power posting clutters up the forums, clutters up the 'new posts' function, and uses extra bandwidth and server space. While we don't mind people using bandwidth to chat usefully on the board, we do mind people using it just because they want a more impressive 'post counter'. If you're not sure if you're power-posting, take a moment and think it over before you post. If all your post contains is an emoticon, it's a power-post. If it adds something to the discussion, it isn't.
Please keep in mind though; we DO have forums where power-posting (of a sort) is acceptable. Examples of this would be the Hot Shot of the Week (voting and who won), Geek of the Month, Look What I Got, etc. We would ask you to please use good judgment in making your posts.
CROSS-POSTING
Cross-posting is posting the same question to multiple Watch Geeks sub-forums (for example, posting in both "Ask Jim" and "General Invicta". This is a waste of resources and is not permitted. Any cross-posted topic will be immediately locked or deleted.
MISPLACED POSTS
Try to place your posts in the correct forum for the topic. Our forums have been carefully categorized so that most topics fit in one logical location. Any post that is deemed by the staff to be in the wrong forum will be moved to the correct location without warning.
THREAD HIJACKING
Thread hijacking is the process of replying to an existing thread with a different topic. This is tolerated but discouraged. It is better to start a new thread if you have a problem that is related to an existing posted issue but clearly different. On the other hand, it is better to respond to the existing thread with additional information if you have what appears to be the same problem.
Posts that hijack a serious thread with off-topic discussion are strongly discouraged and will often be deleted or edited by forum staff.
REVIVING OLD THREADS
If you are going to take a thread that is weeks old and comment on it, please do so only if you are making a significant contribution to the topic. See power posting above.
IGNORE SPAMMERS
Spam is blight upon the face of the net. Nobody likes it. However, it is hard to avoid. Despite our best efforts, you will very occasionally see spam on the forums. Complaining about spam in public increases noise, but not signal. It may make you feel better, but it doesn't help. PM a moderator and they will review it for removal.
Repetitive posts by one user or posting a new thread when one is already easily accessible can be considered spam. It's hard enough to let community members easily track this forum as days go on; they don't need to wade through two dozen threads about the same thing every day. TRY USING THE SEARCH FUNCTION FIRST!
DO NOT FLAME
Flaming, in the most common sense definition, is saying something negative in an attempt to get a more negative response. This is completely and totally unacceptable. It will not be tolerated, and in most cases will be punished severely. Never resort to personal insults, never extend a debate beyond the topic on hand needlessly, and try to avoid patronizing language.
DO NOT FLAME THE STAFF
They have the final say. This forum isn't a democracy. Your vote doesn't always count. They try to please everyone they can, but in the end, they're charged with making this community as enjoyable for as many people as they possibly can. They can not always be right, nor can they please everyone with the decisions made, but they're doing their "jobs" and hopefully we can all agree that they're doing their best to ensure a good community here. We're not here to make life harder to anyone. Any decision taken by the administrators and moderators is final and must be respected. However, If you feel that an egregious oversight has been made, then PM one of the owners (Jim, Bruce or Michael). Do not post staff complaints on the forum.
WARNINGS, USER LOCKING, BANNING
If the Watch Geeks Moderation Team feels that a user has "crossed the line" one too many times, they will issue the user a warning. This warning may be done via a PM or, if serious enough, may result in an immediate "Yellow Card" and then followed by a PM. This warning will not be discussed on the Watch Geeks public forums nor shared with other members very PM or email - violators will be subject to an immediate loss of their account. (further, see above DO NOT FLAME THE STAFF).
If the warning goes unheeded, further action will be taken. This can be anything from locking the offending user account for 2 weeks or longer, to deletion and banning of the user. Action is generally on a case by case basis.
If a user is apologetic, interested in a peaceful solution and wishes to have their account reinstated, a general consensus will be formed by the moderation team for or against such a request.
Admin/Ownership team reserves the right to move directly to banning with no warning or discussion if they feel that the offense is serious enough or repetitive.
HOW TO POST
Choose clear, informative subjects. This is more likely to elicit response from experienced users who have knowledge about that particular topic. It also makes the topic easy to reference and find in forum searches by future users with similar problems. Many topics have already been addressed over time and redundant threads don’t provide value. Please make good use of the forum’s search function before starting a new thread.
WHEN ASKING QUESTIONS, PROVIDE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE.
Choose one topic per thread. Long many-paged threads are discouraged. Try not to post multiple questions in a single topic -- this makes it difficult to search for specific problems. Post your question in only one forum; pick the most relevant forum and post there.
ON TOPIC
Stay on topic. When responding to an existing thread, attempt to focus on the original topic. If something comes up and you're inclined to post "that reminds me," or "we also need to consider..." determine whether it might be better to start a new thread, or if your statement even needs to be said at all.
By creating a user account, you are agreeing to the Terms of Service above as may be amended from time to time. The forum reserves the right to modify the Term of Service at anytime without prior notice. Interpretation and enforcement of these terms is at the sole discretion of WatchGeeks management.
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