Debate Forum Intro and Rules

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Welcome to DebatingChristianity.com. This forum aims to be the most civil and engaging debate forum on Christianity and religion for people of all persuasions.

Please read the following before you post on the forum:
Tips on starting a debate topic
Tips on how to remain civil while debating

If you are unfamiliar with how to use a forum, please read the FAQ.

Forum rules:

1. Personal attacks of any sort are not allowed. Comments about any person that are negative, condescending, frivolous or indicate in any way a lack of respect are not allowed.
2. Profanity and obscenity of any sort are not allowed (this includes words that are abbreviated or coded).
3. When you start a new topic in a debate subforum, it must state a clearly defined question(s) for debate.
4. Stay on the topic of debate. If a topic brings up another issue, start another thread.
5. Support your assertions/arguments with evidence. Do not persist in making a claim without supporting it. All unsupported claims can be challenged for supporting evidence. Opinions require no support, but they should not be considered as valid to any argument, nor will they be considered as legitimate support for any claim.
6. Do not debate in the discussion subforums. They are only for general discussion to get to know one other better.
7. Do not post frivolous, flame bait, or inflammatory messages.
8. Extensive quotes from another source (particularly other websites) should state the source to avoid plagiarism.
9. No unconstructive one-liners posts are allowed in debates (Do not simply say "Ditto" or "I disagree" in a post. Such posts add little value to debates).
10. Spamming (duplicate posts, advertisements, etc) or solicitations are not allowed anywhere on the forum (posts, signatures, and PM).
11. Hacking into other peoples' accounts or the forum will result in instant account banning and IP banning.
12. Do not post personal information about other people (license plate numbers, social security numbers, credit card numbers, phone numbers, etc). Information deemed personal by the moderators will immediately be edited.
13. Posts that do not meet the minimum level of readability and comprehensibility can get deleted without notice and can result in an immediate member ban.
14. Signatures which are deemed to be uncivil, insulting, or inflammatory are subject to arbitrary removal by the administrators (or moderators). Repeated infractions can result in disciplinary action.
15. It is not permitted to say another person or group is not a Christian or call them a cult if the person or group identifies as Christian (this includes Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, or any group that claims to be Christian).
16. Appeals, challenges, or any response to comments/warnings made by moderators should not be made in public. The proper channel is to send a PM to a moderator and to discuss it directly and in private.
17. Do not comment on any rule infractions made by others. Ignore any rule violations made by others and only respond by reporting it to the moderators.
18. A person can only have one active user account. Posting from multiple accounts can result in one or more of those accounts to be deleted.
19. Abide by the guidelines on preaching and the guidelines on ranting. Repeated violations of the guidelines can result in a warning.
20. In general, all members are to be civil and respectful.


Personal messaging rules:

1. No personal attacks of any sort are allowed in Personal Messages (PM).
2. Civility and respect are to be expected in PM exchanges.
3. Contents of PMs are not to be posted publicly except by consent by both the sender and receiver. Any publicly posted PMs will be removed by a moderator if a complaint is received from either the sender or recipient or is deemed inappropriate by a moderator.
4. If you receive any PMs that are harassing or threatening to you in any way, send a copy of the PM to a moderator. The moderating team will then review the PM and will discuss how to handle it.


Rules enforcement:

Violation of any of the above rules will get a Moderator Warning from an administrator/moderator.

After a Moderator Warning, an additional rule violation would result in a Moderator Final Warning.

An additional violation after a Moderator Final Warning will result in being placed in the probation room. You will also be placed in the "Under Probation" rank. The probation step requires a discussion among the admins and moderators and is not a step taken lightly. After one month, you may request to be removed from probation by sending a PM to an admin or moderator.

If you receive a comment, warning, or probation, and you would like to respond or appeal it, please abide by the policy on responding to moderator actions.

While on probation, additional violations can result in membership suspension. You will be unable to log into the forum for one month.

Further violations will result in a permanent ban of membership. This step requires agreement among the admins and moderators.

Any malicious, offensive, or spamming activity will result in an instant ban.

Banned users that rejoin will immediately be deleted without warning.



Liability waiver:

By participating on this forum, you recognize the inherent risks in using this site and debating. All forum members releases all liability of the forum, forum owner, and forum moderators from any real or perceived damages of any kind, including emotional, mental, psychological, financial, physical, or spiritual. The forum cannot control and is not responsible for what anybody says on the forum, is not liable for anything posted, and not liable for the use or misuse of this site. Though the moderating team seeks to be as fair as possible, there can be cases of potential perceived unfairness and resolution can only be addressed through the forum appeal process.