The following General Forum Rules of Maritime SDA OnLine are now in effect:


1 - You must either be a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church or a friend of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to become a member of Maritime SDA OnLine.

2 - You must be a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to have access to some of the private forums. Exceptions may be granted under special circumstances.

3 - You must have an active email address to become and remain a member of Maritime SDA OnLine.

4 - No email address can be posted without permission of addressee, except for emails already published on the Internet.

5 - You must either believe in or respect the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

6 - You must also either believe in or respect one of those 28 fundamental beliefs regarding Ellen G White as a messenger of God for both her time and our time.

7 - You must stay within the topic of the particular topic or start a new topic wherever permissible. NOTE: Objections against the Trinity (Godhead) can only be posted in the newly created "Trinity (Godhead) Objections" area. Identified threads in any other area of Maritime will be moved as they are discovered. New threads posted anywhere else will be considered a "Rule Violation" and will either be moved there or moved into the hidden archived area of Maritime.

8 - Except for the Administrator and Moderators in the performance of their responsibilities, you must not make any negative communication by email or otherwise to any of the members of Maritime SDA OnLine as a result of any post made on Maritime SDA OnLine by any member. Failure to comply with this important rule will result in removal of all your privileges as a member of Maritime SDA OnLine.

9 - You must not name a person when posting anything negative about that person's beliefs or theology unless the negative beliefs or theology of that person has publically been made known by the Seventh-day Adventist Church or you can verify that person's beliefs or theology from a book which that person wrote or from an audio or video tape of what that person said.

10 - Unless the web site is an official SDA Church web site, you may only advertise appropriate web sites in your profile and/or in your posts/threads. You may, however, request the Administrator that your web site be added to the Appropriate Web Sites forum. Some requests will be examined by both the Administrator and the Moderators. In other words, do not advertise any unauthorized products or services in any of your posts, or even in your profile.

11 - The editing of any post that affects the replies of others and particularly affects the integrity of a topic is strictly forbidden in any of the forums of Maritime SDA OnLine. The breaking of this rule will result in the suspension or loss of posting privileges. If it, however, becomes necessary to edit a post at some time later than the date of the original post, a suitable explanation must be given in the post as to what was changed and why it was done.

12 - Except upon request and by prior approval by the Administrator, an individual can only register under one username as a member of Maritime SDA OnLine. Intentional infraction of this forum rule will result in the suspension or loss of posting rights.

13 - Unless permission to do so has been previously given by the administration of Maritime SDA OnLine, no member of Maritime SDA OnLine is to knowingly share their username or password to any person. Failure to abide by this rule will result in the immediate loss of access into all of the private forums of Maritime SDA OnLine.

14 - Any complaints pertaining to the decision of an Administrator or Forum Moderator will only be made to that Administrator or Forum Moderator, either by PM, or by Email. The complaint will NOT be posted in any topic of MSDAOL, except where authorized by the Administrator of MSDAOL.

The following Forum Rules of Conduct, in addition to the above General Forum Rules for all the forums of MSDAOL, will be be followed in any topic and any forum of MSDAOL:

1 - As MSDAOL is predominately an English language forum, posts are to be made in the English language only in all public and private forums of MSDAOL, unless otherwise stated in the forum description of that particular public or private forum of MSDAOL. Failure to comply to this rule could result in the loss of your posting privileges within any public forum of MSDAOL as well as access into any private forum of MSDAOL.

2 - No one will attack another individual. Others will not be directly attacked on the basis of their knowledge, beliefs, or doctrinal understanding. They will not be referred to as a heretic, etc. unless you can clearly back it up from their own public writings from their own book or web site.

3 - A person's standing before God, and their salvation will not be questioned.

4 - People will be allowed to express disagreements without fear of being attacked or of being judged. One may state that a position, or fact, is wrong. This addresses the issue, and not the person. But, there is an expectation that one who does this will then propose a correct fact or position. People have a choice as to whether they concentrate on the negative, or on the positive. People can choose to be positive. In addition, none of us really have all truth on a subject. If we seek to understand another view, we can understand why others might find it to be incorrect. It really does not hurt truth to acknowledge where we don't have it all sewed up, and the other person has an understandable point, even if wrong.

5 - Strong disagreements will be expressed in an attitude of civility, and mutual respect.

6 - Everybody will stay on topic as much as possible. Temporary deviation from the topic will be permitted as long as the integrity of the topic isn't compromised.

7 - Common SDA beliefs may be challenged, but inflamatory statements that go beyond mere discussion will not be allowed. This is somewhat subjective, and therefore imperfect. But, there is a big difference between saying: "Ellen was wrong when she said . . . and neither she nor the Bible taught that she should be infallable in every comment." and saying: "Ellen's statement that . . . shows that she was a tool of Satan, designed to manipulate the people of God to give up faith in Christ, and turn to the false gods of . . .. And, all who follow her follow the abomination spoken of in Revelation."

8 - If the teaching of an individual is being examined, the example of Scripture and the SOP should be followed, however, a fair statement of their teaching is necessary backed up by using short quotes of the individual's writings.

9 - Moderators have the authority to assess the tone of a post. Cutting sarcasm, for example, and at the discretion of the moderator(s), could result in censure/editing.

The moderators and I will be enforcing all of the above rules of MSDAOL.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: All of the above General Forum Rules and Forum Rules of Conduct in any forum of MSDAOL may be amended or added to from time to time. It is your responsibility to be kept up-to-date on any rule changes or additions by checking the forum rules in the Forum Rules forum of Maritime SDA OnLine.

Considering the real-time nature of this bulletin board, it is impossible for us to review messages or confirm the validity of information posted.

Please remember that we do not actively monitor the contents of posted messages and are not responsible for any messages posted.

We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message.

The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of Maritime SDA OnLine or any entity associated with Maritime SDA OnLine.

Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, so please realize that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use Maritime SDA OnLine to post, PM, or email any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law.

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by Maritime SDA OnLine.

Although Maritime SDA OnLine does not and cannot review the messages posted and is not responsible for the content of any of these messages, we at Maritime SDA OnLine reserve the right to delete any message for any or no reason whatsoever. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Maritime SDA OnLine, Madrona Park, Inc. (the makers of the bulletin board software), and their agents with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).

We at Maritime SDA OnLine also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or whatever information we know about you) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you.

Please note that advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, unauthorized web links and solicitations are inappropriate on Maritime SDA OnLine except if and where specified.

NOTE: As being a member is a privilege and not a right, the Administrator also has the right to ban, or even to remove any user as a member for any reason.

MEMBERSHIP POLICY NOTICE: Active members with a substantial number of posts can be banned upon request, however, their membership, especially their posts, can't be removed, as it could corrupt the forum database.

Daryl Fawcett
Administrator
Maritime SDA OnLine

A new Forum Rule of Conduct has been edited into the opening post of this topic and now appears there as follows:

quote:

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1 - As MSDAOL is predominately an English language forum, posts are to be made in the English language only in all public and private forums of MSDAOL, unless otherwise stated in the forum description of that particular public or private forum of MSDAOL. Failure to comply to this rule could result in the loss of your posting privileges within any public forum of MSDAOL as well as access into any private forum of MSDAOL.

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Daryl Fawcett
Administrator
Maritime SDA OnLine
http://www.maritime-sda-online.org

This part in the original post has been updated:

quote:

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You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use Maritime SDA OnLine to post, PM, or email any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law.

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The bolded section is what was inserted.

forum Rules of Conduct Rule #9 has been changed as now quoted below:

9 - Moderators have the authority to assess the tone of a post. Cutting sarcasm, for example, and at the discretion of the moderator(s), could result in censure/editing.

The purpose of this rewording is to make it more clear as to the authority of the forum moderators in relation to this particular forum rule.

[ April 25, 2005, 10:23 PM: Message edited by: Daryl Fawcett ]

I am in the process of adding another forum rule, which, when the wording has been completed, will also be posted here.

I will also soon be reviewing the forum rules for possible updates or amendments, which, if any changes are implemented, will also be posted here.

New 13th rule added:

13 - Any complaints pertaining to the decision of an Administrator or Forum Moderator will only be made to that Administrator or Forum Moderator, either by PM, or by Email. The complaint will NOT be posted in any topic of MSDAOL, except where authorized by the Administrator of MSDAOL.

In case anybody has any questions pertaining to our Forum Rules, I decided to open this thread for such a purpose.

Updating the following from:

To:
The updated portion is also indicated in bold and underlined format.

I turned this thread into a Global Announcement thread which will now appear near the top of every forum, however, I think you can only reply to it in its original forum, which is the Forum Rules forum.