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The
rules of #NewsTalk aim to protect the individual from abuse and personal attacks and to ensure and
encourage the free flow of discussion whilst promoting a civilized and harmonious
atmosphere in an arena of civilized debate and chat . Any behavior that is considered
disruptive, aggressive or abusive will not be tolerated.
Fair, unbiased
decisions will be given although in all judgments you cannot please all the
people all the time. It is a learning experience for us all and we learn from
our mistakes. In such times we are strong enough to admit our errors and say
`sorry`.
NewsTalk is an English speaking channel with the emphasis being on news, current events and debating of issues. So please be respectful to others and speak English only and keep the chat to the theme of the room.
In addition to adhering to general
netiquette there
are a few hard and fast rules:
1. The first and foremost rule is to have fun and enjoy the channel but not at the expense of others. We will not tolerate harassing of ANY kind, which includes threats of violence against ops or other channel users. There will be NO name calling, ad hominems, personal attacks, verbal harassment or overly aggressive or abusive behavior against other channel participants. Also, excessively and/or gratuitously violent rhetoric is prohibited.
2. The use of epithets or excessively pejorative language targeting a race, nationality, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc. is prohibited; in our opinion, this only brings down the level of debate. Therefore there will be NO discouraging or rude comments to others based upon: Religion, Sex, Ethnicity, Ways of life, Beliefs, Physical Characteristics, and Nick Names; strong emotions and heated discussions happen and are part of discussing things people care strongly about - but that is no excuse for abusive language, harassing other users, or using obscene language just for shock value.
3. Watch the language! #NewsTalk is considered to be a family channel and obscene language or profanities are unacceptable and will result in a kick. This includes the use of improper Nicknames. Excessive and/or gratuitous crudeness and profanity are also not allowed.
4.
No advertising of other channels. Do
not
invite or spam in
#NewsTalk. This includes inviting people to your channel
within the channel, Spamming the channel with a URL (Web Address) that leads to
a website that is not of real interest to the chatters such as money making
junk, pornographic content and advertisements of any kind will result in a ban.
Also, no mass messaging
5. Promotion of illegal activities such as kiddie porn, hacking, sexual harassment etc will not be tolerated and will result in a ban and reporting to appropriate authorities. Anyone involved in such activities including the hacking or attempting to hack our channel will be permanently placed on ban from this channel and reported to the proper authorities.
6. No repeating or flooding the channel. Flooding is the scrolling of meaningless text in a channel in an attempt to disrupt. However, pasting text to the channel - for example, from a webpage - should be limited to 6 lines max and relevant to the the news theme of the channel, any pasting in excess of this limit is considered flooding. However, please don't overdo it and do not keep repeating urls, once is enough.
7. Excessive sloganeering is prohibited. The purpose of the channel is debate, not cheerleading or chanting of slogans. For example, lets say someone is trying to debate and people start to cheerlead, it make the other person feel like his or her views are unwanted. That is not so, we want everyone to express how they think and feel. After all, you have a voice we want to hear it.
8.
NO impersonating of an OP at any time (this is an automatic ban) if an Op allows
such to happen then it will result in removal of
OP status for that person. In addition No op begging
whatsoever. We will kick you before we op you
9. As regards Text, do not post to the channel in all caps, this is considered "shouting" and tends to disrupt chat. We also do not allow the use of color, boldface, underlines, and popups in channel. Overuse of colors, boldface, etc. is just another form of disruption and will not be tolerated.
10.
The rest of the rules are as follows: In short: No
flaming others; No cloning; No bots other than Athena^ (on Undernet) &
Bot-News (On DALnet); No clones; No
simultaneous
connections to sex channels.
Idling is permissible however, this is a CHAT room so make some noise! Encourage
others to converse, it will make the channel a much more fun place.
If you have questions as to what is appropriate behavior, ask a channel operator. Their job is to help you as well as manage the channel. We expect everyone to act as a gentleman or lady, and you should expect to be treated as such in return.
On a final note the
ops decision is final so do not argue with any decision. If you were kicked then you deserved it and if you were
banned then you definitely deserved it.
So............. have a great time, make yourself at home and feel free to express yourself. You have a voice and we want to hear it.