U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums FAQ

Posting to sell, buy, or trade products or services, links to auctions, affiliate links, links to promote personal or commercial websites, blogs, other forums and so forth is not allowed anywhere without the expressed permission of an adminstrator. The only exception is in the Event Announcement & Reviews Forum where promoting a given swimming event is allowed and in the Coaches Seeking Positions / Coaching Positions Available forums where on-topic posts are allowed. If you have a website or business, you may include a text link to your site in your signature ONLY. Unsolicited advertising may result in a permanent ban. If you wish to advertise with U.S. Masters Swimming, please contact our corporate partners liaison regarding sponsorship opportunities via email at sponsors -AT- usms -DOT- org.

Replying to requests for information about certain products or services in existing threads is acceptable. If someone asks about the new whiz-bang product that will shave 5 seconds off your 100 free, it is okay to reply with information about the product or a link to the product web site. Any attempts to cheat the system by creating a new account to ask about your own product (or acting in concert with another forum user) and then replying using your main account will likely result in a permanent ban for all those involved.

Advertising for goods or services via private message within the forums or via email using addresses collected on the forums is also not permitted in any form.

Ad hominem or personal attacks are not allowed under any circumstances. Do not post any messages that harrass, insult (name calling), belittle, threaten or flame another member or guest. Debates are fine, but argue the point, not the person.

Do not post topics with the sole purpose of starting a dispute. Note that a person disagreeing with your opinion is NOT trolling; keep it civil, even if you're sure the other person is wrong.

No NSFW content. NSFW ("Not Safe For Work") is defined as anything that most people would not want seen by their bosses, parents or teachers. Do not use profanity, racial, ethnic, religious, or other slurs, or post sexually-oriented material, or any other offensive material. Images including full or partial nudity are not to be posted here (aside from pictures of people in swimsuits, obviously). That includes your avatar. Do not circumvent the obscenity filter by using characters such as ! or $. (Examples are sh!t, , Fvck ). Use ######## or ****** if you really think it's necessary to swear. We have members from different countries, religions, backgrounds. Even if you express a point of view that is very popular in your culture, it may generate a negative reaction from members in another part of the world so please exercise tact.

Determination of what constitutes an offensive post is solely at the discretion of U.S. Masters Swimming and the forum administrators, and posted content may be altered or removed by administrators.

Do not disclose any other member's email, real name, address, phone number, IP address, or other personal information. This includes the posting of contents of emails, private messages, warnings, infractions, and bans. Do not bring personal disputes into the forums. We require a valid email address for all active users of the forums. If at any time your email address bounces mail back to us, we may suspend or terminate your account. Please keep your email address current.

Generally you can assume that anything you find online is copyrighted. We prefer you post a synopsis in your own words and the link to the article. It's permissible to quote up to 20 lines of text and you must provide commentary. DO NOT POST ENTIRE ARTICLES.

Posts are to be on the topic of the forum description where they're posted. Off Topic posts may be moved or deleted at the moderators discretion.

This is a swimming forum. As such, threads posted to this forum should be somehow swimming-related. Since this is also a community forum for our members, we do provide one off-topic forum area where non swimming-related discussions may be held. Please keep all such conversations in the NSR thread. Threads judged to be non swimming-related by the moderators may be moved to the NSR forum.

Even though the NSR forum is available for friendly banter among forum members, we expect all discussions there to follow the same rules of civility as in the rest of our forums. There are also some topics such as politics and religion that are typically very divisive and will not be allowed on our forums, even in the NSR area.

Please do not double post or cross-post the same message in multiple forums, as such posts may be considered spamming. This includes "bump threads" and posts intended merely to increase one's post count.

You are also not permitted to mass-PM or mass-email the same message to multiple members of this site.

Any posts libeling members, forum users or public figures are not permitted.

Please make an attempt to search the board before posting and make sure someone has not already made a post similar to yours. Duplicate or similar threads are subject to being merged, closed or deleted at the discretion of the forum administrators and moderators.

Claiming to be someone you are not (e.g. a public figure or another U.S. Masters Swimming member), either implied or explicit in your username, profile, or posts is not tolerated and subjects your account to suspension or termination.

If you're not a moderator, don't correct posters as if you are a moderator! If you have a problem with a post, use the "Report This Post" button, rather than playing moderator. More often than not, that causes more problems than it fixes. Let us handle any situation you feel needs to be moderated.

This is a long list of rules, but obviously it can't anticipate every situation. For that reason, we reserve the right to remove any user posts or user account at any time for any reason. If it appears that you're trying to manipulate the system, your posts and/or account will be removed. If an administrator feels that your pattern of posts are a detriment to the U.S. Masters Swimming mission and our discussion forums, your posts and/or account will be removed.