Welcome to the NativeBiz Forums Rules Page. We hope you become an active, enthusiastic participant, and that you make every effort to keep these forums an enjoyable and educational environment for every visitor.

As a participant, please keep in mind the following:

We hope you can respect that we what we are seeking is nothing more than common courtesy and respectful use of our resource.

If our forums meet your needs and you agree to abide by our terms, we are pleased to have you on the boards and look forward to your participation.

Rules apply to all of the following, unless otherwise specified:

• Posts
• Signatures
• Profiles
• Private messages (PM)
• Email sent via forums

Who can post here?

Any Guest, Community or Business member can post on topics of interest to them. NativeBiz reserves the right to disable the boards, limit access to the boards, ban users, and edit or delete topics and posts at our discretion or that of our moderators.

You are responsible.

You are responsible for what you post, and what you read. All posts made are the opinions and views of the author and not necessarily those of NativeBiz and its affiliates. NativeBiz is not responsible for the veracity or validity of any information posted here, nor do we vouch for the authenticity or the identity of any of the authors. NativeBiz and its representatives will not be held liable for any information or messages posted to any discussion forum and disclaims all liability resulting from any action or inaction taken as a result of reading or posting a message in any discussion forum.

No advertising.

Advertisements for products or services are strictly prohibited. Parties may be banned permanently from NativeBiz for a single violation. Exceptions: Including NativeBiz member profile links is acceptable when recommendations are on-topic. By virtue of hosting this forum at no cost to visitors, NativeBiz may from time to time advertise fund-raising items intended to benefit the non profit NativeBiz Foundation, its projects, or its affiliated clubs.

No placements.

Please keep the NativeBiz Forums a marketplace of ideas and solutions, not a marketplace of goods and services. Discussion about commercial products and services are inevitable and expected but any use of the boards to solicit products and services is grounds for permanent removal from NativeBiz .

This includes posting requests for others to contact you regarding products and/or services, posting links to pages where products or services are offered, making referrals to specific product or service providers, and any posting that could even remotely be considered a solicitation.

Exception: given the mission of NativeBiz to support non profit organizations serving Indian country, references to non profit, public benefit groups and activities are permitted.

Endorsements of or referrals to product or service providers, even if they are NativeBiz members, is not acceptable and is grounds for permanent removal from NativeBiz .

Stay on-topic.

• Post in the appropriate forum and remain on-topic.

• Start a new topic if you wish to introduce a new subject.
• Follow-ups should usually be posted to the original topic.
• Ignore posting errors and duplicate posts. A moderator will usually fix them.

Be original.

The NativeBiz Forums are for discussions relevant to a variety of topics within Indian country and your contributions should be specific to these forums.

Do not cut-and-paste lengthy messages from other websites or lists. If you want to use a lengthy article elsewhere as the basis of discussion that is fine - simply link to it - quoting a paragraph or two for context is fine.

Note: if you ever receive an email urging you to cross-post something to every source you know, absolutely do not post it to NativeBiz or you risk being banned.

Be civil.

Be civil in all of your posts and refrain from using inflammatory language or expletives. Volunteer moderators will determine what is inflammatory using their own judgment, without direction from or appeal to NativeBiz, its officers, or board of governors, except as may be allowed in the sole discretion of NativeBiz..

Don't monopolize the boards.

We encourage you to participate actively, enthusiastically, and frequently. However, for reasons of bandwidth, disk space, and encouraging participation by the broadest audience possible, we ask that you voluntarily limit your postings to five a day within "any given topic or conversation" that you participate in. You are welcome to participate in as many different conversations as you have an interest in.

No Shouting.

DO NOT POST IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!! Please mind your CapsLock key and "do not" use excessive punctuation or smilies.

Avoid hotlinking images.

It is generally a poor idea to link to remote images without permission from the remote site owner. If the owner replaces the image without your knowledge, your post could inadvertantly become very inappropriate. It is perfectly OK to link to images hosted on your own site, or on sites where you pay the cost of bandwidth. If you don't have your own site consider becoming a Community or Business member and using our file sharing services.

Keep signatures short.

In the interest of controlling bandwidth and enhancing readability, extravagant or distracting signatures are strongly discouraged. The forums provide a robust profile capability for contact information and personalization. If you use a signature, it may not exceed 5 lines. Images in signatures may not exceed 100 x 400 pixels. No signature shall exceed a height of 100px plus one line of default text. Violations may be edited without notice.

Fraud is a crime.

Impersonation of others is a criminal fraudulent act. Individuals who choose to do this will be banned and their Internet service provider may be contacted.

Posts that will be edited, deleted, or get you banned.

• Posts containing offensive racial, gender, sexual preference, religious, political, or nationality-bashing language.

• Any post containing language that is offensive in a public, family context.

• Links to inappropriate content.

• Personal attacks on other posters. Comment on ideas, not people.

• Flame bait. In other words: inflammatory messages posted with an intent to provoke emotional responses. This is not to be confused with a sincerely held belief or opinion that differs from the norm and is expressed in a meaningful and congenial way.

• Repeated posting of the same or similar messages, and "bumping" a topic more than once.

• Cross-posts and link dumps.

• Posts promoting a non NativeBiz product or service.

• Any post that violates the letter or spirit of any item described in this list, in these guidelines, or in any announcement or pinned topic posted by a board administrator or moderator.

By posting to these discussion boards, you agree to be bound by these rules.