Terms of Use & Privacy Policy - Updated 3/5/08

[HC Admins]

Intro

The HOW (Heart Of the Web) Cafe is privately owned and run by Karyl (LdyGreensleeves) & Jim (Rusty Knight) with our eldest daughter, Leanna (Tempest), as our backup if needed.

The basic board is FREE for all of our community members in good standing to use. Donations are truly appreciated since although it is free.. it is not without cost. We also offer sponsorships which are upgrades to the basic board, These may include such perks as more storage space for pictures and PMs, blogs, etc.

It is our hope that HOW Cafe will become a dynamic community driven place made up of and accepting of a variety of people and geared towards the online auction and small business community no matter where they chose to do business on the web.

Privacy Policy

Although the Owners, Administrators and Moderators have access to some personal data, we value the privacy of our members and hate spam so we will never deliberately sell or give away any of your personal information to any party unless legally compelled to do so.

Please remember that your profiles may be available for member viewing and just as with other boards that have profiles viewable to the public there is a risk that info posted there may be harvested. To prevent this please do not post your email on the board or make it visible, even to other members. If needed, PM's are a better way to share this info.

Please be aware that this website has advertisements that use temporary cookies to track clicks and/or purchases made by those using them so HOW Cafe will get proper credit as an "affiliate". If you do not wish to participate please use the "delete cookies" function of your browser.

Terms of Use
(The following pertains to all areas of HOW Cafe, this includes but is not limited to the discussion board itself, Chat and Blogs. If there are any exceptions they are noted below.)

Please treat other members with some respect. Refrain from personal attacks against other members of this discussion forum. Although we know that not everyone will agree with each other all the time (that would get boring fast eh?) members are expected to be generally civil to each other even in the heat of debate (The Fire Pit is the only place where we are slightly more lenient on this issue). When addressing a post that you disagree with go after the opinions and/or facts in the post itself, not the poster. You own your words, try to keep them so they won't be to bitter if you have to eat them later.

Do not post messages that are deliberately divisive, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate. Do not engage in anti-social, disruptive, or trolling behavior (there is no way to list every negative behavior so just because it's not covered specifically doesn't mean it will be tolerated). Do not post bigoted or insensitive statements about a persons: race, age, gender, ethnicity, affection orientation, weight/height or religion. Do not proselytize.

Keep comments, discussions and pictures geared towards the general public. Think of the majority of the board as PG with The Fire Pit again allowing slightly more leeway.

When posting graphic details or pictures (normally allowed only in the Fire Pit) please post a warning (ex: “Warning” “Graphic” “Violence”) in thread title. Please try to keep the thread titles, even in The Fire Pit, toned down a bit since we want to be able to leave that area available for all of our members to see and search.

Although we allow and enjoy civil debate and discussion of politics, news and some other controversial topics on this website please keep it mostly in the Fire Pit which is for debate and discussion these type of topics. Please note.. the rules for the Fire Pit are basically the same as the rest of this board with only a slight bit of leeway given for the "heat of the moment".

Some here have "history" with each other from other boards. If this is negative and impacts this board in a negative manner you will be asked to keep it off this board or leave. Do not follow someone into another thread to try to continue a disagreement you had elsewhere. Do not talk negatively about an individual in a thread where they are not participating.

You are permitted to criticize famous public figures ("household names") who are not protected under our rules against personal attacks unless they are a member of our community. If they are then that person is protected by our rules and you are not permitted to attack that person on a personal level.

Do not post messages that advocate harm or death to anyone, threaten the livelihood of anyone, or otherwise harass anyone. Do not post personal/private information about a community member or any other non-public figure even if it is publicly available without that person's consent. Refrain from posting in all capital letters unless you are trying to "yell" or emphasizing a word.

The copyright of individual articles, stories, creations and pictures belong to the original owner and/or member.

When quoting someone or a source please give proper credit whenever possible. When referencing a copyrighted work, post a link back to the original source and give proper credit to the original creator. To comply with the copyright law please do not post a whole [copyrighted] article. Although we know and understand how difficult this can be and will give a bit of leeway please try to select a maximum of 4 or 5 paragraphs from a long article or 1/8 to 1/4 of a short one (whichever is less) , "snip" to let folks know where you snipped out a piece and "more" to let folks know there's more info at the link to the source. Best yet is to snip and post only the basic facts and write up your own opinion around those then to risk taking to much (Like you probably were taught to do in HS/College.)

When necessary the Administrators and Moderators of this board reserve the right to edit a post to make it comply with the copyright law, the spirit of Fair Use and our TOU.

Members have the option of including a short signature line at the end of each post as well as uploading a small avatar image which appears below your user name. This can be a quote, a link a website, store or auctions. Your signature line and your avatar image must adhere to the community standards for this message board. Your signature line may include one small graphic at any time. That graphic should be in either .jpg or .gif format, and should not exceed 500 pixels wide, 200 pixels tall, or 20 kilobytes. Please keep the text in signature lines as brief as possible. The reason we ask the members keep picture sizes down a bit is out of consideration of those still on dial-up.

We normally do not allow spamming of the board by those whose are not here to be an active part of the community. If you are not a regular member and have a product or service you think our members may be interested in please contact the administration of this board, via the contact us button at the bottom of each page, with the details and we'll take it under consideration.

The views presented by community members (including Admin and Mods are their own and are not necessarily those of the other Owners, Administrators, Moderators or other community members. Members of this board are solely responsible for their own words and actions.

Violations Of TOU

Although we are normally a rather easy going and tolerant bunch we will not put up with anyone constantly and deliberately breaking and testing the terms. For most violations we normally have a "3 Strikes and You're Out" policy which starts after a Moderator and/or Administrator gives a warning in the pertinent thread . "Strike" One: a poster is given a verbal warning; "Strike" Two: the poster will be given a one week "cool down" suspension; "Strike" Three will result in the poster being permanently suspension from participating in the forums and website use.

The Owners/Administrators of this board reserve the right to ban someone sooner if needed. We also reserve the right to give a second chance or more rope to posters who are well established (in a positive manner) within the community and less to those who are not or whose negative reputations proceed them.

All of our moderators are unpaid volunteers. They are selected from the membership of our community as people the Administrators both know and trust.

You can help make the Administrator and Moderator's jobs easier by alerting on the post you're concerned about by clicking the little red triangle at top right corner in the post in question. We will look into it and act or not depending on the consensus.

Please be aware that needed actions on posts/threads sometimes may take time since the Moderators and Administrators normally work as a team to reach a consensus on any potential violations. They also have broad discretion to remove inflammatory and counterproductive posts in the interests of keeping the peace on this message board. Although it may take longer, you may also email or PM us about any post or concern that you think may need our attention.

Conclusion

The owners/administrators of this board have the final authority on all matters relating to this website. If you have a concern about the action of a Moderator or Administrator (we're all human too), or have any questions about our policies please feel free to contact us.

The terms of use listed above cover the most common disruptive or inappropriate postings only. The Owners, Administrators and Moderators reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is horribly disruptive or inappropriate, even if that post is not specifically forbidden by our published terms. We also reserve the right to move threads to other areas as needed and move around the "furniture" now and then if we feel the need.

The Owners, Administrators and Moderators will try their best to be fair, and make HOW Cafe a comfortable place for those who enjoy being here. Although we'd like it if everyone were comfy, and will strive to find a balance where it will be for most, we realize that is not truly possible for everyone. Therefore if you truly do not like the board or the way we handle things we suggest that you exercise your right to leave before we need to exercise our right to show you the door.

(FYI Green = new/changes)