What should you expect?

1. You should expect to be treated as you would treat others.
In other words, if you spew venom then you will be given a warning, failing to abide by that you WILL asked to depart.

2. You should expect that you will be treated fairly, openly, and honestly.
If you bare your soul about a relationship then you can expect that others will read your words, evaluate them and then give you their opinions based upon what you have written. Our guests are NOT mind readers, they do NOT know any greater detail than what you provide.

3. You can likely expect open criticism, some constructive others less constructive.
This is a community of people. As within any community there will be those that read what you write differently than what you may have meant it and their opinions are not going to always agree with yours. Use some common sense, common decency, and civility when you place anything within the MWD Memorial Forums.

4. You should be expected to be treated maturely.
As the words of the Bible say
Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same
Job 4:8 - with that said if you act like a child then you should expect be treated as a child.

What is expected of You?

1. We expect you to observe some courtesy and civil etiquette.

2. We expect you to voice your opinions.
Nearly everything can be said (and will remain visible) if it is said with class, dignity, and respect. You need not crawl into the street gutter and spew filth to get your point across.

3. We expect you to be respect others opinions.
Once again this is a community and it is rare when everyone agrees with everyone else. In fact, it is darn near incomprehensible to even expect that they will.

4. We expect you to observe things we call OPSEC.

That involves, but is not limited to the following:
a. DO NOT disclose dates.
b. DO NOT disclose specific units
c. DO NOT disclose locations.

EXAMPLE

WRONG
John is coming home on 4 January 2000 when the USS Constellation docks in Norfolk, VA.

CORRECT
John is coming home in January 2000 after his ship docks in Virginia.

It says the same thing but no specifics are given.

Who makes the determinations?

1. Ultimately it is either the Mods, or one of the Angels.
OK, you understand the first two, now who the heck are the Angels? The Angels are three very dedicated, very loyal, and very dependable people who are like my right hand, and we could not live without. They are tasked with many different areas of responsibilites to include:

a. Monitoring the message forums.
b. Monitoring anywhere that guests to the MWD Memorial Forums can make an entry.
They receive only our undying gratitude, our praise, and our heart felt thanks. They are not paid, nor are they financially compensated. They watch, observe, and correct. They do what they do because they care not only about the network but because they know why it is here.

2. Why are things deleted and or locked?
Topics and posts can be (and will be) deleted if they are obscene, pornographic, or of a nature that is degrading to K9 Handlers and their Families in general, or in principle. It may also be deleted if the original topic creator has asked that it be removed. It may also disappear if it has not been responded to within the given auto-purge time limit.

Topics can be and sometimes will be locked. This is generally done when things start moving toward being petty, disgusting, or totally negative but the SysAdmin does not wish to remove or delete the topic since it likely started out well-meaning.


3. What is the PRIVATE area I have heard about?
The Private area is a hidden forum visible to those with moderator or System Administrator (SysAdmin) status. It is where topics are moved until either I make a determination or I can get to it for review. Because a topic disappears does not mean it has been deleted, although it may have been.

4. Why are there moderators and SysAdmins?
Each individual board is assigned a volunteer that is given SysAdmin status. This status is USUALLY only granted after the individual has shown a proven ability to be supportive, caring, and possess a mature knowledge of the site where they are granted the status. There is also a nomination process, a request process, and an approval process involved. Those processes are known to myself and the Angels and are of little concern to our guests.

6. How are moderators and/or SysAdmins corrected?
Hopefully this NEVER happens but sadly it does occur. 95 percent of the time a SysAdmin does things out of ignorance rather than spite. However, situations arise where the latter occurs. When it does, unlike our guests, they are given two chances to get it right. They get two chances because like I already stated 95 percent of the time it is ignorance of our expectations and they may not realize that they have messed up. They are sent a private email asking what happened, given an opportunity to explain themselves, reminded that they are held to a much higher standard and are then explained our expectations. Failing to adhere to those expectations (or ignoring them) results in their removal from the status of moderator or SysAdmin.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented or any other material that may violate any applicable laws. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned (and your service provider being informed). The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should they see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered above being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent the webmaster, administrator and moderators cannot be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

This forum system uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any of the information you have entered above; they serve only to improve your viewing pleasure. The e-mail address is used only for confirming your registration details and password (and for sending new passwords should you forget your current one).

Signatures: Please do not overrun your signature with an abundance of blinkies. It takes up good bandwidth and frankly, it's just annoying. If your signature gets out of control, we will let you know. If it is not edited, we will delete it ourselves.

By clicking Register you agree to be bound by these conditions.