New Offense Structure - Political Content

[Abel]

Unfortunately over the past few days we have had a major outbreak of Political based threads and comments posted here on the forum. Political discussions serve nobody any good whatsoever. Politics is one arena that has people on both ends of the spectrum that feel very strongly about their particular views and no matter what people from the other "side" say they will never change their views. So in the end, all we end up with is an argument that is comprised of people who feel their way is the only way and no head way is made whatsoever.

In the past we didn't have a rule pertaining to political/religious discussions but after the moderators and myself found that 95% of the forums problems stemmed from these types of discussions we decided to set a rule in place which prohibits these topics from being discussed. These rules have been in place for about a year now.


Our Rules Located Here
1. Religious/Political discussions are NOT allowed.

4. Photojournalism is posted for discussion of the photography, the methods used to acquire images and media credentials, and techniques of coverage. They are NOT open for debate about the subject covered.


In the past we have issued warnings within threads in order to tell members to get back on track about the particular subject and not continue with their own personal political opinions/views. Almost always those warnings are ignored and people continue the political discussion which results in the thread being closed and deleted.

I have instructed our moderators to be more stern when it comes to posts and threads that contain political discussions and/or comments. Threads will be locked and/or deleted upon sight, no more posted warnings within the threads will be made since as I mentioned earlier, nobody ever paid attention to them as it was anyways.

Having our posted warnings blatantly ignored have led us to invoke a new method of enforcing our rules...


New Offense Structure

1st Offense: A formal warning will be sent via PM
Upon a members first offense, a PM will be sent to them informing them of the rule violation and they will also be informed of this Offense Structure.

2nd Offense: Account Suspension for 14 days
Upon a members second offense, the member will have their account suspended for 14 days. Any attempt to circumvent this suspension by creating extra accounts on the forum will directly lead into a Permanent Ban from the forum.

3rd Offense: Permanent Ban from the forum
Upon a members third offense, the member will be Permanently Banned from the forum and will never be welcomed back.



Eventually we will get members to adhere to our rules regarding this subject and/or we will have simply banned all those that have chose not to follow the rule. Either way the rule will be followed, it is now left up to the individual member to decide which route they take.

Thank you for your time...