Autopia.org FAQ

Considering the real-time nature of our community forum, it is impossible for us to review messages or confirm the validity of information posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. All information provided by the members of this forum is considered to be without any express or implied guarantee. In other words, reader beware!

Member Assumes All Risk and Liability
Forum messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of the owners and administrators of AUTOPIA.ORG. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of the community and their agents with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).

All message content is the sole property of the posters and is not deemed public domain. It is not permissible to collect information from the pages of this web site and republish without the express permission of the authors.

The community does not permit and will not tolerate vulgar user names. If you create your member account with a vulgar user name, your account will be banned without question.

Flames, Bashing and Derogatory Insults
Flames, bashing and derogatory insults are strictly against the rules. If you disagree with another member's point of view, do so in a mature and civil manner. If someone posts to discuss their personal problems or seek help from other forum members, please do not respond unless you have something positive or helpful to add. If you find yourself being flamed or insulted by another member, please do not dignify that person with a response. Notify a moderator and let us handle it. If you feel you must respond to a flame or insult directly, please do NOT do so on the board. Use private messages or e-mail.

Threats, Racism or Sexism
Threads or replies promoting or expressing intolerant views towards minorities (race, religion, sexual preference, etc.) will not be tolerated. Post making threats of physical violence, stalking, or anything similar will not be tolerated. The offending threads will also be copied to a safe location and your IP address recorded.

Pornography
Pornography (porn) is not welcome here. Pictures showing nudity or other non-family oriented material are not welcome in any forum area, including our off-topic section.

Avatars and Signatures
The same rules that apply to your posts apply to your signatures and avatars. Please keep this in mind when selecting your avatar or signature. We also ask that you please limit your signature to three lines of text and please do not use any graphics.

Free Posts
"Free posts", or posting solely for the purpose of boosting your post count is not allowed. "Bumps" and duplicate posts will not be tolerated.

Controversial Topics
Controversial topics, such as religion, abortion, mental retardation, racism, etc., are NOT allowed. Although these topics usually start out civilly enough, experience has shown that these sort of topics invariably disintegrate into all out flame wars and heated arguments. So please refrain from starting such topics.

Drugs & Illegal Activities
Threads/replies promoting illicit drugs/narcotics will not be allowed. Threads/replies encouraging other illegal/unethical action (such as "Best way to kill neighbor's cat?") will not be allowed.

Poop/Violence/Sex Threads
"Poop" threads, or similarly immature and offensive topics (graphic sex, specific sex act, violence, snuff films, dead bodies, or violent sexual acts) will not be allowed.

Trolling
"Trolling", or makings posts with the sole intention of creating problems on the forums is obviously against the forum guidelines. This includes registering an alternate ID for the sole purpose of creating problems on the forums. "Troll ID's" will be locked immediately and permanently, and can be locked without notification to the offender.

Spamming, business advertisements, or recommending products that you manufacture, resell, or affiliate with is not allowed. Threads or PMs determined to be "spam" will be deleted or forwarded to the Administrators. This type of posting may result with privileges to our forum being restricted or denied without notice.

In the interest of being an open an unbiased forum where users can discuss products and experiences freely, manufactures or affiliates of car car products can not talk about their products or offer tech support on their products. Without mentioning their products, manufactures and affiliates are free to talk about detailing, share techniques and discuss car care in general.

Soliciting for Members of this site to go and join another site is also considered a form of Spam. Mentioning another site for reference or as an information source is acceptable but direct solicitation aimed at our Members to bolster some other site's Membership is inappropriate and subject to Moderator disciplinary action.

If you represent a car care product vendor, please identify your business in your signature line (phone numbers, email addresses and website URLs are not allowed).

If you are interested in Sponsoring AUTOPIA.ORG, please contact us.

The same rules that apply to your posts apply to your signatures and avatars. Please keep this in mind when selecting your avatar or signature. We also ask that you please limit your signature to three lines of text and please do not use any graphics.

Please post your topics in the most appropriate forum area. If you post a thread that would be more appropriate in another forum, a moderator will move it for you. However, please do not make the moderators do this for you. Use your judgment to determine which forum best suits your topic. Multiple posting is not allowed.

The "Classifieds" section of AUTOPIA.ORG is for Sponsors and private sellers offering the sale of individual items. It is NOT for any person, company or business of any size or type to sell merchandise of any retail nature or to make a profit of any kind. Any non-Sponsor attempting to sell multiple quantities of items or in a retail/profit nature will be in violation of this site's advertising rules and policies and is subject to being billed $200 per occurrence or have all posting privileges removed (e.g., banned). Sponsors are limited to three (3) concurrent ads.

Posting pictures or text that belong to another person, company or organization violate the rights of the owner. Unless expressly stated, information published on the internet is not part of the public domain. Copyright violations will be treated as theft, resulting in an immediate ban. Brief text can be quoted by giving credit to the originator. Unless express permission is granted by the rightful owner, links to text and pictures are preferred over duplication.

Any Member of AUTOPIA.ORG who posts malicious or harmful URL links that cause interferences with computers, requiring them to be rebooted to regain functionality OR cannot be viewed safely for content or sound in work environment is in violation of the Harmful Links Policy. This constitutes an immediate 3 day ban from the site. Further infractions of this rule could result in permanent ban.

Using the AUTOPIA.ORG PM process to send threats of violence, racial attacks, personal or sexually harassing messages is prohibited. If reported, you will be banned without notice. Anyone that feels they are a victim of this problem should immediately contact a moderator for assistance. DO NOT DELETE THE MESSAGE(S) Please keep the offending message(s) on hand so that you can forward them to a moderator as evidence for action against the perpetrator.

We're all human. We all make mistakes. However, pushing the house rules to the limit will only be tolerated for so long. Therefore, chronic and severe violators of AUTOPIA.ORG rules will be warned, put on a time-out, or completely banned based on the severity of the violation. We will apply rule enforcement as follows:

1. Warning: Minor rule infractions, such as soft bashing, free-posting, signature/avatar issues, etc.

2. Time Out: Heavy bashing, being a hot-head, soft spamming, bad language, posting inappropriate materials, etc.

3. Banned: Blatant spamming/selling, attacking forum moderators, pornography, racial/sexist/threatening posts, trolling, fraud, liable/slander, multiple accounts, etc.