TERMS OF SERVICE
NYC Transit Forums provides the services to you, the visitor, based on its Terms of Service (TOS) outlined here. When using the services provided by NYC Transit Forums, you are subject to these posted terms. Usage of the services on this site indicates acceptance of these terms. The TOS may be changed at any time and without direct notice to individual visitors, so it is recommended that you check back with this page whenever you have questions or concerns.

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REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS
In order to view messages on the NYC Transit Forums message boards without user restrictions, no registration is required or necessary. In order to post messages on the boards, and use other advanced services, you must register with NYC Transit Forums. Provision of a valid e-mail address is needed to validate your account and to permit recovery of your account information should you forget your password.

NYC Transit Forums does not require you to use your real name or other identification that can be easily traced to you, and the e-mail address you provide will be kept private. In order to register on NYC Transit Forums, registrants must be 13 years of age or older. NYC Transit Forums does not knowingly collect any information from any users under 13 years, and if it is found that an underage user has fraudulently registered, their account will immediately be suspended.

CONTENT NOTICE
By viewing the site content, you agree that all content on the NYC Transit Forums message boards is the responsibility of the person from which the content originated. You agree that neither NYC Transit Forums nor its sponsors or affiliates are responsible for all content that you personally post or upload. NYC Transit Forums does not directly control any content posted on the boards, and does not guarantee the truthfulness or quality of any content.

You agree that while using the NYC Transit Forums message boards, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable, and that you will in no way hold NYC Transit Forums nor its sponsors or affiliates liable in any way, shape, or form for any harm or loss that may come to you or others as a result of viewing this content. NYC Transit Forums is not responsible for screening content before it is posted, although an offensive language filter is installed on the system that will reject certain posts that may contain certain words deemed offensive or used most often in an offensive way.

ACCOUNT RESPONSIBILITY
Users are solely responsible for protecting their accounts from access by others. You are strongly encouraged to select a hard-to-guess password and not re-use that password on any other sites where it may be read by the owners or administrators of that site.

It is not acceptable for users to maintain multiple accounts on NYC Transit Forums, NYC Transit Forums can and does track multiple shared accounts from a single or multiple computers. If the TOS is violated severely enough to warrant the banning of one account, all known accounts shared between a single or multiple users who use the same computer may also be banned for the actions of the violating account at the administrators' discretion.

Because of this rule, it is highly recommended that board users do not share their accounts with others, nor share their computers used to access the site with others, as the actions of some other person could easily directly impact all known shared message board accounts.

PRIVACY AND RELEASE OF INFORMATION
NYC Transit Forums is a non-commercial site staffed by volunteers, and cannot provide a binding guarantee of privacy to its members (except as required by law). However, we try to protect our members' privacy as far as is reasonable.

Visiting any website will expose your IP address to that website. We may store members' IP addresses indefinitely for record-keeping purposes. We may also use services such as advertisements and analytics scripts to fund the operation of the site, let us run it more effectively, or for any other reason. Visitors' IP addresses may be exposed to the providers of those services to allow them to function, and we have no control over how this information is used.

As is customary on web forums, we permit members to hotlink images and other media from other websites, for convenience and to reduce our bandwidth costs. Anyone viewing a page with a hot linked file will necessarily have their IP address exposed to whatever site hosts the file. All of the foregoing also applies to other possibly identifying information, such as User-Agent strings.

NYC Transit Forums uses cookies for a variety of purposes. Cookies are necessary to allow users to log in to the forum and the wiki. They are also used to compile publicly-viewable statistics such as "Who's Online", to allow moderators to track violators of the rules, and possibly for a variety of other purposes. Browsers will typically accept cookies by default from any site they request content from, so any site that a NYC Transit Forums page includes content from might also set cookies.

Some information (for instance, e-mail address) is deliberately submitted by members and is not publicly viewable. This information may be kept indefinitely, but will not normally be given out to third parties or posted publicly. Sending e-mail using the forum or wiki might reveal the sender's e-mail address to the recipient.

NYC Transit Forums does not normally send unsolicited bulk e-mail. Automated or bulk e-mails are normally sent only to members who have opted in to thread subscriptions or other features. Members may opt out of these features by altering their forum preferences. Moderators and administrators may send personalized, non-bulk e-mail to members on occasion regardless of preferences.

Users who would like a greater degree of privacy should configure their browser appropriately. Some popular browsers can be configured not to accept cookies without confirmation, not to save cookies for some sites, not to load files from some sites, etc. Users who disable features of their browser might not be able to fully use the site (e.g., some cookies are necessary to allow login).

MODERATOR DISCRETION
The list following below is intended to cover all TOS violations, but it is naturally impossible to include examples of every single possible variation. Therefore moderator discretion will be exercised and moderating action should be expected where and when moderators deem appropriate, that might not exactly correspond to any of the following violation categories.

MEMBER CONDUCT
You agree that you will not use any aspect of this service including -but not limited to- the forum, social groups, tags, visitor messages and private messages, to perform the following actions:

1. Signature Size and Content: Members may not use signatures where the total size is 800 x 60 pixels and 102400 bytes. The signature cannot contain profanity or any personal information about any member at any time period.

2. Off-topic Posting: Topicality is expected and will be enforced on all forums, so take the extra time to post on the proper forum. Examples of off-topic posting include, but are not limited to:

• Threads that are not related to the topic of the forum in question, or that contain no material that can reasonably be discussed
• Posts that are not related to the topic of the thread in question, or that contain no material that can reasonably be discussed
• Re-posting threads that you know have already been posted elsewhere
• In the Discussion and Debate forums, statements about other members, whether implicit or explicit, are off-topic. Statements that disrupt the discussion, regardless of intent, will be singled out in particular
• Any quote of another member in a signature has to be fully referenced by use of a link to the quoted post and not be edited as to blatantly misrepresent the wording of the quoted member
• Unsolicited advertisement for any website, product, service, or facility not first approved by NYC Transit Forums staff

You can advertise websites, products, etc. in your signature, avatar, or other profile fields, as long as you post productively and don't just try to get exposure for your advertisements. Recommendation of websites, products, or other resources are also allowed if relevant to legitimate discussions.

3. Censor Bypassing: Attempting to bypass the censor by misspelling, inserting spaces or symbols, transposing letters, using look-alike symbols, or any other method is not allowed. For example, if "gris" is a banned word:

• Not allowed: g-r-i-s, gr*s, g***, 9|-1$, girs, gryeeeas, grizznizz, **** (rhymes with "bris")
• Allowed: ****, ****ed, ****ing, g'ed, g-word

Prohibited words may not be used in images or videos embedded in posts. If external websites use prohibited words, you can link to them only if you post a warning alongside the link.

4. Hard-to-Read Posts: Posts that disrupt the message boards for other users, intentional or not, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited, to:

• Conducting conversations in languages other than English. The exception is in forums explicitly designated for a specific language other than English.
• Posting excessively in capital letters, leet speak, or other hard-to-read writing styles
• Using misleading topic titles
• Consecutive posting. (i.e., double posts, triple posts)

5. Disruptive Posting: Any post(s) designed to disrupt the flow of conversation, radically change the topic of the thread or elicit a response that violates these Terms of Service.

6. Defying Moderators: Any action that disregards a staff moderator's specific request, whether the request is made by a post in the thread, by PM to the user, or by other means such as, but not limited to, forum Announcements. The requests can be, but are not limited to:

• Re-posting content (text, images, video, etc) that was previously removed by a moderator
• Re-posting a thread on a topic that was previously closed by a moderator
• Ignoring a thread warning made by a moderator
• Taking action that has previously been warned against by a moderator
• Refusing to follow reasonable directives pertaining to moderation

7. Insulting Others: Posts clearly insulting other board members, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Name-calling ("You're an idiot", "You moron")
• Direct insults ("Screw you")
• Offensive orders ("Go kill yourself", "Shut up")
• Using threatening, harassing, defamatory, hate-speech, or libelous language
• Using race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, handicap, nationality, or gender as a means of insult, either directly or implied
• Insinuations ("Are you stupid or something?") or insults towards family ("Your mom...")

Instead, members should criticize the post, not the poster.

8. Obscene Content: Obscene content is not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Any figure whose genitals, pubic hair, buttocks, or (if female) nipples or areolas are exposed, partially or totally; or are not exposed, but it's clear that this is only because of the angle of the shot or incidental intervening objects (e.g., hands, hair, bits of cloth)
• Visible outlines of genitals or female nipples through clothing
• Anything that falls narrowly outside the previous provisions, at the discretion of the moderators

This applies to photographs, drawings, or any other representation of humanoid figures. It may also apply to non-humanoid figures such as animals, at the discretion of the moderators. Nudity may be permitted for serious and non-titillating purposes, such as the exhibition of recognized art or historical models in modifications, at the discretion of the moderators.

• Providing image, video, or audio files that represent or hint at sexual intercourse, foreplay, masturbation, etc.
• Verbally describing genitals, sex acts, masturbation, or similarly inappropriate content. This does not include passing references, but includes descriptions that are graphic or include any details
• Providing images, videos, or verbal descriptions of an unreasonably disgusting nature. This includes, but is not limited to: excrement, real-world violence, and extreme virtual or imagined violence

Links may not be posted for the purpose of providing obscene content. If a website incidentally includes some reasonably obscene content, it's acceptable to link to it for some other purpose as long as a clear warning is given. Similarly, if content incidentally includes some reasonably obscene content, it's acceptable to include it in a post for some other purpose, as long as a clear warning is given.

Excessively obscene content is still not allowed to be posted or linked to in any fashion. The distinction between moderate and excessive obscenity is at the discretion of the moderators. As always, if you aren't sure, ask a moderator.

9. Evading a Suspension: Suspended or banned users must not create or use additional accounts. Users banned from a particular activity (such as posting visitor messages, posting in a particular forum, etc.) must not use any other account to perform that activity. In addition to the normal penalties for warnings, the user's ban may be extended, and the additional account they made will be banned indefinitely.

10. Impersonation: Falsely claiming to be another specific message board member or other known individual is not allowed. Neither is falsely claiming to be a moderator, administrator, transit employee, or other authority figure. Moderators may use discretion in enforcing this against impersonations that are clearly not serious and so unlikely to fool anyone.

11. Promoting Illegal Activities: Posts that promote violation of the law are not allowed. Violation of the law includes, but is not limited to: Posts that promote violation of the law are not allowed. Violation of the law includes, but is not limited to:

• Substantial use of copyrighted material without permission. Examples of acceptable uses would be brief quotes, fan art, signature/avatar images, brief video clips (e.g., YouTube), screenshots, or reasonably limited decorative images in a mod. Unacceptable uses would include entire songs, long videos, large collections of images, pirated operating systems, pirated desktop software. The exact threshold of substantial use will be decided on a case-by-case basis ? if in doubt, ask a Senior Moderator or Administrator.
• Obtaining or providing ways to circumvent copy protection. This includes no-CD hacks, key generators, hacked ROMs, etc.
• Sharing of paid software, or otherwise violating license agreements.
• Possessing, distributing, or using drugs in a way that would be illegal in most jurisdictions (e.g., owning marijuana).

"Promoting" illegal activity includes, but is not limited to:

• Asking for someone else to commit an illegal activity
• Assisting someone else in an illegal activity
• Encouraging or advocating an illegal activity, or portraying it as normal or acceptable (e.g., casually mentioning that you have pirated games/smoked pot/etc. as though this were normal and acceptable)

Exceptions will be made for threads that are devoted to serious discussion of illegal activities in an abstract sense (e.g., about whether copyright law should be relaxed or marijuana should be legalized), on a case-by-case basis.

12. Harassment or Invasion of Privacy: Continual harassing behavior directed towards a certain individual or group with the intent of creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the boards, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is prohibited. Posting private information without permission is also prohibited.

13. Other: Any activity not previously outlined but still deemed detrimental to the operation of the site, normal activities of the board and flow of conversation may be subject to moderation. Users responsible for these posts may be penalized at the discretion of the forum staff.

TERMS VIOLATIONS
Infractions of the terms of service are tracked using the infraction system, which allows moderators to record incidents in a reliable and centralized fashion. All such records of infractions are viewable in the user's profile to moderating staff and the user in question, but no one else.

NOTES
Notes are given when the actions of a member require staff to officially contact them. They are simply a record of that contact and do not contribute toward a member's warning level. They are recorded both to let other moderators know that the user has been informed of the particular rule, and to give the user a record of all contacts with moderators they have had.

WARNINGS
Warnings are given when a member commits an offense (other than a very mild one) when the member should already know the rule in question, such as if a moderator has previously discussed that type of offense with them. Warnings expire after three months and contribute toward a member's warning level. How many levels an offense is worth can be found in the Member Conduct section in (parentheses). Whether to give the first or second number, if applicable, is up to moderator discretion.

Last updated: October 26, 2010