Forum Rules

Registration to this forum is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you agree to the terms, please check the 'I agree' checkbox and press the 'Register' button below. If you would like to cancel the registration, click here to return to the forums index.

Welcome to GeckoForums.net!

This site is meant to be a positive community for all herp lovers to share information, images and buy/sell/trade their animals. However, like most online communities, this site does have a terms of service (T.O.S.). The staff and/or chat hosts do monitor the chat and forums, and will enforce these rules. Please do your part as a member of this site to help keep it a clean and positive environment. We want everyone to feel welcome and enjoy the time they spend on our site!

The various site features such as forums, classifieds, chat, journals and photo galleries are for discussion and/or community purposes. GeckoForums.net is not responsible for the accuracy of the information posted on the site.

Please take the time to read the full T.O.S. below.

If you have any questions or are confused about anything written in the T.O.S., please contact us before posting. When you sign up to be a member of GeckoForums.net, you are agreeing to our terms of service.

To prevent frequent and repeated T.O.S. violations we have implemented a Warning System. Recurring violations can result in a suspension or banning from GeckoForums.net, however, the Admin and Mods do reserve the right to temporarily suspend or permanantly ban any member for any violation of our T.O.S. at our discretion. Thank you for your cooperation!

Warning/Infraction System for TOS Violations
GeckoForums.net utilizes a warning and infraction system to deal with TOS violations. A warning is just that... a warning, and no points are assessed. An infraction is a TOS violation which is assigned a certain number of points; small infractions such as Signature Violations are worth 1 point while more serious infractions such as Threatening Physical Violence on Another Member will be worth 5 points, etc.

Please note that although not each and every violation will invoke infraction points, they can still carry penalties such as having your post deleted, or your thread locked.

The following is a list of infractions and the amount of points a member will be given for each TOS violation:

• Classifieds Violation - 1 point
• Quoting From a Non Published Source - 1 point
• Signature Rule Violation - 1 point
• Avatar/Profile Picture Violation - 1 point
• Soliciting Business or Posting Ads in the Discussion Forums - 2 points
• Posting a Link to an Executable File (.exe file) - 2 points
• Spamming/Inapropriate Advertising - 2 points
• Solicitation for Donations without the permission of the site Administrator - 2 points
• Profanity/Inappropriate Language - 2 points
• Posting an Image or Document Without Permission From the Owner - 2 points
• Personal/Ethical Attack Against a Business or Breeder - 3 points
• Personal/Ethical Attack Against Another Member/Individual - 3 points
• Antagonism Towards a Moderator or Administrator - 3 points
• Incessant Harassment or Off Topic Posts aka "Trolling" - 3 points
• Prejudicial Remarks or Slurs - 4 points
• Posting Obscene Material, Links or Images - 5 points
• Posting Under Another Member's Username/Account in a malicious manner or to purposely impersonate another member - 5 points
• Threatening Another Member With Violence - 5 points
• Sexual Harassment - 5 points
• Registering Multiple User Accounts to Bypass a Ban - 20 points

Each infraction given will expire after 12 months.

Once a member accumulates a certain amount of points (see below), they will be suspended and/or banned.

• If you accumulate 10 points - account suspended for 2 weeks
• 15 points - account suspended for 1 month
• 20 points - banned permanently

Once a member accumulates 20 warning points, they are banned permanently, however they can be allowed back at the discretion of the site owner.

Please take the time to read each section of our T.O.S. below.

Registration and User Accounts
GeckoForums.net allows one user account to be registered per person. Registering multiple user accounts is a warnable offense and can result in permanent banishment from our site.

Posting under another member's username/account in a malicious manner or to purposely impersonate another member for any reason is a violation of the T.O.S.

Signature Areas, User Avatars and Profile Pictures
The signature area is a few lines of text that appear at the bottom of each post a member makes in the forums. You may post a link or two to your personal or business website, or a favorite quote you wish to display, pretty much anything as long as it is not obscene or blatently offensive.

There is a limit of six lines in the signature area. This includes blank lines or lines containing text. Images are not allowed in the signature area (with the exception of a smiley or two), text only please. Any color or font can be used, but the font size must be the default size or smaller.

You may post no more than two links in your signature area.

There is a limit of 200 characters in the signature area. This refers to viewable characters and does not apply to characters used in BB code or HTML code.

User Avatars are small graphics that are displayed under your username whenever you post. Animated avatars are allowed. As with the signature area, no obscene images or images that may be offensive to other users are allowed. The maximum size of your custom avatar image is 160 by 160 pixels or 24.4 KB (whichever is smaller).

Profile Pictures are images that are displayed in the user's profile and also next to the user's information on the "Who's Online" screen. Again, no obscenity or blatently offensive images allowed. The maximum size a user profile picture can be 160 by 160 pixels or 24.4 KB (whichever is smaller).

Chat Rooms
Our chat rooms are a great way for GeckoForums.net members to get to know each other. The chat room is Moderated, so members are expected to follow the same T.O.S. in Chat as they do while using the forums.

Personal Attacks Against Individuals or Companies
The GeckoForums.net Administration understands the importance of reputation feedback in the reptile industry, and members are encouraged to utilize the trader rating system to leave feedback for other users on the forum.

Posts and threads commenting on any business or individual with regards to their business and/or reptile husbandry ethics are not allowed on GeckoForums.net. This includes complaints about retail pet stores.

Also, antagonism towards the Moderators of GeckoFourms.net will not be tolerated.

Abuse
One thing that will not be tolerated is abuse of this site, it's owner, moderators, and/or it's members. We do have a warning point system in place here that will be enforced by the staff. The following are some of the violations of our T.O.S., and they apply to every feature on our site, including the private message and email system. We do reserve the right to add additional violations as needed.

• Posting obscene material and/or links to other websites containing obscene material will not be tolerated. This includes sexual content, pornography, violence, drug use, or any other illegal activity.
• The use of profanity is considered a violation of the T.O.S. Please be aware that using the asterik (*) sign or other symbols rather than the letters does NOT make it OK to use profanity here, and is considered breaking the TOS. Abbreviated acronyms are not allowed when they contain a word meant to stand for the "F" word. If you use the acronyms "WTF" or "LMFAO" expect to receive a warning or infraction.
• Sexual harassment is a T.O.S violation, and could result in permanent banishment from GeckoForums.net.
• Posts containing prejudicial remarks will not be tolerated. This includes, but is not limited to, comments regarding race, national origin, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, or other personal slurs.
• Personal attacks will not be tolerated. Heated discussions and/or debates are fine, but please stick to the issues and do not make it personal. Threatening another member with physical violence is not allowed.
• Incessant harassment of GeckoForums.net members (aka trolling) is against the T.O.S. of this website.
• Posting using another member's username and impersonating them is not allowed under any circumstances.
• Spamming of any kind is not allowed.
• Posting links to .exe files is not allowed.
• Soiliciting business or posting ads on the main discussion forums is a violation. Please post ads in the Classifieds section.

Quoting From Non Published Sources
Quotes are not allowed unless they come from published material such as a book, newspaper, magazine or website. You may not quote another person from a conversation, email, pm or any other type of communication unless it is published (such as an interview on a website or in a magazine or other publication.

Posting Images or Documents That Do Not Belong To You Without the Owner's Permission
Posting images and Documents that do not belong to you are against our T.O.S. unless you have permission from the owner of the image(s)/document(s).

Classifieds
New ads MUST be limited to three ads per day (per each section of the classifieds). In this case, a day is referring to a 24 hour period, therefore only 3 ads per category can be posted per 24 hour period.

Replies to ads can now only be made by the person that posts the ad. All correspondence between potential buyer and seller must be done through email or private message.

Thread starters can "bump" their ads no more than two times total, then they must allow the ads to fall. Any post made after the initial post of the ad is considered a bump.

Please keep in mind that a "bump" to an ad DOES count towards your 3 ad per day limit, therefore you may not have a total of more than 3 new ads or bumps of old ads in a 24 hour period. For example, if you bump 2 ads you will only be able to post one new ad in a 24 hour period (per category).

To summarize, you are allowed 3 new ads or ad bumps a day per category, and any ad can only be bumped/posted on twice, after that it must be allowed to fall.

Any member wanting to post for sale or auction animals or any items or services to benefit a charity or website MUST get written permission (via pm or email) from the administrator before posting such ads. This includes classified ads with items for sale or auction to benefit GeckoForums.net.

Violations will be deleted without warning, no exceptions.

Adoption Forum
The Adoption section of the site is a forum where members can post animals they would like to find good homes for, but for whatever reason do not want to sell the animal. We do not allow members to ask for any sort of "adoption fees", but asking a potential adopter to pay for shipping charges is ok.

Reporting Site Violations and Abuse
We ask that our members report any violations of our T.O.S. or any sort of abuse to us. We do take any abuse or violations very seriously and will deal with any issues promptly.

To report a post in one of the forums that violates our T.O.S., click on the orange triangle button underneath the User avatar and next to the green "online" button.

Any other general site violations should be reported by clicking the Contact Us link.