Guidelines for Posting

[Tulasi Devi]

Guidelines for Posting: Please Read Before Posting on the Sanatana Dharma Forum

The Sanatana Dharma Forum is a rapidly growing global Dharma family. This forum exists to provide followers of Sanatana Dharma with an online community to discuss Dharma. As such, the moderators are highly dedicated to keeping the forum a safe, friendly, constructive, and supportive environment for the open discussion of Sanatana Dharma.

As a member of the Sanatana Dharma Forum, you are expected to understand and strictly follow all the guidelines outlined below. Please read them carefully, and always keep them in mind when making any post on the forum.

1. Any single violation of one of the below guidelines will lead to a reprimand.
2. A second violation will lead to a seven day posting suspension.
3. A third offense will lead to being banned from the forum.

Any attack on Sanatana Dharma or any Dharma Guru/Acharya or sacred institution of Sanatana Dharma will lead to a permanent IP ban from the forum for life. Persons using this forum for overtly advertising purposes will be permanently IP banned. Any attempt to create multiple accounts will also lead to a permanent IP ban.

These rules will be enforced without appeal.

Keep discussions civil and productive:

1. Profanity: No profanity, insults, cursing, or epithets will ever be allowed.
2. Flaming: No personal flames or bickering. Please use friendliness, humility, compassion and respect in all your discussions.
3. Cyber-Pundits: Avoid sounding like an arrogant know-it-all authority on spiritual/philosophical subjects. Arrogance and egotism are truly ugly traits, only end up making the cyber-pundit look silly in the eyes of others, and are the enemies of any true Yogi. Humility is a key to good communication.
4. Defamation: No attacks against Dharma leaders, gurus, organizations, or prominent individuals will ever be allowed. Any attack on Sanatana Dharma or any Dharma Guru/Acharya or sacred institution of Sanatana Dharma will lead to a permanent IP ban from the forum for life.
5. Literacy: Make a serious effort to use proper spelling, grammar and capitalization (no ALL-CAPS posts will be allowed). Use the spell-check feature when in doubt. Do not abbreviate words: "u" is not a word; "r" is not a word; "thru" is not a word.
   
6. English Usage: Use only Standard North American English, and Standard British English in your communications. All communications on this forum will be in the English language only.
7. Avatars: Any member using an unsuitable avatar or signature (unnecessarily brash, pornographic or insulting to other members), will be asked to remove it. A moderator may remove an avatar and/or signature at any time if deemed necessary.
8. Spamming: No spamming of any kind is allowed on this forum.
9. No Advertising: No advertising or overt promotion of any particular gurus, organizations, or products that haven't been endorsed by this forum will ever be allowed. This is a discussion forum, not a forum for free advertising. Do not post on the Sanatana Dharma Forum unless you have something relevant to contribute to the ongoing discussions. Violators of this guideline will be banned immediately.
10. Appropriate Threads: Post topics only to appropriate threads and forums.
11. Multiple Accounts: Post only under one user name. Anyone with "multiple personalities" will be automatically detected, will have all their accounts automatically deleted, and will be banned from further membership.
12. Illegal Activities: Do not advocate or suggest any activity that is illegal under U.S. law.
13. Caste: "Caste" is not Hindu and has nothing to do with Sanatana Dharma. Rather, "caste" constitutes one of the most evil forms of bigotry the world has ever known. At no point will "caste" discrimination, debates about the "benefits" of "caste", or the defense of the "caste" system ever be tolerated on this forum.
    
14. Questions: Sri Acharyaji will not be participating or answering questions on this forum. Please do not waste time posting messages or questions to Sri Acharyaji.
15. India: Sanatana Dharma is a world religion that has followers from every race, ethnicity, and nationality currently in existence. The focus of this forum is the global religion, philosophy, and world-view of Sanatana Dharma, not India. Please do not post items about Indian politics, events, entertainment, etc. "Sonia Gandhi Slams BJP" has zero to do with Sanatana Dharma. Please stick to Sanatana Dharma in all your posts.
16. Trolling: Only Dharmis and those persons with a sincere interest in learning about Dharma are allowed to be members of this forum. If you join the Sanatana Dharma Forum with the purpose of debating with us, attacking Dharma in any way, attempting to convert anyone away from Dharma or to a non-Dharma religion, or trolling our board, you will be immediately banned from this forum without warning.
17. Harassing Moderators: While we appreciate that everyone has an opinion, moderation issues may not be the topic of thread discussions, no matter how strongly you feel about what may or may not have happened to yourself or another poster. Very often other members are not aware of situations that have transpired if threads and posts have had to be deleted. Do not start threads asking why a thread/post was removed, why X person was banned, why a moderator made a certain decision concerning this board. The Moderation team is not at liberty to discuss such matters on the forum threads, and they will not. Any such attempts to debate or harass a moderator in this way will be swiftly dealt with and may result in you being either temporarily or permanently banned from this forum. All our moderators are volunteers who receive no payment for their service to our forum and members. Please be respectful.

Report Post Feature

If you see a post you believe breaches any of our forum guidelines, please feel free to report the post to the Moderators, who will decide on what action (if any) needs to be taken. The icon for reporting posts is the exclamation mark within a red triangle to the right of your user name and avatar. Only signed-in members can use this function.