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[Ali]

ShiaChat.com Rules

Note: This is an Islamic site, anything that is not noted below and is considered unIslamic will not be allowed. Laws of Islam and Shari'a are implemented in this site strictly.

The following rules apply in both the Forum and the Chatroom.

• Blasphemy of any kind towards Allah (sw), Prophet Muhammad (saww), the Ahlul-Bayt and any Prophet of Allah, shall be met with a permanent ban from this site. No warning is necessary.
  
• Disrespect to any Mujtahid, Marja' Taqleed, or religious authority will not be tolerated whatsoever.
  Due to previous experience in this site with respect to the above rule, any topics which the moderators agree on to be of controversial nature and would lead to destructive debates and disunity amongst the Ummah will NOT be allowed on this forum. Members who do not abide by this rule would have their post locked/deleted followed by a warning/ban if they do not comply. Members are encouraged to discuss this in private (email or PM) as an alternative to avoid personal attacks and disunity on the site. The Shiachat.com team does however reserve the right to keep such threads open granted that it is put under heavy moderation and all parties engaged in the debate maintain a certain level of respect and maturity.
  
• Cursing of the 3 "Caliphs" (Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman by name or number) and of any of the Holy Prophet's (pbuh) wives, as well as Sunni scholars is strictly prohibited. This involves cursing by name, swear words and defamatory language. The Moderator/Admin team also reserve the right to edit/delete posts or ban members in accordance with the application of these rules. This is the only way to keep peace between the 2 parties and allow constructive discussions. In response to the bold offering of praise to the enemies of Islam and the Ahlulbayt , Muawiyah and Yazeed, by some members on this board, the ShiaChat team have decided to warn (or ban if warnings are exhausted) any member who offers such open praise to these killers of the Ahlulbayt and the pious Companions.
  
• No swear words, unmannered replies or racist comments, especially when directed at other members. A warning followed by a temporary ban shall be met. If a member repeats their offensive or racist language, a permanent ban will take place. No excuses.
  
• We encourage members to be courteous to others, and treat fellow members the way they wish to be treated. Intelligent discourse and freedom of expression is encouraged, as long as it is exercised with responsibility. Insults made against other members on this board are not tolerated, even those made via PM. Warnings will be issued to offending members.
  
• Member profiles, names, signatures, avatars or titles which are overtly sexual or contain tasteless references to sexual organs and offensive nicks are to be avoided. A request to conform will be followed by a ban if member does not comply.
  
• Non-Islamic Advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are inappropriate on this site and considered spam. Anyone found doing this will be banned immediately. You're free to advertise your Islamic site to a certain extent however.
  
• If a member is issued with a suspension or ban, they are not allowed to register a new account to post whilst restrictions are in place. Suspensions and bans are given for a reason, and a member is expected to respect and abide by the decisions made by the Moderating team. If a member registers another account whilst suspended/banned, that account will be banned immediately, and posts from the new account deleted as well as the account itself.
  
• Policies or actions by the ShiaChat team should not be discussed and made into a public debate, unless specified by a Moderator/Admin. If anyone is unhappy with the actions taken against them by the ShiaChat team feel free to contact the moderators and reasons will be given to them. Discussions of ShiaChat's internal affairs in a public manner causes more confusion and therefore will not be allowed unless initiated by the ShiaChat team. Additionally, topics closed by moderators shall not be re-opened by members in any form or way.

Members are only allowed 3 warnings, in which a decision would be made whether to apply a permanent or temporary ban. Moderators will send a warning (via PM) or in the post itself after editing out any improper comments that disobey any of the above rules. Moderators also reserve the right to delete an entire post or topic if it conflicts any of the above rules. Members may ask for a log of their warnings from any mod at anytime.

Also note that this site is open for everyone, Muslim or not. Everyone is asked to respect each other as brothers and sisters and respect each others' faith, background and origin. Any attack by anyone towards any of the faiths will not be allowed and would be served by a warning. Muslims are to act as such towards any non-Muslim guests or guests of other faiths. Those of other faiths are to respect this forum and its rules as much as they wish to be respected.

Please obey the above rules as they will be implemented strictly in this site. The Shiachat.com administration team will be the sole and final arbiter on decisions with regards to the above rules. For any questions or comments, contact the administrator at webmaster@shiachat.com

Disclaimer: The administrators reserve the right to add, modify, or remove any of these rules at any time. Rule changes apply to past, current and future posts/material.

[Ali]

Policy

Considering the real-time nature of this site, it is impossible for us to review messages or confirm the validity of information posted. Please remember that we at do not actively monitor the contents of and are not responsible for any messages 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. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this site or any entity associated with this site. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email or the "Report" link. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, so please realize that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this site to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this site.

Although ShiaChat.com does not and cannot review the messages posted and is not responsible for the content of any of these messages, we at this site reserve the right to delete any message for any or no reason whatsoever. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the forum, chatroom, and ShiaChat.com in general.

For questions or comments, email the admin at: webmaster@shiachat.com

[Ali]

Privacy Issues and Public Disclosure

ShiaChat.com will NOT disclose any personal information except when: permission has been granted by the individual; where the information is considered public information found in the member's public profile or posts and is not otherwise protected from disclosure by applicable laws; or, we are required to do so by law, subpoena, court order or legal process.

ShiaChat.com does however reserve the right to disclose any personal information presented during the original signup process or gathered when you sign on (Ie, IP or computer/location information) to it's Administration team for Moderating and tracking purposes.


Cookies

ShiaChat.com's applications and Web pages may use cookies (or programs called "applets") to store information. Cookies are text files stored on your computer to enhance the usability of a particular Web site. They can tell a web site if you have visited before and can pass short bits of information from the Web site back to itself the next time you visit. Any information, including personal information, which you choose to provide at a site may be stored in a cookie. Your Web browser can be configured to refuse cookies or to notify you when a Web site attempts to send you a cookie. Cookie files can also be found and deleted from your computer's hard drive.

[Ali]

The following is a helpful list of things that should be avoided when using a discussion forum such as ShiaChat.com.  Please read it carefully and try to follow these guidelines.

Things that should be AVOIDED on the discussion forum:

• Posting the wrong subject in the wrong forum
  There is nothing worse than having a topic so out of place that people become confused when they see it! It's not only annoying for members who are on the forum seeking a certain subject and seeing another, but also for the moderators who have to go through the troubles of moving them. Sometimes we even delete them to send a message across.
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• Cross posting
  Post your topic to one forum only. If it needs to be moved, alert a moderator. Duplicates will be removed.
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• Quoting the post above you
  You DON'T have to click on the "Quote" button if you're replying to a post immediately above yours. It's a "given" when you reply. You may however quote a single sentence from the post immediately above yours, but PLEASE, not the entire post.  
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• Posting one-word/one-line replies
  If you have nothing important to post, please don't post anything. Leave it to others who may have something beneficial to say. Nothing is worse than a silly topic with silly one-word replies. Members from the same community, posting in the 'local community forum', should confine their posts to one thread.
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• Two people replying back and fourth to each other, changing the topic
  Please note this is a discussion forum not a chat room.Hijacking a thread and turning it into an endless back and forth off-topic chat is not only rude, but quiet disruptive. If you wish to start a conversation with someone, please PM or email them instead.
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• Spamming
  Spamming is characterized by the initiation of threads or posts that contribute nothing to a forum, be it off topic or on topic. Examples include: empty bodies, bodies with words that have no relation to the current thread or discussion and those posts that state they are spam, either to annoy, advertise or increase a member's post count. Resurrecting old forum posts is also not appreciated unless it serves a worthy cause to the forum. This determination is made by the forum Moderator or Administrator and is not up for discussion. While we do not impose a post limit, members who have an inordinate number of post per day will be warned and asked to delete their posts. Their post count may be reduced as well. Further instances may result in a short ban. Opening more than five threads in the same forum may result in the merging or deletion of those threads, the decision is at the Moderator's discretion.
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• Private Information/E-Mail addresses etc.
  Do not disclose any one's private information in the forum, including your own. This includes e-mail addresses, IP addresses, house address, and any other individual information. Thousands of people visit these forums daily, it's not worth the spam, or scams, that are possible. If you must share your email address etc., please do it with a private message. Such information will be removed by the moderating staff in public posts whenever possible.
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• Starting a topic that was discussed before
  If a topic has been discussed before and led to a 50+ post thread, please look it up and find your answer rather than opening a new thread.  It's very annoying that people have to repeat themselves when it comes to such matters. There is no reason to start topics that have been exhausted.
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• Posting in CAPS
  Posting in CAPS is not only considered as shouting and rude, it's also very hard to read and makes the poster seem very immature.  Please refrain and use CAPS LOCK wisely.
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• Posting large or/and colored fonts excessively, too many smilies and explanation or question marks in post
  Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or coloured text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned and subsequently banned.
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• Hijacking threads!
  There is nothing worse to a poster than seeing his thread hijacked by a couple of people, completely changing the topic before he/she can get his/her answer. Please AVOID doing this. Simply start another thread if it's a different topic.
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• Posting the same topic under different forums
  Some people post their thread in many different forums to try to get as much views as possible. This is a moderator's nightmare. MULTIPLE THREADS WILL BE DELETED SO DON'T DO IT.
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• Using long nicks, titles, signatures or a bad choice combination of the three
  This is pretty self explanatory. Anything too big or flashy takes the focus off of the thread. Please avoid doing that. Signatures are limited to a maximum of 500 characters/300 x 700 pixels of text and pictures. Signatures found to exceed this limit will be edited without notice.

We ask everyone here to obey these guidelines and refrain from doing any of the above. This will insure better standards for posting on this site and it's a courtesy to the readers and the administrators/moderators.

[Aal-e-Imran]

In addition to the ShiaChat.com forum rules and regulations, the following will not be tolerated in the chatroom:

- Blasphemy
- Pornography
- Perverted behaviour
- Slandering Islamic scholars
- Cursing the first 3 caliphs and Ayesha
- Swearing/Profanity
- Insulting, harassing or threatening other members whether they are present or absent (backbiting)
- Disrepecting others faith
- Racism
- Abuse of emoticons/flash emoticons
- Flooding/Scrolling the text
- Abuse of chat text. Typing in all-caps, use of font-size other than standard 12, and lighter font colour that is hurtful to the eye must be avoided.
- Attempting to hijack a topic/discussion
- Posting web links with unislamic content - music, dancing, pornography etc.
- Discussing moderator/admin policy in public

Please note that if you are warned or kicked by a moderator for breaking the rules or acting inapropriately, and you respond by either attacking them personally or sarcastically, you will be banned. Shiachat.com moderators and Admins reserve the right to act in accordance to maintaining a clean and safe environment for individuals of all age and race.