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The VHoChat Rules
Here are our posting rules. Please read them closely. Failing to adhere to them will result in your banning for a month or removal from the group. If you have any questions, please contact us at:
VHoChat-owner@yahoogroups.com or thesafehouse@vartanho.com.
Don't forget to check out our VHoChat FAQ, as well. It offers assistance to technical questions regarding the use of Yahoo!Groups. Please also take note of our Safe House Website FAQ. Thanks!
Currently, there are close to 3500 registered Vartan Hos, with over 850 frequenting the discussion group. Therefore, it is VERY important to be conscious of what and how much you post. Most members get digests consisting of many e-mails.
 SNIP ALL MAIL, DON'T TOP-POST You are obligated to delete the parts of the original message that are not important to your reply (including personal signatures and the excess lines that Yahoo adds)! You MUST post your reply BELOW the text you're replying to. Review all lines before sending (scroll down!!). Please clearly separate your reply from the original message.
SPOILER SPACE Whenever you are referring to or sending out a movie or television spoiler, episode title or spoilery link, please include spoiler space! This means posting the word "spoiler" in the message header and leaving some blank space in your e-mail, posting the spoiler or spoiler discussion BELOW that. Please respect the members that want to stay spoiler-free. DON'T refer to a spoiler in your header (that includes episode titles).
ANY episode discussion is considered a spoiler until 24 hours after it's aired in the US. Please continue to use spoiler space for that time. After that, please put the episode or movie title in the message header, so overseas friends know which threads to avoid.
MESSAGE HEADERS Please keep the current topic in the header. If you change the topic, change the header. Any headers that are sent without a subject WILL BE DELETED. We treat unnamed headers as spam with potential viruses. Clearly mark your spoiler (i.e. "Spoiler: Ep 4.02 set report") and off-topic (i.e. "OT: Smallville") posts. We administrators will put the word "ADMIN" in our header if we have something important to announce. Please DO NOT use all caps in your headers!
ACTOR PRIVACY / NO DISCUSSION OF JG & MV's RELATIONSHIP The Safe House webmistresses feel very strongly about this. Participating in any form of gossip about the actors' private lives or spreading rumors or unauthorized pictures is a deal-breaker and will get you banned or removed.
While some of you may be able to be respectful, others cannot. So unless it's a specific or official statement from publicists or the actors themselves, we don't want it on our chat. You can talk to anyone you like OFF the list about any relationship, but please refrain from doing so here. You can read more about our stance on this here.
MEMBER PRIVACY, TAKING NEWS-INFO This Yahoo!Group is a private e-mail messaging system, not a public forum. We ask you to respect that. All postings are made under the assumption that they will remain private and on this list only. If you want to re-post any news, quotes or files anywhere else, please ask the original poster for permission first (off-list!), and don't forget to give proper credit! DON'T share or make public any of the private e-mail addresses of members. Spammers or members that send other members unsolicited mass e-mail or invitations will be removed.
If you post exclusive or critical information (i.e. spoilers or photos from agencies) that you don't want to see circulated, please attach an extra-warning to your post to be sure. We ask all members to please obey individual poster's usage guidelines, as well as ours. We can't be held resonsible if members steal, but we'll make sure to remove them after the fact. Everything the webmistresses post is allowed to be shared according to our website Usage Guidelines.
Be sure to read Yahoo's Terms Of Service and Privacy statements, as well, and keep an eye on your private Yahoo settings at all times.
E-MAIL SETTINGS, BOUNCING, PERSONAL SIGNATURES Please make sure you have a reliable e-mail account. If you go over your storage quota or your inbox becomes unavailable, group messages will start bouncing back to Yahoo and your account will be deactivated. Make sure you'll take care of this soon, otherwise we'll have to unsubscribe you. You can change how to receive group e-mails here. Be sure to limit personal signatures to 4 lines tops, and take them out from messages you reply to.
NO ONE-LINE POSTS, MASS POSTINGS You're not allowed to post "me too" or "thank you"-type posts. Add something pertinent to the discussion. We aren't opposed to few-word mails if they are important, but please don't flood the group with useless one-liners. It's highly annoying and even expensive to download a ton of mails at home, only to find that they don't include real discussion or information.
Mass postings like "Send me this picture, my e-mail is request@mail.com" or threads like "Where are you from?" are not permitted. We regard that as spamming the group. Please share your files and information by uploading them to "Files," "Photos," or the "Database," or send them PRIVATELY.
FILE SHARING Attachments are NOT permitted. There are two sections on the group's website, "Files" and "Photos," where you can upload any picture or file you'd like to share with the group (up to 5 MB per file). Remember that pictures won't get displayed full-size in the "Photos" section, so please consider posting them in the "Files" section if they're very large or very important.
If you're unable to access any of the files, the group has run out of its hourly data transfer limit. Please try again at a later time.
Yahoo!Groups also offers features like "Database" (where you can create tables to list your age, location, interests, etc.), a "Chat" room, a "Links" section, and "Polls." Feel free to make use of any of them, but not excessively. They can be accessed at the group's website:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VHoChat
NET SPEAK, ALL CAPS With so many messages to read each day it becomes increasingly hard to read them all. If an e-mail is poorly written, it's more likely to be ignored. If you want to be heard, please pay attention to what your mail looks like to others. To ensure that don't use Net Speak (i.e. "R U 4 real?"), and pay attention to capitalization and punctuation. Do not use all caps unless you want to shout or emphasize a word. Never use all caps in message headers. Use paragraphs, and please keep everything in English.
OFF-TOPICS The conversations should be kept to topics about Michael and his projects, Alias or the Alias cast. We don't mind the occasional mention of other shows, real-life events or tech problems, but consistent off-topic discussion is annoying to all involved. Please try to keep it to a bare minimum or continue off-list. Always mark your OT posts clearly in the message header.
VIRUSES, HOAXES, SPAM Only registered Vartan Hos are invited to join the group, so viruses or spam are very rare. If we do come across any kind of spam, chain letters, or advertisements, however, we'll do our best to delete it ASAP. Spammers will be unsubscribed from the group immediately and without warning. If you want to plug your own site or forum, please ask the moderators for permission first or post your link in the "Links" section. DON'T send mass invitations or ads to members on-list OR off.
If you hear of a computer virus, please RESEARCH it on the internet first before creating a panic! You can do so at Symantec.com, for example. Most mails alerting you to viruses are hoaxes. If you really have a virus, please alert the moderators, so *we* can post an official warning to all members.
NO BASHING We reserve the right to ban or remove anyone from the group that partakes in any of the following: offensive actor/actress bashing or gossiping, Vartan Ho group webmistress or member bashing, insults, flames, posts that are specifically sent to spite certain individuals or fan factions (such as shippers), or any offensive material the WEBMISTRESSES deem unfit for the group. As all of these rules, this is not negotiable. We should all try to keep it very civil and fun.
MODERATION, BANNING We have multiple moderators reading the group along with the main Safe House administrators. If you fail to follow our rules or the basic internet guidelines known as "Netiquette," your post(s) will be deleted. You'll receive a private notice explaining why your post(s) got deleted. Feel free to resend! If you keep acting against our rules (i.e. forget to snip your mail) -- be it deliberately or by mistake -- we reserve the right to ban you for a month, or remove you altogether. We administrators will put the word "ADMIN" in our header if we have something important to announce.
Should you ever have a problem with any message or member of the group, a question, or experience an annoyance, please contact the moderators off-list immediately and we'll take it from there. Do NOT reprimand someone on the group. We'll try our best from OUR end to resolve the situation quickly and in a fair way. You can alert us to anything at VHoChat-owner@yahoogroups.com or thesafehouse@vartanho.com.
These rules should in no way affect discussion of the reason we're all here: Michael Vartan. We want people to have fun partaking in the fandom and sharing the love, and for that we need for ALL of you to obey the rules and consider your fellow list members. Thanks for your participation!
We send out an abbreviated version of these rules to the list on a regular basis. They're also posted visibly on the group's website. Have fun!
~ The Safe House Webmistresses
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