• No excessive swearing. We try to keep forums as clean as possible. If you want to swear, go somewhere else. Automatic censoring will pick up the most offensive swear words and replace them. You are not allowed to space out swear words, replace one character in a swear word with an asterisk, or use any alternative spelling to avoid the auto-censor.
  
• No obscene/adult material. This means you are not allowed to post links to such pictures, sounds, animations, etc. Do not post adult or sexually-oriented material or links to sites containing such material. RB is a family-friendly website and as such we make every effort that the content is suitable for everyone.
  
• No illegal software/warez. We don't take kindly to people using our forums for the illegal solicitation or trade of illegal or copyrighted material. Requesting cracks and the like is out of the question.
  
• Criticize and discuss to your heart's content, but do it constructively. No attacks, insults, or flames - be it on someone's personal, religious beliefs, race, national background, sexual orientation or whatever. This is one of our most important rules. If you have a problem with somebody, do not flame them on our boards. Take it somewhere else. No flaming of ANY kind is welcome here. The quickest way to get banned from our boards is to break this rule.
  
• Only one registered account per person [exceptions apply]. To prevent abuse, members are only allowed one registered account per person. In the case that you lose your password and cannot retrieve it automatically, you can contact us with your login details and we will retrieve the password for you, but DO NOT just create a new account. Any duplicate accounts we discover will be deleted without warning.
  Exceptions: Raging Buffalo employees and/or staff are allowed to have an additional username.
  
• Do not post your topic headlines or messages in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS or excessively punctionalized. This is hard on the eyes and annoying to read. ALL CAPS TEXT is not welcome on any message board. Posts with more than three question (?) or exclamation (!) marks also fall under this category.
  
• Before starting a new thread, see if anyone else has started a similar one. There's no sense in beginning a new thread if a discussion on the topic occurred not long ago. Often, the new thread asks a question that was already answered in the old thread. If you don't feel like checking previous posts manually, you can use the search feature on the boards. However! do not revive a topic older than a few months with a totally pointless comment or a one-word reply. (Also make sure to check the date when the original post was created since responding to topics half a year old or to members that have been long gone will make you look silly.) Moderators won't look kindly upon that either.
  
• Limit your topic headlines to normal length. People will be reading your whole topic so you don't need to cram half of your message in the subject line.
  
• Make sure the headline of your topic is descriptive. Do not make topic headlines like: "A Question", "Please Help", "Read This" and similar. They tell us absolutely nothing about the meaning of your message. Moderators will have to edit such headlines to something related to your post, and we're sure you don't want the moderators to remember you as "that guy/girl who can't even get a headline right".
  
• Do not advertise a site or service more than once. This rule exists because of the numerous spam messages people post when they make new sites. We don't have a problem with it being announced once, in the proper forum, but any more than that gets annoying.
  
• Make sure you are posting in the correct forum. For example, if you have a question about the Snowboarding Teams, it goes into the Snowboarding Teams forum. If there's a forum specifically for your topic, make sure you post it there. If it doesn't belong anywhere else, put it in the General forum.
  
• Make sure you are posting on-topic. Posting something unrelated to the original post is called being off-topic. While this is permitted somewhat as long as it develops out of the original post and remains at least vaguely connected to the issue, starting to post about something completely unrelated to it is not allowed. In such a case you should open a new thread for it, if needed. If you feel the need to converse further about something unrelated with someone you can either IM or e-mail them.
  
• If you have a personal issue, keep it personal. We don't want our forums clogged up with posts specifically for one person. If it can be handled over e-mail, take it to e-mail. Alternately, you can also use the instant messaging systems accessible via the profiles.
  
• No cross-posting across different topics and/or forums. Do not post the same message in multiple threads or forums. Make one post, either a reply or a new thread, in the proper forum, and no more. Once you get a reply to that, feel free to post more on that subject. But under no circumstances are you allowed to go opening multiple threads about the same thing, anywhere. Hijacking other people's posts to get answers to something unrelated to the original topic is not allowed either.
  
• No re-registering or posting via proxy if you are banned. If you're banned, that means banned. Do not register another name and start posting again. We will contact your ISP if necessary.
  
• Do not ask to be a moderator or admin, or pretend that you are one. We are not looking for new moderators or admins. If we were, we would not pick anyone who posts/mails us asking for it. The only persons qualified for interpreting and enforcing our forum rules are the moderators and administrators whose status is written in white text below their publicly displayed name. NO ONE else is allowed to publicly advise any registered users of Raging Buffalo  how to comply with these rules, or publicly tell them how they have broken any of them in their opinion. If any members feel that a certain member is in violation of any of our forum rules, they may report it, informing us of the alleged transgression, providing a link to where it was supposed to have happened and by whom. We will investigate the reports and act, if we deem it necessary. NOTE: This rule also applies to itself, meaning no one is allowed to quote it to another member publicly.
  
• If you have an issue related to the moderators... If you have a problem with a ban or a thread being either closed, edited or deleted, be it yours or someone else's, e-mail the moderators or send them a private message. If you have any comments regarding the actions of any of the administrators or moderators, e-mail or IM them personally. DO NOT post a message arguing about it on the forums, it will get deleted. DO NOT start arguing about it in the chatroom, you will be removed. If you don't feel comfortable contacting one of the moderators, contact another one. This rule is enforced because every time someone starts arguing with the mods/admins, the topic is more or less ruined and nothing of relevance gets posted there any more. Obviously we do not want that to happen.
  
• If you have a question related to any of the rules... It might seem to you that some of our rules are quite strict, and indeed they are. However, our enforcement of these rules is in the best interest of our registered users. You might also wonder why there are so many rules. The answer to this is very simple. We have to painfully explain each and every aspect of common sense and acceptable behavior because if we miss one single point, people will claim that it was not covered in the rules and therefore they shouldn't be punished for it. (Needless to say, that is not how it works.) 

Members failing to comply with our rules will be warned once, usually in the form of a note appended to their post, or e-mail. It is every member's responsibility to check his or her e-mail used to register on these boards regularly to see if we have something to tell them. Nothing irritates us more than sending out a warning to someone via e-mail and then seeing that they never check their e-mail account they signed up with. To attract attention of such ignorant members, we will be forced to take away their posting privileges until they acknowledge our warning(s).

Further infractions may constitute removal from the board. The fact is, if you choose to make this place un-enjoyable for everyone else, you will be dealt with. We do log all accesses to the forums, and we will not hesitate to contact your ISP if you abuse our site or our visitors.