OttawaGolf Forum FAQ

We thank all of you for being a part of this ever growing community. Our mandate is to provide a safe and friendly environment for our users to discuss the great game of golf.

Freedom of Speech and the free exchange of thoughts and ideas are concepts that are very impotrant, however there is such a thing as self-control and consideration for others. It's called good manners and civility. Some might think of it as respect. Golf is a game of honour and etiquitte, so we should all be comfortable behaving respectfully.

We have all seen forums that are littered with spam, foul language, insults, personal attacks, inappropriate content, personal soapboxes and ajendas and little in the way of useful information. We strive to make this discussion board something other than just another "free for all" site where disruptive behavior and trolls are prevalent. There can be little tolerance for this type of behaviour, otherwise those who intentionally disrupt these forums will always push the limits.

Our friendly and fair moderators will do their best to assist users in maintaining a civil and safe atmosphere.

We thank you for your co-operation.

While debating and discussion is the purpose of this board, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts. Our decision is final in these matters. If you attack someone, don't be surprised if you find yourself banned.

If you find yourself opposed to another person's post; debate, do not argue. Above all be polite and respectful of others. Threads that degrade into a head-butting contest will be closed and the participants will receive a warning. This rule especially applies to arguments where it boils down to just trying to get the "Last word".

Moderators are here to keep the forums running smoothly, not to be abused. Attacking moderators is not tolerated.

Same as personal insults. This is not to say that a negative comment cannot be made, but rather that if such a comment is made it must be done accurately (don't exaggerate) politely, and with respect. Posts saying that a facility is a "rip-off" will be removed. Rants of any kind will not be tolerated. This may include generalities like "The course is just awful" which is not exactly a rant, but contains no useful information. You may state your issues politely, but do not vent here.

"Worst bang for the buck?" or "List the worst businesses" threads are not permitted.
Anything disrespectful will be removed immediately.

Course conditions:
You can post about poor conditions, without using derogatory terms, but don't tell people to "Stay away" from a course.
Acceptable:
"I thought there were too many blind tee shots, and conditions were very dry, with bare patches in several fairways. This course needs irrigation badly."
Not Acceptable:
"Warning Warning! I have played some dogtracks in my life, but this one takes the cake. Don't waste your money!"

"I had a bad experience" posts are strictly forbidden
This Forum is not to be used to shame a business or "get even" for a bad experience. These things can usually be sorted out rather easily with management. You may find that it was one individual employee getting out of line. That can be fixed if they know about it. Do not threaten to post the story here for all to read in order to extort satisfaction from them.

Not Acceptable:
"This is absolutely the last time I ever play xxx. There were 4 seperate law mowers/tractors that insisted on being active during the middle of the day! Why are the greens being mowed at noon?!!?!!"
Such posts will be removed immediately.

Spam is not permitted. Spam is:

• Posting your message more than once.
• Starting new threads on topics already being discussed.
• Posting meaningless threads, one word (or short) non-sense posts.
• Posting messages for the sake of promoting your own website or business.
• Soliciting other guests of this site to join or become members of any commercial online service

English is to be used at all times. Posts in other languages will be removed.
Use of "text message shorthand" is not to exceed sporadic occasional use. Please make the effort to write so that all can understand your post.

Attention Seeking: Please refrain from posting thread titles in ALL CAPS or with attention seeking characters such as ****

Swearing:
There is a filter in place to prevent certain combinations of letters from showing up. The language filter is not to be used as a permissible way of swearing. Spelling swear words with similar looking characters to bypass the language filters is not permitted. Urban slang acronyms that represent fowl or provocative language are not allowed. This applies to both posts in the forums and Private Messages.

Some people feel the need to post a lot. This is permissible as long as you have comments that are relevant and on topic.

What is not permitted is:
Commenting on a disproportionate number of posts in a given forum over a period of days, relative to other forum participants.
Frequent meaningless or irrelevant posts.

Basically we do not want a single user to dominate the forums. Such posts may be removed and the user will be asked to curtail the frequency of their posts. This is solely at the discression of the moderators.

Trolls are not welcome and will be banned.

An Internet "troll" is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. They try to start arguments and upset people. Sometimes they do so by directly antagonizing individuals or groups of people. They will often do so indirectly by reviving topics that are known to be controversial, posting flaimbait topics (religon politics, sexuality) and sometimes stating an outlandish opinion to spark a backlash.

Trolls see Internet communications services as convenient venues for their bizarre game. For some reason, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction. Indeed, the greater the fuss they cause, the greater their 'achievement' (as they see it).

The anonymity of the net allows trolls to flourish. They are easily identified by the fact that they are constantly at odds with other members of the forum, and often take shots at individuals they have disagreed with in the past, trying to provoke a reaction.

Finally, trolls create a paranoid environment, such that a casual criticism by a new arrival can elicit a ferocious and inappropriate backlash or ridicule.

When you try to reason with a troll, he wins. When you insult a troll, he wins. When you scream at a troll, he wins. The only thing that trolls can't handle is being ignored.

Asking / answering questions within a thread is fine. Just don't let a secondary issue change the topic of a thread. Start a new thread if you want to change the subject and put a link in the existing thread so people can follow if interested. You may also want to put a link in the new thread so people can look back.

The overtaking of threads with banter or side discussions. It detracts from the threads and is annoying to many. A wize crack here and there is OK and even a follow up shot can be entertaining too, however when it goes to 3 or 4 posts and more without returning to the topic at hand, the original thread is lost. Remember the Off Topic / Almost Anything forum can be used for banter or silly random thoughts and polls. We will relax the rule a bit for that forum only, but we still would like to see things stay on track.

Private bets between individuals can be arranged here, however the forum management and owners are not in any way involved or participating with this activity and we are not engaged in the "business of betting". The moderators will not resopnd to, get involved with or intervene in any way with problems that may arise between users who have issues resulting from betting arrangements made here. You are 100% on your own.

Advocating intellectual property violations of any kind is strictly prohibited.

Do Not Post or Request :

• Sharing of software, movie, tv or music files.
• Links to file sharing sites
• Instructions on methods for bypassing copyright protection, even for creating "backups" for personal use.
• Modifications or hacks to "unlock" hardware.

  Discussion of any illegal activities or methods for circumventing the law will result in an immediate permanent ban.

All posts for items for sale belong in the classifieds. Posting of ads is considered spam in forums other than the Classifieds.

All ads must include an asking price.

If you quote a retailer's price for your item it must be current and accurate.

If pictures are requested they are to be posted to the forum for all to see.

No scalping.
Event tickets mat not be priced above face value.

No Dealing in Bad Faith.
ie: If a buyer meets the asking price and the seller cancels the deal sell to someone else for more, or ask that the initial buyer outbid another potential buyer willing to pay more, the seller is deemed to be dealing in bad faith.

No auction posts.

No links to other classified ad forums.

Items may be offered by North American Sellers Only
No product ads by overseas sellers please.
Service ads such as accomodations at golf resorts may be offered in the "Other Golf Ads" section only.

Commercial Ads
No 'user posted' commercial ads. This includes links to coupon sites as well as other promotional material.

Bumping
Bumping is making a post in order to bring a thread back to the top of the forum listing. There is no set time restriction on bumping ads if you bump your ad too much you will be asked to stop. This is at the discretion of the moderators.

Price Bashing or Thread Crapping
No posts of this type "You are asking too much for that. You can get it at Acme Golf for $50 less, brand new" Do not post replies in the classifieds if you are not making an offer or asking a question about the item for sale. Classifieds are not discussion forums.
If someone is interested in a club they should do their homework before buying on a forum. It is a buyer beware marketplace. Bashing someone's pricing is in poor taste and serves no real purpose other than to antagonize the seller and ruin a potential sale.
If you think a price is too high...
1) PM or email the seller with a private comment, they may be unaware and this is quite helpfull when done politely.
2) make an offer you feel is more appropriate
3) don't make an offer and move on

No ads in other forums

Completing Transactions
This is a local site. We recommend you meet with the seller in a safe, mutually convenient place and if a product is unacceptable don't buy it.
We do not advise you use this site like ebay - sending money and goods out of town. We offer no security or guarantees so you are on your own should you decide to do that.

Rating Transactions We do not allow threads praising/trashing users or rating deals.

The moderators will not get involved unless a forum rule is broken. We are not referees, and these are always he said she said so please don't come to us with feedback problems.

If you operate a golf related business:

• You may use your business name as your Username, but no URL's in usernames.
• You may answer questions from users about your business
• You may post informative, helpful remarks in any thread and include "come and see me for more help" with a link and contact info.
• You may NOT pose as a satisfied customer praising the facility or service.
  
• No links to surveys or email gathering tools.
  

Sponsors & Non-sponsors privileges:

• Site sponsors may post classified ads or promotional material
  
• Non-sponsors with minimal activity on the forums may not post promotional material
• Non-sponsors who contribute to the forums and share their expertise may post a limited amount of promotional material - subject to approval by forum management

Listing:

• New listing threads should be titled with your company name & the business you are in.
• No golf businesses, this is for "Other stuff".
• One thread per business.
• Ad copy is Ok.
• Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec businesses only.
• No MLM or sililar.

Looking for a Business:

• If a service you are looking for is not listed start a thread inquiring if someone can help you

Replies to Rules questions should be accompanied by the appropriate Rule number and clause. Replies to Rules questions which quote a decision that confuses the issue will be deleted.

Golf Jokes
PG rated golf jokes only.

User Names
Usernames may be anything other than: Obscenities or variations on obscenities, suggestive, provocative, racist or insulting names, URLs.

Signatures:

• No coloured or large fonts ( size 3 and above)
• Limit 2 lines
• Sorry but due to spammers using links in forum sigs to provide 'Search Engine Optimization Services' links in sigs are not permitted, except for site sponsors, who may include their URL in their sigs
  
• No "What's in the bag" lists. Please enter the info in your Profile

Multiple IDs:
Registering with multiple IDs is forbidden.

Avatars:

• People with at least 20 posts (rank Sand Wedge) may upload an avatar via their User Control Panel.
• Avatars are to be 60x60 pixels in size. jpg or .gif format.
• No avatars illustrating bodily functions.
• No political or otherwise provocative symbols. National or provincial flags & logos are OK.
• No "babes" or otherwise sexually suggestive avatars. This is not a "Gentleman's Club" so please respect that Ladies and Juniors also us the site.
• Any avatar that is offensive in any way to any user will be removed immediately.

You can link to or upload images to the forum.

Gratuitous "Girlie posing with Golf club", golf calendar girls, or shots of scantily clad girls at "Hooter" style golf tournaments will be removed. This material is not truly about golf, and it offends some of the ladies who frequent the site

Repeated posts of provocative images may result in a ban.

Anything pornographic will guarantee an immediate ban without warning.

Flamebait topics are not permitted These are subjects that people feel strongly about and which almost always causes cause sharp divisions in viewpoint. Users, blithely charge in, and the same tired arguments are trotted out for the millionth time. Nobody changes their position and everybody gets irritated. Topics considered Flamebait are sex, religion, racism and politics.

Do not type your post in all caps, IT IS LIKE SHOUTING. Do not use oversized huge fonts. The best way to emphasize something is to bold it.
Excessive use of bold or multicoloured text is also not allowed as it is a distraction from the content of the post and looks very messy overall.
Please refrain from posting thread titles with attention seeking characters such as ****



Please post in complete, coherent sentences. Posts in "Tweet Speak" - using excessive abbreviations which makes posts difficult to read, will be removed.

Violators of these rules will be warned, and if the behavior does not immediately improve, the user will be banned.

Please do not take it upon yourself to confront someone who you feel is violating the forum rules. Allow our moderators to do the moderating please.
To report a problem post:
There is aReport Post icon below every post. Use it to bring the post to the attention of a moderator you see a problem post.

While these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.

• The Forum team shall be the sole arbitrators of what does and what does not violate community standards.
• We reserve the right to remove or edit posts without notice.
• We reserve the right to ban any user who willfully violates the forum rules.
• First offence for a rules violation will usually result in a one week ban. Second offence will result in a permanent ban.
• Arguing with or abusing the moderator imposing the ban is not tolerated and may result in a permanent ban.

Questions about how to use the forums Please consult the FAQ first. If you cannot find what you are looking for email Moderator