Welcome to the Community Manifesto

Welcome to the Covers Community

Unfortunately we do live in a society, and all societies have basic rules. Therefore, we will outline a few, very basic, rules, and then let's be done with it so we can all co-exist in peace. We will be updating this Manifesto from time to time as needs dictate.

Rules, Guidelines and General Manifesto:

Rules:

We don’t like rules any more than you do, but believe it or not, these are implemented to protect the forum and its users. Please follow these rules so we don’t have to be the “bad guy” and kick you out.

1) Any images, avatars & URLs containing nudity, pornography, sexually explicit bikinis and lingerie are banned from the forum. We don’t hate nudity; we just don’t need it in the forum.

2) All custom avatars must go through our Avatar Approval Process before being used on the site. This is to prevent inappropriate images from flooding throughout Covers. If you want to look at that stuff, there are a lot of other websites for that.

3) Topics that are morally offensive will be under review by the community moderators and possibly deleted. Offensive thread titles may also be edited.

4) Our forum will not be used as a place to do your personal business. Phone numbers, home addresses and email addresses that are found in any forum other then Web Site Promotions will be deleted. Your Covers space page is the place for self promotion.

If you are promoting a service in any forum other than Website Promotions, your account may be suspended or banned by our team of moderators.

5) If you have been previously banned from our forum and return under a new alias username to intentionally disrupt other members, you will be banned immediately.

6) Obviously slanderous posts may have the thread topic censored, while the body of the post will remain untouched. For instance, if somebody wants to initiate a post entitled, "XYZ Sportsbook Run By Crooks!!!", then that person had better include credible information regarding the status of XYZ Sportsbook, otherwise the thread topic title will simply be edited to "Slanderous post about XYZ Sportsbook" while the rest of the text within that post will be left untouched. We think this policy represents a nice compromise between freedom of speech rights and libelous mudslinging. Plus, we hope it alleviates a lot of the legal implications.

7) Any picks posted will be assumed to be meant for the various Picks forums, and will be relocated there if not deleted. Any obvious site promotions will be assumed to be meant for the Promotions area, and will be relocated there if not deleted. Any other off-topic threads will be relocated to the appropriate forum and/or deleted accordingly. In short, no picks in the general discussion room, no promos in the picks room, no service picks in any forum, etc.

8) Obviously repetitive topics may be locked, deleted or consolidated. For instance, if someone starts a thread entitled, "Why Sportsbook XYZ sucks," and then 10 minutes later starts another post entitled "10 Reasons Why Sportsbook XYZ Sucks," then we would probably lock or delete the second post and redirect readers to the first thread.

9) Threads in the various forums that go off topic and turn into nothing more than a shouting match will be moved to the Penalty Box forum where posters can settle their differences.

10) You must have something to offer our community. If it is deemed by our moderators that you have nothing to offer other than insults, attacks and emoticons, you will be warned, suspended and/or banned from the forum. Users who are suspended can continue to post in the Penalty Box for a period until moderators decide you should be banned or released from the Box.

11) If it is determined that you are posting several emoticons for the purpose of increasing your post total, the moderators have the option of reducing your post total and sending you to the Penalty Box for rehab.

12) Any racist, sexist or homophobic content will be deleted and the user will face either a community suspension, time in penalty box or permanent banning at the discretion of the moderators.

Guidelines:

For obvious reasons, this kind of thing is only fun as long as people play fair. We want this to be fun as well as informative. Therefore, we have come up with a few basic guidelines that we are requesting users to respect. These aren't rules, but were counting on you folks out there to do a lot of self-policing. So here are some guidelines that will keep this place vibrant, entertaining and enjoyable:

1) If you spot somebody out there who is obviously in direct violation of the rules and spirit of the community, then let us know in the Covers Help forum. If their attitude is ruining your experience, then consider ignoring this user.

2) Regarding slanderous posts/blogs/comments. As mentioned above, we will be notifying readers if we think a particular post is nothing more than unsubstantiated slanderous crap. Once a post has been marked as slanderous, the post will either be deleted or moved to the Penalty Box forum.

3) Try to be civil. We know, we know. Sometimes it's hard to contain yourself when someone is being a disruptive member. But we know from personal experience that nobody wants to read a page full of flames either. It's no fun. So at least try to maintain a sense of dignity - plus it shows a lot of class.

4) Try to be interesting. Nobody wants to read boring posts/blogs/comments.

5) Remember this motto: "Freedom of Speech may always be a right, but that doesn't mean you are always right." In other words, if you don't know what you are talking about, then shut the hell up because you look like a fool!

6) If you have a good idea to improve the community, let us know. We participated in the creation of this software, and plan to add new features from time to time.

7) Any uploaded images used for your community profile which have sexual or violent content are not permitted. All inappropriate images will be removed and your account may be locked if you continue to post inappropriate content.

8) The forum has disabled users from posting active links. This doesn’t mean you can’t post a link, it just means the users will have to take the long way of getting somewhere by manually copy and pasting the URL into their own browser. This prevents Covers from promoting explicit links and prevents users from clicking on links they know they probably shouldn’t.

Now, some final words that our moderators will try to live by:

Community Manifesto

We hereby promise to try to uphold a fun and interesting community.

We promise to be consistent and fair in any disputes that arise inside the community, and will try to keep any deletions and censorship occasions to an acceptable minimum.

We will not engage in any unfounded personal attacks on other people or sites, although we cannot promise the same from other members.

We will not employ "ghost" members to artificially inflate the appearance of the number of members in this community.

We will not allow ourselves to become involved in any pissing contests with competing communities. If they want to slam us, they can - and I'm sure they will. But we won't get into it. As well, we won't tolerate others using this community to slam other competing sites either.

Remember that we’re always watching what you post. We reserve the right to remove and ban any users we feel are not meeting the rules & guidelines posted above. We don’t want to do it, so please don’t give us a reason to.

Finally, and most importantly, we are doing this for fun, not profit. Although Covers.com has advertising on these pages, we will not be getting compensated anything extra for being the host. We want this to be a fun and entertaining source of information. Therefore, we are forced to include the following paragraph in order to protect our self and make it worth the hassle:

All of the information contained inside this community represents the personal thoughts and opinions of the individual members. Submissions to this community are not reflective of the thoughts and opinions of Covers.com, nor its employees. Covers.com and its employees do not endorse or represent any of the opinions within the community, and shall not be held responsible in any legal action resulting from any of the content contained within the community. Furthermore, Covers.com shall not be responsible for keeping a permanent record of the opinions within the community, and may occasionally delete or edit submissions at its discretion.