Zombie Squad Forum Rules: Read Me!

[Gunny]

General Rules

This forum is a community, and all communities have rules to keep them running smoothly. With that in mind we’ve compiled this small list of rules.

1.) No discussion of illegal activities as a viable option.
We do not condone murder or theft or explosives so we do not appreciate them being promoted on our boards. Other illicit activities are also verboten, but these are the ones most often brought up.
2.) Proofread before posting.
If it’s important enough for you to post it, you probably want us to understand it. This means using proper spelling, good grammar, punctuation, and capitals if it helps with clarity. Typos happen, but full paragraphs of misspelled words with no punctuation are difficult to read and won’t be taken seriously (if anyone bothers to read them).
3.) No trolling or flaming.
This is obvious, but still needs to be said. We encourage discussion and disagreement; we encourage calling someone on their bullshit. We don’t encourage assholes. Please be constructive with your criticism if at all possible.
4.) Stay topical.
This just keeps everything easier to read. Yes, things do veer from the first post on a regular basis, but if you think you’ve wandered too far aground feel free to start a new topic. It’s fun and easy to do. Also, make sure your new topic goes in the appropriate forum. Lastly, make sure your thread title explains what your thread discussion contains.
5.) No spamming.
Please don't repeatedly mention any site, forum, or product that you have an interest in. One post in the appropriate forum is acceptable; four in various ones is not. We like to know about your cool new site, we just don't want to be bludgeoned with it.
6.) No hate.
ZS does not support or tolerate any form of xenophobic philosophy, including but not limited to racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, or one based on someone's culture/personal beliefs.
7.) No debating of politics or religion.
To help discourage any of the above rules from being broken, we make a point to avoid these types of debates. It makes it a lot easier for us to all get along and helps us stay focused on our root topics--survival and zombies. There are lots of other great forums out there dedicated to debating politics and religion if you wish to do so.
8.) No pornography.
Anything that could be tagged as Not Safe For Work shouldn't be posted. This includes pictures you've taken of your girlfriend, avatars, or anything you just want to put up here. Blatant crotch shots, semi- or full-nudes, and anything overtly sexual would fall into this category. There are other, better places for you to go to get your rocks off.

If there are any disagreements, those with the rank of "ZS Board" or "ZS Forum Moderator" have final say in the matter. We’re not trying to be elitist; we’re just trying to keep the forums clean, easy to read, and friendly. Thanks for helping us by following these rules. If you have any questions, please feel free to PM any of us.

[Gunny]

What is the Oaf Patrol or Leave the Weemen Alone Damnit by Kyle

This doesn't happen in here too much because most of the ZS members tend to be mature, but I did get a complaint recently so I feel it might be a good idea to bring it up again...

Guys, please stop making sexual innuendos towards the women on this board. Pretend like this is the real world or something.

You may find that there aren't a lot of women posting in here. That doesn't mean there aren't any. I know quite a few who check in here but usually don't post because they find it annoying to deal with the looney internet "oaf patrol." I'm sure most of these oafs wouldn't be hitting on women in person without their internet security blanket. It's kinda funny, yet annoying.

If anyone harasses anyone else on this forum and a mod gets a complaint, we'll probably ban you. We don't want new members getting run off because you can't control your hormones.

I'm sorry you can't get a date in the real world but making stupid comments in an effort to gain favor or get attention from women will only accomplish making them uncomfortable.

Hell, how do you even know they are women? You'll probably hitting on someone's grandfather.

[Gunny]

ZS Copyright/Trademark Protection by Michelle, Kyle and Noncyr

We love the enthusiasm you guys have about this community and we're not trying to be jerks about this but we legally have to defend our intellectual property as a company. If we don't and a precedent is made that we don't care then we legally lose our rights to the property.

So, in short, if you don't get express permission then you are in fact breaking the law. Unlicensed use of the ZS name/logo or artwork is an infringement on the Zombie Squad trademark and copyrights.

Thanks for your understanding, everyone.

With that said, we have the connections to buy stuff in bulk and probably get cheaper rates than you would get on your own. If you have suggestions for products please feel free to let us know and we'll try to get it if there is a big enough interest.

[Gunny]

Religious Tolerance by Michelle

As you've noted when you read the rules, intolerance of any sort is unnacceptable (well, unless you're counting intolerance of the undead--in which case it's encouraged). This does include religious intolerance. Whether you hate Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, or whatever, we don't want to see any hint of that here. People of all religions are members here and should feel just as accepted as you and I do.

Acceptable Comment--"My mom's a fundamentalist Christian, and I got tired of her shoving the Bible in my face every time I turned around, looking down on my every decision. I have a hard time with organized religion nowadays."

Unacceptable Comment--"My whole community is Christian except me. Fuckers. They're all a bunch of dipshits that believe the world was created 5,000 years ago. What the fuck! I mean, haven't they ever heard of Darwin?!?!?!!!111"

Acceptable Comment--"I'm not sure I could keep kosher. I mean, cheeseburgers rock, dude!"

Unacceptable Comment--"Sometimes I buy those cheesy brats and give them to my Jewish neighbours' kids. They love it and have no idea they're breaking their laws. It tastes so good, how could it be wrong?"

All of the above comments express dissent with religion, but two of them are pretty respectful and decent while the other two are disrespectful and meanspirited. If you have some genuine need to mention religion, please be sure you do so with respect and decency. There's no need to bash someone's deeply held personal beliefs. If you have a hankering for that sort of behaviour, I'm sure there are plenty of other forums out there for you.

All in all, we'd like you to avoid religious discussion (the no hate speech and the no religious debate rules point you in that direction, no?), but we do understand that there are times when religion becomes a legitimate topic here. And in those cases, we ask that you remain pleasant and polite. Since most of you do that anyhoo, it shouldn't be much of a problem. And we appreciate it a great deal. Thanks!

[Gunny]

Grammar Guidelines by Gunny

We at ZS aren't your highschool English teacher. We understand a few typos in your posts, and even expect a few from us mere motals. That being said, when we read posts like the one below, our eyes bleed.

Ideally, this section of the forum rules will serve to educate fellow ZS'ers about the tedious form of communication we refer to as the English language.

Here's the example:

i work the shit out o my camelbak more like abuse never had any trouble at all been using them for 15 yrs top notch stuff all others is something less hydrate or die

Hi, welcome to ZS. Additionally, welcome to your Keyboard!!

Using your keyboard can be complicated at times, especially when you're trying to string together several of those pesky letters into the English language. In order to help people read your posts, it's often necessary to include punctuation.

Q:What is punctuation?

A: I'm glad you asked. Punctuation is an operator that typically ends a sentence. Puncuation also helps people determine where one sentence ends and the other begins.

Q: What does this "Punctuation" look like?

A: Another excellent question. Punctuation often consists of operators such as periods, commas, exclamation points and even the occasional question mark. They look like this: . , ! ?

Q: Okay, lastly, how do I capitalize with this keyboard?

A: Easily done. Remember, capitalization is important to let your fellow ZS'ers know when you're starting a new sentence. In order to capitalize your sentences, simply follow these simple steps:

1. Turn on your computer and log onto www.zombiehunters.org.

2. Look down at your keyboard. You'll see a series of confusing numbers/letters and even some strange buttons labeled space and enter. While the spacebar and enter key are important, they're better saved for another lesson.

3. Find the shift key. This key can be located on both sides of the keyboard for ease of typing. On the right side of your keyboard, you can find the shift key below the aforementioned enter key. On the left-hand side, the shift key can typically be located below your capslock key and above the control key.

4. In order to shift, simply hold down either shift key, then type the letter you wish to make bigger. After this has been accomplished, simply release the shift key.

5. Congrats!!! Now you're shifting like a salty pro.

This has been a production of Zombie Squad's Tactical Grammar Division (ZSTGD for insiders)

[Gunny]

What Do We Mean When We Say Zombies? by Kyle

I think a clarification needs to be made about what the "zombie" metaphor means to ZS in this community so this mistake isn't made.

It is VERY important that everyone realizes that when we discuss the walking dead we are not talking about other groups of living people. Zombie is a metaphor for disaster. If you have to think of zombie as an analogy then treat it as a hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, etc.

We are not using the word zombie as a way to cover up any discussions of murdering other people. If this is what you are doing you need to find another place to hang out.

We are a disaster preparation community not some form of crazy internet militia.

Discussions like this is why we had a fear of having a firearm section of the forum in the first place. This is a good reason why we need to hide the firearms forum and make it only viewable to registered users who are logged in.

A firearm is a very useful tool for survival so it is obviously a valid topic for this community but sometimes I fear that it becomes too much of the focus here.

[Gunny]

Proper Thread Titles by Ghostface

Hello, and welcome to another ZS public service announcement! For those of you new to the forums:

The ZS forums are all about the free exchange of information regarding the survival of anything- up to and including the zombie apocalypse (zombocalypse for short). Here’s the deal- we’re all about letting everyone express their points of view- in fact we encourage it. However, some topics tend to crop up over and over again.

Like:

The M16 vs. the AK
Swords vs. guns
Hand-to-hand on zombies
Medieval weapons and armor
Explosives, fire, etc.


All of these things have pretty much been done to death, and a consensus has more or less been reached on all of them. For the people who have been around for a little while, it becomes kind of tedious to watch these debates spring up over and over again. For those of you who have joined us more or less recently, consider this- aside from those who created this site, all of us have had to play catch up. What does that mean? It means when we have a question or idea and we want to talk about it, first we go through old threads and try to find the answer or appropriate conversation there.

Why? I’m glad you asked.

1. What you want to say may have already been said.
2. A point within that thread might give you an even better idea.
3. It shows that you are as interested in learning as you are in "hearing the sound of your own posts".
4. Everyone else had to do it, why shouldn’t you?

Please, take your time and explore. There might things that we have since forgotten about that you may have some insight on. You don’t have to be in a hurry to post. No one gets a prize for most posts in a day/week/month/whatever (plus, you’re never gonna outpost kyle or jamoni, so don’t try ). Is your post important to you? If so, it can wait long enough to see if it has been brought up before. If not, then please don’t bother everyone else with it.

Think of this as a gigantic class discussion. Have you ever been in class and someone came in late and then brought up something everyone else had discussed 20 minutes earlier? What if that happened every day of class?

There is room for repetition and there is certainly room for humor. However, this place is first and foremost a community resource.

Contribute to the community, contribute to the resource.

Thanks!

[Gunny]

Please Post with Integrity by Kyle

This forum is getting quite popular so it will probably be a good idea to assume anyone will read this. With this in mind, please be careful what you post...

Don't post bullshit. People in here are skeptics and enjoy showing off so they will call you on it. This happens all the time. Go read the Thread Graveyard. There are professionals in here from all lines of work. If you claim you can fly a plane, tattoo, perform a segmentectomy or build a firearm from a block of wood then you better be able to because someone who can will more than likely try to talk to you about it then you have to deal with the embarrassment of being called out on your lie.

Don't post shit you don't want someone to see. Talking shit about someone like a co-worker, school mate, another website or someone else you know really isn't the best idea. There is a good chance they will stumble in here. If you post something that might get you in trouble be prepared for the consequences.

Bottom line: Be honest and if you can't stand by what you post then don't post it. There's no reason to try to artificially impress us. We're a nice group of guys and girls in here and we'll like you anyway as long as you're not a tool.

[Gunny]

Here's a pictoral look at our rules, for those who don't feel like reading much.





Posted with permission from CommonHighrise, author/artist of ZS's new webcomic found HERE.

[Jamie]

The following came out in the course of discussions in the forum recently, and is a good explanation of why ZS has the rules that it does:

ZS is where rabid republicans can sit down and talk trigger tuning jobs on AR variants with devout democrats; where successful businessmen, doctors and lawyers can sit down and talk about backpacks and hydration pouches with struggling students and minimum wagers; where short back and sides sunday go to meeting types can sit down and talk vegetable gardening with punk rocking tattooed pagans; where paranoid skywatchers can sit down and talk food & water storage preps with your highly skeptical grandmother and it's because of the things we don't talk about when we sit down to talk that this is so.

Jamie

[shrapnel]

Some thoughts on words we don't take kindly to round these here parts:

"Shee-ple" is one of the words we don't use here. It equates people to animals, which by definition is dehumanizing. When we start thinking of people like animals, it's easier to treat them like animals.
---
We do not compare people to livestock. It might feel good to think we're all high and mighty because we're into prepping, but that doesn't mean those who aren't are sub-human. In fact, taking that approach is pretty much counter to what ZS is about: being inclusive and getting people interested in prepping who maybe haven't thought about it before.

There are plenty of places on the internet where that sort of thing is accepted or even encouraged. This is not one of them.
---
ZS is about preparedness and education. Referring to persons as livestock is frankly rude, not to mention potentially alienating the very people that we are here to help. Dehumanizing anyone is not something that we encourage or approve of.


tl;dr- Don't call people sheep or shee-ple or livestock or cattle or any other such thing. It isn't cool, and while you won't be warned or given probation for it (unless it's an ongoing problem), you will be lectured about it ad nauseum by everyone, and that is tiresome and boring.

[Doctor Jest]

No videos of actual real people committing suicide, or being murdered, or being raped, or having their hands chopped off, or being disemboweled, or being executed, etc. Use some discretion, and ask a mod before you post if you have any doubts.

[whisk.e.rebellion]

We've been experimenting with a new level of punishment. Probation doesn't always work, so as a final step to correct some users' behavior, "Time-out" has been implemented.

"What is Time-out?" you may be asking yourself, well, it's pretty much a partial ban from the forums. A user in Time-out can still login and read the forums, but is prohibited from posting anywhere other than Zombie Biology and Zombie Combat Tactics.

Users get a custom rank badge:


And a spiffy new avatar:


So far, I've put two people in Time-out (one was just today). The other person ended up banned on the same day. This is not something you want to flirt with.

[whisk.e.rebellion]

A note about plagiarism: Don't do it.

Not only does it violate our "post with integrity" guidelines, it's theft of someone else's intellectual property.

[whisk.e.rebellion]

Personal Information

It's been an unwritten rule that users aren't allowed to post other users' personal information without permission. It's also been a standing rule amongst the mods -- like, actually written in the mods forum -- that mods are to edit posts that contain another users' personal information if the user doesn't want that information posted.

There's been some hubbub about personal information recently, so I'm putting the rule in writing: Do not post another user's personal information without permission. This includes, but is not limited to: real name, address, phone number, FCC License data/call-sign, e-mail address, compromising pictures found on Photobucket or Facebook.

Now, if you slip up in a post and call someone you know by first name, no big deal. If the person minds, kindly edit your post. Don't freak out if one of the mods does edit your post.

[the_alias]

Updating our No hate rule:

6.) No hate.

ZS is a not for profit entity dedicated to helping all interested people and communities prepare for disasters. Accordingly statements disparaging people, religions, communities, cultures and countries as well as any statements that are, in the opinion of the ZS moderators, contrary to that stated mission are not permitted on the forum.

ZS does not support or permit any form of xenophobic philosophy and/or overtly hateful statements which disparage people, cultures, communities and countries. This prohibition against such hateful and/or xenophobic statements include but are not limited to statements against: ZS forum members, racism, sexism, ageism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and/or one based on someone's occupation, origins, culture/personal beliefs.

To be clear this extends to bashing countries, LEOs, military personnel and other ZS forum members.

[the_alias]

On promoting your external blog and website
The internet is a crowded place and many members have their own website or blog. This has led to an increase in people posting a thread that simply links users to an external website.
ZS is not a content aggregation website. It is a discussion forum

No linking to external material on blogs/websites unless that material is actually in the forum post.
Users should not have to visit another website to engage in discussion.

Examples
Not allowed:

Hey guys I reviewed this cool knife check it out http://www.knifereviews.com

Allowed:

Hey guys I reviewed this knife and the full review is here in the original post.[Full review with pictures and vid etc] I originally posted this to my blog http://www.knifereviews.com

Thanks for your understanding.