Forum Guidelines

PortlandHikers.org is a closely moderated forum.  Our moderators take time to read every message posted.  Our goals when moderating are two-fold 1) To make sure PortlandHikers remains a welcoming and family-friendly site. and 2) To redirect miscategorized posts into the proper forums.

Please observe the following guidelines when posting to our forums:

1) No foul language or lewd images.

2) No personal attacks or "flames". 

3) No "sock puppets". A sock puppet is when a user creates a second or third log-in for the purpose of posting anonymously. 

4) ALL CAPS is considered shouting.  Everyone use their indoor voice!

5) Stay reasonably on topic and try to avoid "hijacking" threads. Hijacking a thread is when you change the subject when responding to a previous poster's comments.

6) While some bragging is expected, and even encouraged, avoid making this a competitive sport.  We want  people of all abilities to feel at-home to share their experiences, regardless of difficulty level.

7) No posts for commercial related products and services, except for these two exceptions:

    -- Free (or close-to-free) hiking outings or related events sponsored by commercial interests.  These should only be posted in the "Hiking Club Events and Announcements" Forum,

   -- Gear sale, events, coupons or announcements may be posted by individuals in the "Gear Talk" forum. 

  (Forum moderators will take care that these exceptions are not misused.)

Please help keep our forums clean! We are proud to boast that our forums are among the most welcoming and friendly on the internet.  Please help us keep it that way!  We appreciate those times when it is a conscious effort on your part.  Our forum moderators have been instructed to keep an eye out for red flags.  We err on the side of intervening when conversations start to get heated up.  We try to stop 'flame wars' before they start. 

We will not hesitate to send warnings or delete content that is out-of-line with these guidelines. If a thread causes us to intervene more than a few times the whole thread may quietly disappear.  We reserve the right to edit or remove any content when it becomes necessary.

================

Notes on political talk:

We are aware that the outdoor-talk can engender political conversation.  However political editorials and polarizing commentary often digresses into more editorials and more polarizing commentary.  When such posts provoke a flame war, the original message and all replies will be hastily removed from the site.  We thank you ahead of time for "biting your tongue" sometimes.

Hot button topics:

There are subjects, such as off-road vehicles, guns or hunting that always get the conversation heated up awful quick.  We aren't going to solve the world's problems here.  There are plenty of other websites to have these arguments.  So as soon as the the conversation starts going south we will either lock the thread or delete it completely.  Everyone involved will be asked to take a walk around the block to cool off. 

===============

On a more friendly note!

We welcome and encourage you to tell us about about your hikes and show off your photos!!  Each week, we select photos and trip reports to feature on our home page.  When doing so we look for variety, quality and completeness.  Let us know in your trip report if you'd rather not see it spotlighted.

We have a forum thread called "Photo of the Day" for people to highlight photos they're proud of.  Please don't hesitate to do so.

With that - happy hiking!  See you on the trails!

Thanks,

The Moderators

(updated May 20, 2008)