A forum about responsible pet ownership

Board Rules:

Talk Pets! is place to exchange information and ideas, post pictures, chit-chat, and most importantly have fun!

Please abide by these rules so it can be an enjoyable experience for everyone.

1.  Agreement: By using these boards you agree to abide by these rules.

2.  Privacy:  We require an email address for board registration.  This allows us to reset your password if you forget, or contact you if needed.  We respect your privacy, and your email and/or other personal information will not be disclosed or sold to a third party.  Your email address is NOT displayed in your user profile, unless you specifically select to display it.  Certain personal information at registration (location, birthday, occupation, interests, AIM name, homepage...etc...) is optional to enter, however if you choose to enter, it will be visible in your user profile.

3.  No Offensive Content:  Do not use profanity, racial, ethnic, religious, or other slurs, or post pornography or any other offensive material.   

4.  No Commercial Posts or "SPAM":   Posting of advertisements for products or services, links to auctions, affiliate links, links to promote websites, and so forth is not allowed.  Links to commercial sites in signatures are not allowed.

There are additional rules about the content of your signature - please read here.

5.  No "Cyber-begging":  Do not come here with your sob stories about a sick pet or relative who needs money.  Any post that asks for direct donations to an individual will be deleted and the poster will be banned.  If there is truly a pet in need you are allowed to post a link IF it is from a bona-fide rescue or shelter organization or charity that accepts tax-deductible contributions. 

6.  Respect for Other Members:   Remember there is a person on the other end of that keyboard.  Feel free to discuss opinions, but keep it to the issues.  No name-calling or personal insults.  

• If you would not feel comfortable saying something to a member personally, it's probably inappropriate to send in a message. This rule of thumb can avoid flames.
  
• We have members from different countries, religions, backgrounds. It's very easy to forget that on the internet. Even if you express a point of view that is very popular in your culture, it may generate a negative reaction from members in another part of the world so please exercise tact.  
  
• Some pet topics can be controversial - be civil. Talk Pets! is an excellent place to be educated on pet issues, but some of them are controversial. By all means participate, but don't undermine your cause with personal attacks.
  
• Please try to keep it fun and friendly!

7.  No "Pets for Sale" Posts:   Do not advertise "Pets for sale".  Posting pets from a bona fide rescue organization or shelter is allowed.

8.  Limits on Dog or Cat Breeding Discussion:   Talk Pets! does not endorse the breeding of dogs or cats.  Some leeway will be given if the dog is shown and titled by a reputable organization (e.g. AKC).  If your dog does not have a ch title then don't discuss breeding.  Please read the "where to get a dog" article to understand our position.

9.  No Reliance:  Making decisions based on information posted is at your own risk.  We cannot monitor all posts in real-time, do not verify the accuracy or validity of posts, or in any way endorse the opinions expressed by individual posters.  

10.  Veterinary/Health Questions:  The internet, and Talk Pets! specifically, is not a substitute for veterinary care.  The NO RELIANCE rule applies here.  IF YOUR PET IS SERIOUSLY ILL/INJURED PLEASE GET THEM TO THE VET IMMEDIATELY.  No "Help my pet is sick and I have no money to take him to the vet!" posts.  This violates the spirit of responsible pet ownership and these posts will be deleted as the majority of time they come from trollers.  

11.   No Disclosure of Personal Information:  Do not disclose any other member's email, real name, address, phone number, IP address, or other personal information.

12.  No Multiple Postings:  Find the board you want your post in and post it.  Posting the same message in multiple forums is not allowed.

13. No Nonsense, Gibberish, Public Message Requests, or Trolling:  Worthless posts with no content and nonsensical posts eat up space and waste everyone's time.  These are not allowed.  

• Posting of inflammatory messages with the sole purpose of generating a response ("trolling") is not allowed.  Please do NOT reply to such messages, they only encourage the offender to post more.  Rather, click on "Report this post to a moderator" and they will be dealt with.  
  
• Please do not post public requests for anyone to send you email, IM you, or chat with you.  This is a place to exchange information, not a wide-open chatroom.

14. No All CAPS Messages and No Internet Chat Abbreviations/Slang/Funny Mixed-Case Screen Names:  This is a place to intelligently talk about pets.  ROFL is OK, but no "hey can u c thiz? L8r!".  All caps is considered yelling, use mixed-case. No Aim-like mixed case screen names. If you want your screen name to be "Susan Jones", that's fine.  "suSaN joNes" is not. 

15. No Multiple Accounts/Screen Names:  No posting under more than one account to create the deception that you are two or more different people.  This is a zero tolerance policy and anybody who does this will have all accounts banned.

16. Violations:  Violations of these rules may be subject to one or more of the following - warnings, edited or deleted posts, timeouts, or bannings.

OK - Now that we're thru that - HAVE FUN!

Enter the Message Boards

Talk Pets!