Here are the MOST OFTEN VIOLATED rules: 1. No Politics outside of the Bilge . . . only exception is non-partisan posts when dealing with legislation about boating, inlcuding fishing or trailering etc.
2. No Insults outside of the Bilge . . . no exceptions . . . don't try to get funny with innuendos or different spelling. Insults outside the Bilge are not tolerated - period.
3. No Religion outside of the Bilge . . . many threads start out innocently but they almost always end up with insults and people being disrespectful of other people's religions and personal beliefs
4. No Explicit Sexual Topics or photos outside of Bilge or Sand Bar . . . all of the other forums are to be treated as 'family content only'
5. No inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic posts with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting or deflecting on-topic discussion... outside of Bilge or Sand Bar . Note: This is referred to (ironically) as "Trolling" in Internet slang.
Threads that break these rules may either be deleted
or the offending posts deleted
or the threads may be sent to the Bilge. Likewise, those who violate these rules may be deleted without warning.
Here's the long version of the rules:
Membership and posting on THT is predicated on your adherence to the rules and policies detailed below. Failure to abide by these rules will result in the closure of your forum account and an end to your Membership on the site.
Considering the real-time nature of this forum, it is impossible for us to review messages or confirm the validity of information posted. Please remember that we do not actively monitor the contents of and are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views or information from the author of the message, not necessarily the views of THT or any entity associated with THT. Any information contained in this forum is delivered "as-is" without any form of warranty expressed or implied. Any use of the information contained within is solely at your own risk.
Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to use the alert system to notify a moderator. Please use the "Report This Post" feature, the triangular icon in the corner of the post. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so if we determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, so please realize that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.
Although THT does not and cannot review the messages posted and is not responsible for the content of any of these messages, we at THT reserve the right to delete any message for any or no reason whatsoever. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless THT, and their agents with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s). We at THT reserve the right to revoke your membership to THT or disable your posting ability for any or no reason whatsoever.
YOUR MEMBERSHIP TO THT IS ALSO PREDICATED ON YOUR ADHERENCE TO THESE RULES. If you violate any of these rules your account may be suspended and you may be permanently banned from membership at our discretion:
There shall be no:
- Posting of personal attacks against another member, moderator or administrator in any THT forum.
- Posting of insults in any forum other than the Bilge.
- Attacking family members in any way, shape or form.
- No trolling - Which we define as the posting of inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic posts with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting or deflecting on-topic discussion.
- No Explicit Sexual Topics or photos outside of Bilge or Sand Bar. All of the other forums are to be treated as 'family content only'
- No Politics outside of the Bilge. The only exception is non-partisan posts when dealing with news or legislation.
- No Religion or religious topics outside of the Bilge.
- Spam or promotion of your personal site for advertising purposes.
- Posting of any form of advertising including: URL's with affiliate codes, referrer tags or anything which actively promotes a site or company. Paid advertisers are obviously excluded from this rule.
- Using the addresses of any member on the forum for any other purpose than one on one personal communication. Any mailing in bulk to the forum Members (outside of official THT communication) or any unsolicited e-mail to members will result in immediate suspension of your membership.
- Posting of personal messages, in whole or in part, which have been received by you. That includes posting them on other sites without the expressed permission of the sender. We consider Private Messages to be private.
- Attempting to get around the forum profanity rules by modifying the spelling of prohibited words.
- Creating an account for the purpose of representing yourself as another person, company or entity.
- Registering more than one account. If you share a connection, please contact a moderator/administrator before signing up another account or BOTH will be terminated. NOTE: If you sign up a new account during a suspension you will be banned and not allowed to sign up for an account again.
- Use of a false, invalid or "one-time" e-mail address.
- Promoting links to an eBay auction or other auction site (this is considered advertising).
- Posting Information on how to defraud any company or promotion of any kind of illegal or unethical activity.
- Anything aimed at defrauding or taking advantage of another company, exploiting flaws or weaknesses in their systems or sites.
- Posting personal information (full name, street address, etc of another member or non-member without their consent).
- Anything that could interfere with the viewing of the forum by other members - including any Java or Java script, MARQUEE or other page altering tags.
- Signatures which violate THT guidelines. As a courtesy to fellow users utilizing low screen resolutions and/or slow Internet connection speeds, keep you signatures and signature pictures within the guidelines.
- Posting complete nonsense, gibberish or using the forum to play posting games.
- Attempting "forum domination". This includes creating new threads in a forum when a large number of yours are still on the first page of that forum.
- Continued posting in a manner that antagonizes other members such as trolling, making posts difficult to read or comprehend, repetitively posting the same thing, or posting in a style that lowers the overall quality of the forum. This determination will be made on a case-by-case basis by the moderators and administrators and is at their sole discretion.
- Moderators reserve the right to remove any posts, signatures, or avatars that violate forum rules, that may antagonize other members, or for any other reason they deem appropriate.
- Taking moderation in your own hands. If you see something posted that you think needs moderating attention please use the "Report This Post" feature, the icon in the corner of all posts but your own, to bring it to a moderator's attention.
- Attacking or harassing any moderator or administrator on the forum, by PM or via email.
- Ignoring or arguing with warning posts a moderator or administrator makes in a thread. If you think the warning is unjust please PM them to discuss it.
- No posting of pictures outside SandBar that a member could reasonably be called on to explain if overseen in the office by a co-worker or boss or in the home by a spouse. We're not assuming that the member works in the Vatican nor, on the other extreme, are we assuming the member is married to a porn star.
Each forum area of THT may have additional rules that need to be followed for that specific area. These will be found in a sticky thread at the top of that forum.
We realize that there will be disagreements between members of THT. However, we have a zero tolerance policy for personal attacks outside the Bilge and a very limited tolerance within the Bilge. Attacking family members is prohibited anywhere on THT. Posting something on THT which personally attacks another forum member is done at your own risk. Posts which contain any type of racial or ethnic slur may result in immediate suspension of your user account
If you post advertising or promotions for your company or a company you work for or pose as a consumer discussing your product you may be charged for advertising on THT and hereby agree to pay in full and advertising fee for your posts up to $5,000.
THT forum guidelines and rules - please read before posting 
