LHBA Forum Rules

Effective date: August, 2020

Log home forums guidelines, rules, Terms of Usage and Conditions of Service

Use of the forums on our website indicates your understanding of, and agreement with, the following policies. We reserve the right to update these policies from time to time without any notice to you. Any and all changes shall be retroactive and it is your responsibility to keep up to date on these policies.

Failure to follow these guidelines will cause your posts to be edited by moderators and may result in the suspension of your account.

1. You certify that you are 13 years of age or over. All those individuals under 13 years of age will need a full release form from their parents before posting any messages. This is in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 2000 (COPPA).
2. Nicknames that we feel are inflammatory, vulgar, promotional, or rude will be removed.
3. All groups are moderated for foul language and commercialized promotional posts.
4. Always be respectful of other users, the system, and the moderators. We put the system online in good faith, please use it in good faith.
5. Because your posting may be more pertinent to another ongoing discussion, or it might spawn its own thread, it may be moved as we see fit.
6. Before posting in a forum, please read the rules for that forum. It should be the topmost posting in each forum.
7. Links to adult content, pages with links to adult content, near adult content (including model and swimsuit sites), or messages describing anything against the law will be removed as soon as possible. Any discussion of those are off topic.
8. No press releases, newsletters, web pages, or copyrighted content may be inserted into Log Home Builders Association forums. Minor fair use excerpts of less than one paragraph (4 sentences) may be used if the content is publicly available on the internet. All other forms of inserted content from press releases, newsletters, web pages, or any other copyrighted content placed into messages will be removed without exception. A link to the content is acceptable and appropriate.
9. Periodically a forum moderator will post his or her comments, but they may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Log Home Builders Association of North America, or its employees.
10. This forum system is not a venue for personal or private vendettas. Keep your personal business as just that – personal. This forum is not a venue for the resolution of personal disputes with members or companies. If you have a problem with a specific person or business in the log home industry you should work with that party to resolve the issue. We will not tolerate flames or rants against any specific person or business here.
11. Please don’t drop promotional urls, signature files, nor specifics that would lead people to your site. Signing your name is fine, however commercialized posts or resume signatures will be edited. We tend to err on the side of caution to protect the integrity of the system.
12. Affiliate based URLs are not allowed anywhere on the system.
13. Please keep your language clean and decent. This include personal inflammatory language as well as obscenities.
14. Any on site private discussions (private messages and/or e-mail) with moderators or administrators related to board policy or actions may be shared with administrators if we feel it is necessary.
15. Please stay within the topic area of the forum you are posting a message in, and within any topic that another poster may have started.
16. You agree not to hold the Log Home Builders Association of North America or its members liable for anything stated within the forums.
17. Signing up a user name that is a obvious domain name or product name will be removed. This is out of unfair promotion considerations as well as trademark implications.
18. Please treat others the way you wish to be treated. One way to guard against misunderstandings is to read over your response before you post it. Flaming: flaming or personal attacks are not allowed or tolerated. Should anyone use inappropriate language, start a personal attack, or engage in hate speech, they will be barred from all further discussions.
19. The forums are not a venue for advertisements or solicitations in any way. It will be the sole discretion of the Log Home Builders Association of North America and its moderators as to what constitutes an advertisement/solicitation.
20. You are responsible for your own posts and agree not to hold the Log Home Builders Association of North America (www.buildloghomes.org) liable for any messages posted.
21. You will not copy and retransmit any information out of these forums without first getting the permission of the original author of the message and a Log Home Builders Association of North America administrator.
22. Discussions about moderator or administrator actions are welcome in email or local private messages, but should not be discussed in public forums. This is out of respect for the members and moderators or policy involved.
23. Self promotional URL drops and “subtle” advertising campaigns are strictly forbidden within the forums and will be edited out.
24. Claims of action, flames, and calls to action against any company or person will be removed.
25. Messages posted at this site are the sole opinion and responsibility of the poster.
26. Personal exposure. Anyone posting another members personal details or web site details without permission will be banned.
27. When a message is placed in any forum system, you are granting a license to the site to use it.
28. The following activities are privileges of lifetime members of the Log Home Builders Association of North America and should take place in the member’s only area of the forum: arranging to trade labor, volunteering labor, soliciting for help/advice on an existing project, and requests to meet in person or to view student built homes.  This includes sending e-mail or private messages to our members.  All such solicitations by non-members will be deleted and violations will result in the removal of your account.
29. Sending commercial solicitations to users of this forum through e-mail, private messages, or any other means is not permitted. If you use these forums, you agree not to send any commercial messages to users of these forums. You agree to pay $5,000 USD per violation of this rule.
30. Do not post the same message, or substantially the same message, in more than one area of the forum. Each forum topic should be placed in the forum area that is most suited to the topic. Posting substantially similar topics in multiple forum areas will result in the system administrators deleting extra posts. Violations may result in the suspension of your forum privileges.
31. Do not “hot link” graphics, pictures or icons from other websites unless the source website Terms of Service EXPLICITLY allows hotlinking, and the hotlink is generated from a private user account that YOU control (for instance, Photobucket allows this type of linking under certain circumstances). If you own and operate your own website, you may hotlink items from your website so long as you are the only person with permission to change the hotlinked graphics.
32. Posting topics that cause problems (or that have caused problems in the past) such as politics, MLMs, etc., is prohibited. Such posts will be deleted, archived or edited at the discretion of our moderators without notice. Repeat violations may lead to suspension of your account.
33. If you are a lifetime member of the Association your forum participation is contingent upon following our Terms of Service.
34. Forum posts that use excessive punctuation will be edited, deleted, moved or otherwise rendered less offensive to the eyeballs.

For our part we will do our best to protect your privacy and respect your posts. We will not edit or otherwise misrepresent what you write without cause. We reserve the right to edit or delete any and all content that has been placed on the Log Home Builders Association forums.