Forum Policies and Helpful rules...please read

[Lilratscal]

Please Note: Messages express the opinions of the members only. They do not, necessarily, reflect the views of our Canadian Pet Rat Club or any other individual or entity associated with our Forum.


Our forum is aimed at general audiences. Members are expected to conduct themselves accordingly. However, due to the nature of discussion boards, it is not possible for administrators/moderators to review every message posted or to verify the accuracy of information submitted by members. As a result, we do not accept responsibility for the content, accuracy, usefulness or completeness of any message.


Members who feel a post contains objectionable material are encouraged to contact the Forum Administrator or a moderator by e-mail at rats@lilratscal.com or through a private message. An administrator or moderator will review the material as soon as possible. If it is deemed to be inappropriate, the material will be edited or removed.


Information provided on this forum is intended to be helpful but does not compare to veterinary advice and care. We are not vets. We strongly recommend that you consult your veterinarian to determine the proper care of your pet.

To enhance the enjoyment of all members of our forum, we ask you to respect the following policies:

Forum Rules

Our forum is aimed at general audiences. Posting pornographic or generally offensive text, images, links, etc. will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning. A User who disregards this rule may be temporarily or permanently banned from the forum and that user's ISP may be notified.

1 You alone are responsible for the content and consequences of each of your messages.

2 You agree that you shall not upload, post or transmit anything that will restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying our Forum.

3 You will not post or link to anything that could be considered unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, offensive, pornographic, profane, sexually explicit or indecent.

4 Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated and will lead to a warning or automatic temporary ban. Continued disregard for this rule will lead to a user being temporarily or permanently banned from the forum.

5 Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Members re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and their post will be removed.

6 Posts should only be made in the relevant forum. If you are unsure which forum your post belongs in, please post once in what you consider to be the most appropriate forum. A moderator will move your post if it is required. Do not post the same message more than once or in multiple forums. This may happen if the forum is slow sometimes.

7 Members are not permitted to post spam. This includes commercial advertisements for services and/or products which have not been cleared for posting by an administrator or moderator of our forum.

8 Members wishing to buy or sell pet-related material (cages, aquariums, etc.) may post in the Marketplace forum only. Posts containing commercial advertising will be removed.

9 Administrators and moderators reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to the administrator/moderator and not users. Please try and be respectful of other people's feelings.

10 Our above forum rules, where applicable, also apply to private messaging. Abuse of the private messaging system may lead to warnings (as above) and/or the revocation of private messaging.

11 Children under 13 years of age must have the permission of their parent or guardian to join our Lil Ratscals Canadian Pet Rat Club. The parent or guardian must agree to the terms of membership. In addition, they must submit an e-mail to rats@lilratscal.com on their child's behalf requesting membership in the forum for their child. Please state the child's chosen user name for the forum when submitting the e-mail.

12 Signatures and Avatars: Users may choose an avatar from the on-line gallery (accessible through each user's profile) or they may upload an avatar from their computer.

13 Avatars must be no larger than 120 pixels x 120 pixels and 9000 bytes. Avatars with objectionable content will be deleted by an administrator and the user will receive a warning.

14[ Signatures must be no longer than 3 to 5 lines. They may contain small, unobtrusive graphics (in keeping with the terms of our Forum Policies) that do not contain animation. In addition, signatures may not contain links or services that violate the Forum Rules (i.e. web sites with adult or illegal content, etc.) Please only have links to your own sites and not other people's sites under your signature. Offenders who post these will have them deleted by an administrator.

Uploading Photos to our Forum: Each member is allotted 25MB to upload and store their photos on the forum. You will find a control panel in your profile that will allow you to manage your photos.

15 Photos must be no larger than 256KB.

16 Currently, only files with the following extensions can be uploaded:

gif, jpeg, jpg and tif.[/list]

Passwords: It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not lose your password. We are not able to retrieve lost passwords as they are encrypted in our database. If necessary, we can reset your account and you will need to enter a new password.

At no time will an administrator or moderator of this forum ask you for your password. Keep your password private and do not share it with others![/list]

E-Mail: When absolutely necessary, a forum administrator may e-mail members of our forum. These messages are sent automatically to the e-mail address for each member on file. We consider these e-mails a courtesy to our users and they will only contain status updates for our forum or important forum information. At no time will these messages request personal information (i.e. passwords, phone numbers, etc.).

Under each user's profile, is an option to "Always show my e-mail address". When this option is set to "yes", other forum members can e-mail you using the e-mail link in your profile. Your e-mail address is not revealed. This has been done to ensure each member's privacy and to cut down on spam. A user who wishes to share his/her e-mail address with another member, may do so in a private message.

Any user receiving spam, abusive or unwanted e-mails from another member using the forum e-mail system, should immediately report the offending member to rats@lilratscal.com.

Locked User names: Attempting to log in 3 or more times to the forum using a valid user name and invalid password will cause that user account to be blocked from accessing the forum for 20 minutes. This system will help protect user accounts from hacking.

After such an event, an e-mail will automatically be sent to the address on file for that user indicating when they may next log in.[*]If you receive this message when attempting to log in: "Sorry! Too many attempts have been made to access this account with an invalid password. As a result, this account has been locked temporarily. Please try again later.", it means that you (or someone posing as you) attempted to log in unsuccessfully 3 times in a row. Your account will be released 20 minutes after it was locked.

If you receive the above message and you have not had any unsuccessful log in attempts, please let us know at rats@lilratscal.com. This could be a sign that someone has been trying to use your account without your permission.

Policing: As per the posted Forum Rules, certain serious offenses will lead to an offending user being banned temporarily or permanently at the discretion of the admins. For less serious offenses, this forum has a policy to discuss or warn users when ever possible for any offenses.

Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned user name, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account to evade an email ban.[

Breeders and sellers of rodent merchandise, and rats or mice. Please do not use these forums merely to advertise your litters and items for sale.

The 'Marketplace' section may be used by forum members to advertise pet-related items they have decided to sell. No other forum section may be used for this purpose. We do not allow commercial advertising.

Rescue and Adoption Section

This section is for rescue and adoptions only!
We intend for this section to be used to help place abused or special needs animals.

Rat Tails and Mug Shots

We encourage members to post photos of their rats and mice in this section, however, as with the 'Rescue and Adoption' section, this area is not to be used for selling rats or mice. Please use your personal website for selling animals - not our forum.

Please, DO NOT register more than one user name for use on our forum.

If you have forgotten the password for your account, please request a new password or contact rats@lilratscal.com and we will be happy to assist you.

Should you wish to change your user name, please contact us (at the e-mail address above) and we will make the necessary changes to your existing account.

Thank you for your understanding and co-operation! Enjoy and have fun in our relaxed forum. Grab a cup of coffee and meet new friends.

Forum Admin.
LilRatscal