GENERAL BOARD GUIDELINES

Personal attacks on other users are not allowed. Above-the-belt debate is expected and encouraged, but take the childish insults elsewhere. This is particularly true with regard to visitors from other schools. Admins will be especially watchful for verbal abuse, ridicule, ad hominem attacks, and stalking.

Flaming the board is not allowed. "Flaming" is the deliberate act of creating a post in order to incite members of the board and invoke a negative response.

Statements that are bigoted or hateful are not allowed. Additionally, linking to sites that contain bigoted or hateful material is not allowed.

Baseless criticism of LSU athletes, coaches, or administrators is not allowed. You can critique a player's or coach's performance, but general criticism will not be tolerated.

Profanity is discouraged. Depending on the context in which it is used, profanity may cause your post to be removed.

You posts cannot contain ANY adult or sexually explicit content OR links to adult or sexually explicit content.

The subject of your post should accurately describe the content of your post. Do not use deceptive subjects to attract attention to your post. 


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: How do I display images for avatars and signatures?
A: Images must already be hosted on the internet. To determine the location of an hosted image, right click on the image and select “Properties.” Copy the location address, navigate to the “User Settings” function of the “User Admin” panel, and paste the address it into the appropriate field.

Q: I have an image on my hard drive or in my email that I’d like to use for my avatar or signature. How do I do that?
A: Visit free image hosting sites such as www.imageshack.us. Follow the instructions to upload your image, then copy and paste the direct link into the appropriate field.

Q: Are there any requirements for avatar and signature images?
A: Images should be less than 30 Kbytes in size. Anything larger than that causes threads to load up slowly. Avatars should be no more than 150 pixels in height and 150 pixels in width. Signature images should be no more than 150 pixels in height and 400 pixels in width. To view an image's pixel size, right-click on the images and go to Properties. The dimensions are shown as width by height.

Q: My children have access to my computer. How do I make sure that profanity and/or inappropriate images do not appear on this site?
A: The administrators of TigerDroppings.com cannot always ensure that potentially offensive language or images won’t appear on the site. However, the “User Admin” panel contains several options that allow you to block certain content. Click on “Edit Settings” and choose to display images as links, suppress signature and/or avatar images, or filter profanity. 

Q: Can I send private messages to other users?
A: TigerDroppings.com does not have a private message function at this time. We ask that you not start threads asking other users to contact you, turn on IM applications, etc. Whenever possible, please respond to that person in an existing thread to get their attention.

Q: When I post a message, I see buttons with the labels on them? What do they do, and how do I use them?
A: These are called “markup buttons,” which help you to enhance your posts.

• The “link” button allows you to link to other pages and create display text for that link. If you do not type in display text, the default “LINK” will show up.
• The “img” button allows you to directly display images hosted anywhere on the internet. Just paste the location of an image into the field.
• The one-letter buttons allow you to add boldface, italics or underline to any text. Simply select the text you want and click a button. 
• Finally, the “quote” button lets you highlight text from another post when you’re responding. You can do this one of two ways. You may copy and paste the text into the message field, select it again, and hit the “quote” button. Or, you may select the text in the original post as it appears at the bottom of the reply screen, and hit the button. It will automatically be pasted as a quotation. 

Q: I use Netscape Navigator or Mozilla Firefox to browse the web, and I can’t get the markup buttons to work. Am I doing something wrong?
A: Neither browser supports our markup tools at this time, except for the “img” button which works in Firefox. For links, simply paste the link into the message field, and a working hyperlink with the default text “LINK” will be displayed. For bold, italics and underlined text, you can type in your own code. For instance, [b]bold[/b] makes it bold, [i]italics[/i] makes it italics, and [u]underline[/u] makes it underline. Same thing for [quote]quotation[/quote] and [img]url[/img].

Q: I’ve displayed an image that is too big and is causing the page to expand to the right. Can I prevent that?
A: You can keep any image to a manageable size by adding “ width=XXX” after the file suffix. For instance, http://tigerdroppings.com/images/layout/rantlogo2.gif width=400. Generally, widths over 500 pixels will cause the screen to shift to the right to accommodate the oversized image. 

Q: I made a mistake or a typographical error in a post. How do I fix it? 
A: Users have the ability to edit their own posts. Just to go your message, click on “Edit Post,” and make your changes. Your new post will display a line of text that the post was edited. 

Q: I want to make sure that my avatar and signature images are showing up. Can I make a test post? 
A: Yes, but please do so on the Help Board. You do not need to make multiple posts to determine if your images are displaying. Every time you change your user settings, all of your posts reflect the change. Returning to your original post will show if you’ve got it right. 

Q: Is there anything I can do if I see a user posting inappropriately? 
A: Yes. Please click on the “Request Admin” button to alert the site’s administrators that the post requires attention. You will be able to select the reason for your request. As always, you may email the administrators directly at tigerdroppings@gmail.com.

Q: I want to call attention something I read recently. Is it OK to do that?
A: It depends. The posting of unauthorized copyrighted material, including such items as scans of copyrighted material or posts of subscription-based web articles, is not allowed. For non-subscription based articles (like those you can find on ESPN.com or 2theAdvocate.com), you may provide a teaser paragraph or two with a link to the complete article.

Q: I made a post, but it’s not showing up (or it’s been marked as unreadable). What did I do wrong? 
A: We’re glad you asked. See the following section, “Posting Perils,” for more information.


POSTING PERILS

The TigerDroppings.com administrators reserve the right to delete, edit, or move any post. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of reasons why a post may be deleted, edited or moved. 

• Your post(s) will be whacked if you:
o “Call someone out.”
o Threaten anyone. 
o Stalk another poster, i.e., repeatedly reply to their posts for the purpose of ridiculing, mocking, insulting or flaming. 
o Post pictures or link to web sites showing nude men or women, male or female genitalia, or female nipples. This includes images in which such features can be seen through clothing. For women, "nude" means without top and/or bottom. Administrators may block any other images deemed inapprorpriate and suspend from posting anyone that violates this rule.
o Post unsubstantiated information about LSU players, coaches, administrators or officials. Rumors will not be tolerated. News must at least be reported by a mainstream media outlet to support its posting. Other LSU message boards do not count as mainstream media.
o Post links to commercial web sites or without obtaining prior approval from board management. 
o Post copyrighted material from other web sites. 
o Flame other boards and brag about it here, or whine about what users on other boards are saying about LSU. If you have a problem with another board, take it up with that board's management.
o Create outlandish posts with no other purpose but to flame.

• Your post(s) may be whacked if you:
o Start a new thread for every thought that pops into your head.
o Start a new thread in response to an existing thread.
o Use an excessive amount of emoticons (i.e., smileys) in a post.

• Your post(s) may be moved if you:
o Ask for help anywhere but the Help Board.
o Complain about admin action anywhere but the Help Board.
o Post on the wrong board. We have several boards, each with a specific purpose. Your topic must be relevant to the board on which you are posting: 

    Help Board – bring an issue to the admins’ attention or ask for technical assistance.
    The Tiger Rant – discuss LSU and related topics, e.g., SEC football, recruiting, athletics administration, etc.
    Political Talk – debate anything associated with politics. 
    O-T Lounge – as the motto says, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” This is where most non-sports related posts end up. 
    General Sports – talk about prep football, video gaming, the NFL and any other sports subject not related to LSU. 
    Ticket Exchange – buy and sell of tickets to any event.

Report violations of these rules to the administrators by clicking on the button Request Admin button at the bottom of each message. 

Statements or postings which violate the above terms may be deleted upon discovery. The administrators without notice may delete individual messages or whole threads, move them to the appropriate forum, lock threads, or anchor threads (to keep them from popping to the top of the page). All such actions are within the sole discretion of the administrators. Users who violate these rules may or may not receive a warning. Depending on the severity and frequent occurrences of violations, the user may lose his account temporarily or permanently. Account suspensions are at the sole discretion of the owners of TigerDroppings.com. Further, the owners reserve the right to suspend or terminate a user's account for violation of these rules without notice to the user. 


USER AGREEMENT

Any user posting on the TigerDroppings.com message boards is implicitly agreeing to these rules, regardless of whether they have been read or not. 

What the TigerDroppings.com admins say is what goes. The idea is to operate a message board system that LSU fans can use and enjoy and that fans of opposing schools can use to respectfully communicate with LSU fans. The forums of TigerDroppings.com exist for the use and enjoyment of LSU fans as well as those from other schools. The site is free and registration is open to anyone. However, the future of this site depends on the cooperation, participation and support of its members. The administrators likewise rely on the members to advise them of violations of the forum rules. 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding these rules, please email us at tigerdroppings@gmail.com.