Forum Rules of Conduct

LakeStateFishing.com has grown tremendously over the years and we thank all of you for being a part of this growing community. We constantly strive to make our discussion forums as fun and lively as possible, while keeping an environment that is also professional and respectful of the fact that fishing enthusiasts are made up of all ages, religions, and ethnicity. In order to keep the forums running well and to prevent problems, please follow these simple rules for the forums here. If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact one of the Staff Members.

The following are an evolving series of rules for conduct in the forums. Those who choose to break these rules may be warned, have their account temporarily suspended, or be removed from this Website at the discretion of the Staff. Serious violations such as threats of violence or advocating illegal or criminal acts may result in legal action.

General Rules

  • While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, profanity (or attempts to bypass profanity filters), insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts. You have the right to disagree, but please do it in a respectful manner. Our decision is final in these matters.
  • LSF policy is to keep general discussion topics separated from area/electronics/species/classifieds specific threads. By keeping these very specific threads separate from general discussions, it ensures your thread is easily accessible in its specific area, rather than buried in a general discussion forum.
  • No notification will be sent if your thread is moved.
  • If you cannot find the thread you posted in an incorrect forum, you can use the "Your Account" tab on the left side of the page, and "View Account" to see a listing of your posts.
  • Please refrain from posting meaningless threads, one word (or short) non-sense posts, repeated posts in multiple forums, or the such.
  • Multiple or repeated posting in order to increase your post count, or gain of site "clicks" is not allowed.
  • Advertising, spamming and trolling is not allowed. This includes using the forum, blog comments, picture comments and private message systems to spam other members.
  • Please wait a reasonable amount of time before bumping posts. Your thread is not necessarily more important than the next.
  • We also do not allow posts, links to sites, signature titles, subject lines, etc. which include derogatory comments of a racial, religious, or sexual nature or violate LSF community standards. The LSF Staff Team shall be the sole arbitrator of what does and what does not violate community standards.
  • Discussions of illegal activities are not allowed.
  • Each member is allowed one login account. Registering with multiple accounts is not allowed. We are able to match IP addresses of offenders easily.
  • While we are one of the few to allow constructive conversations about non sponsor products, we will not tolerate blatant adverts. Also, we would appreciate it if you refrain from blatant bashing of other competing sites. Bad publicity is still publicity.
  • We reserve the right to remove offensive posts without notice.
  • Posts arguing about forum policies are not allowed. You can contact us with any concerns.
  • Posts discussing moderator actions are also not allowed.
  • We are under no obligation to delete user accounts. Your involvement on this site is at your own discretion.
  • Also while these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.
  • We also reserve the right to ban anyone who willfully violates the forum rules, as access to our forums are a privilege and not a right.

Signature Guidelines

  • Linking in signatures is not allowed without permission.
  • Promotional text or images for a commercial product or service are also prohibited without permission.
  • There is a character limit in place to prevent abuse of the signature feature.

Avatars

  • Animated avatars are not allowed. Sorry.
  • Avatars that may be confused with official staff avatars are not allowed.
  • Use of avatars for advertising, or displaying trademarked logos is prohibited without permission.

Advertising Services and Solicitation

  • It is prohibited to post threads or to send private messages or emails to users here that advertise or solicit any products, services, funds or donations. Explicit advertising and soliciting in signatures is also prohibited. If you are a business owner looking for exposure, please contact [email protected] to discuss advertising opportunities.
  • We have supported many non-profit causes over the years and will continue to do so, on a case by case basis. Please contact [email protected]

Moderation

Although the administrators and Staff Team of LakeStateFishing.com will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owner of LakeStateFishing.com, nor the Staff Team will be held responsible for the content of any message.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violate any laws.

The Staff Team of LakeStateFishing.com reserves the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason, period!

Addendum

We reserve the right to update and modify these rules as the needs of the community dictate to ensure the smooth operation of this community.