FilmSpot Forum Terms

Acceptance of Terms

FilmSpot provides message board services to you, the visitor, based on its Terms of Service outlined here. When using the forums provided by FilmSpot, you are subject to these posted terms. Usage of the services on this site means acceptance of these terms. The TOS may be changed and without direct notice to individual visitors, so it is recommended that you check back with this page if you have questions or concerns.

Account Responsibility

Users are solely responsible for protecting their accounts from access by others. "Group" and/or shared accounts are not allowed. You are strongly encouraged to select a hard-to-guess password and not reuse that password on any other sites where it may be read by the owners or administrators of that site.

While it is acceptable for users to maintain multiple accounts on FilmSpot, FilmSpot can and does track multiple shared accounts from a single or multiple computers as one account in terms of TOS violations. If the TOS is violated severely enough to warrant banning one account, all known accounts shared between a single or multiple users who use the same computer may also be banned for the actions of the violating account at the administrators' discretion.

Because of this rule, it is recommended that board users do not share their accounts with others, nor share their computers used to access the site with others, as the actions of some other person could easily directly impact all known shared message board accounts

Content Notice

By viewing the site content, you agree that all content on the FilmSpot message boards is the responsibility of the person from which the content originated. You agree that neither FilmSpot nor its sponsors or affiliates are responsible for all content that you personally post or upload. FilmSpot does not directly control any content posted on the boards, and does not guarantee the truthfulness or quality of any content. You agree that while using the FilmSpot message boards, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable, and that you will in no way hold FilmSpot nor its sponsors or affiliates liable in any way, shape, or form for any harm or loss that may come to you or others because of viewing this content. FilmSpot is not responsible for screening content before it is posted, although an offensive language filter is installed on the system that will reject certain posts that may contain certain words considered offensive or used most often in an offensive way.

Privacy and Release of Information

Under normal circumstances, FilmSpot will never release your provided information to any third-party without a court order requiring us to do so. However, in cases of certain severe or repeated TOS violations or illegal activities, we reserve the right to send any known information about you and your accounts to your ISP (including libraries, schools, and places of employment), e-mail service provider, your ISP account owner (if someone else is paying for it), and any parties whose copyright has clearly been infringed by your actions on the boards.

Registration Requirements

To view messages on the FilmSpot message boards without user restrictions, no registration is required or necessary. To post messages on the boards, view boards with level restrictions, and use other advanced services, you must register with FilmSpot using a valid e-mail address. On registration, an activation key in the form of a URL will be mailed to the address you provided. You must visit this URL using the web browser of your choice to activate the account. No posting privileges are granted until the account is activated. FilmSpot does not require you to use your real name or other identification that can be easily traced to you, and the e-mail address you provide will be kept private. To register on FilmSpot, registrants must be 13 years or older. FilmSpot does not knowingly collect any information from any users under 13 years, and if it is found that an underage user has fraudulently registered, their account will immediately be terminated.

Terms Violations

Topics and message posts that violate the TOS will be deleted from the boards, and additional penalties may be applied at the moderator's discretion. Reposting deleted violations (yours or those of others) is also considered a violation.
Messages and topics may be removed for any reason at the sole discretion of FilmSpot and its appointed moderators. User accounts may be warned, suspended, or revoked for any reason at the sole discretion of FilmSpot and its appointed moderators. All determinations of what is "acceptable" and "unacceptable" content will be determined solely by FilmSpot and whoever it appoints as moderators. You agree the decision of the moderators and administrators is final, and you may not legally contest their rulings.

Intentional, repeated, or severe violations are cause for the banning of your account, all use of the boards from your IP address or your entire ISP, and FilmSpot contacting your ISP or other relevant parties about your activities.

Member Conduct

Advertising

Posts that clearly advertise or promote a service, product, site, or personal blog (here or otherwise) are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Unsolicited commercial or personal web site advertisements
For-Sale/For-Trade/For-Auction/Wanted notices
DVDs, VHS tapes, downloads, screen captures, and any other copyrighted material, in part or in whole, owned by someone else
"Make Money Fast" scams, chain letters, and pyramid schemes
Advertising for another message board
Solicitations and drawings for charity or profit events
Users are allowed to include a web site address in a signature (text only), request comments on their personal site in a social setting, or providing only once an interesting or relevant link to another site.

Bugs and Exploits

Using exploits or tricks in the FilmSpot code to gain privileges, access, or abilities not clearly intended by the board design are prohibited. Making exploits public or using them for personal benefit is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.

Censor Bypassing

The FilmSpot message boards are programmed with a list of words that are considered vulgar under any context, and these words are not allowed to be posted. Trying to bypass the censor by misspelling, inserting spaces or symbols, switching letters, using look-alike symbols, or any other method is not allowed. The only acceptable method of posting one of these vulgar words is to obscure it, making it impossible to determine what the word is without context. Also, certain words are restricted from being used in topic titles and user information pages; bypassing the censor to post those words where they are restricted is also disallowed. For example, if "gris" is a banned word:
Not allowed: g-r-i-s, gr*s, g***, 9|-1$, girs, gryeeeas, grizznizz, **** (rhymes with "bris")
Allowed: ****, ****ed, ****ing, g'ed, g-word

Disruptive Posting

Posts that disrupt the message boards for other users, intentional or not, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited, to: Message posts or topic titles that force browsers to scroll horizontally
Large blank or content-free posts
Posts that consist only of quotes, or quotes plus an unsubstantial reply ("Okay" - "Yeah!" - "LOL" - smile), or just an unsubstantial reply.
Excessive quoting (i.e., quoting a ten-paragraph post to respond to one sentence)
"Bumping" your older topics (posting in them well after the last post and/or primarily to keep them near the top of a forum)
Posting multiple identical or near-identical messages or topics, including "fad" topics
Intentionally hard-to-read topic titles and thread content (i.e. ALL CAPS, AlTeRnAtE cApS, no spaces, no or excessive punctuation, 1337 speak, et cetera)
Posting multiple hard-to-read or absurd messages in a single or multiple topics
Posting large ASCII art (except in social topics specifically calling for it)
Post counting (i.e. "First", "100th Post")

False Moderation Reports

Please note that Report Abuse is only to be used for genuine breaches of these Terms of Service and is not to be used as a means of settling petty disputes and squabbles between board users. Repeated reporting of posts which do not violate the terms may result in your account being suspended.

Flaming (Insulting Other Users)

Posts of a hostile or insulting nature, toward other board members and a film’s cast or crew, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, beyond the bounds of reasonable and informed criticism and debate, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Name-calling ("You're an idiot", "You moron")
Direct insults ("Screw you")
Offensive orders ("Go kill yourself")
Suggestions ("Are you stupid or something?") or insults towards family ("Your mom...")
Physical threats, even as jokes ("I'm going to hunt you down and set you on fire!")
Derogatory references to another poster's experience or lack thereof.
Excessive upper-cap posting, which is the Internet equivalent of hostile screaming.

Flooding, Invading, and Board Wars

Users will be immediately banned (with any associated accounts) for:
Flooding a board with multiple disruptive topics or posts
Posting a single identical post on multiple forums, including but not limited to petitions
Invading another board (flooding a board as a group with multiple topics or posts)
Announcing or inciting a "war" or any conflict with the regular members of another board.

Harassment/Stalking/Privacy

Continual harassing behavior directed towards a certain individual or group with the intent of creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the boards with the Personal Messaging (PM) system, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is strictly prohibited. Posting private information without permission is also prohibited.

Illegal Activities

Posts that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed. This includes (but is not limited to) discussing, asking for or providing, in any way, shape, or form:
Illegal copies of copyrighted software and related applications (ROMs, Warez)
Methods of avoiding copyright protection (Cracks, No-CD Patches, CD Keys)
Illegal copies in part or in whole of copyrighted music (MP3s), movies, videos, TV shows, images, or any other media
Reprints of material from other web sites (pay or free)

(Note: simply mentioning the word "download" is not a violation of TOS policy, given the number of legal download sites. Specific illegal download sites or methods must be mentioned for a violation to occur.)

Impersonation

Users will be immediately banned (with any associated accounts) for impersonating other boards users by creating or using a message board account with a name clearly intended to impersonate, mock, or antagonize another user, falsely claiming to be another message board member.

Offensive Posting

Posts of a patently offensive nature are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Using vulgar, profane, or sexually explicit language
Using race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, handicap, nationality, or gender as a means of insult
Using sexual preference terms as insult in any way, shape, or form
Using threatening, harassing, defamatory, hate-speech, or libellous language
Posting or requesting links to or material from pornographic, obscene, or hate-speech web sites
Posting links to web sites with potentially offensive content without a clear warning
Descriptions or details about any sexual act or sexual organs
Sexually suggestive or nearly nude images that are judged inappropriate by Moderators or Administrators
As a general guideline, this refers to images that would be censored on network television or in a daily newspaper

Off-Topic Posting

The main purpose of the FilmSpot message boards is to provide discussion forums for films. Topicality is expected and will be enforced on all boards for contemporary and old films, as well as all general and special interest boards. On these boards, topics designed to get hundreds of posts with little or no content, topics that have nothing to do with the board's category, "secret base" type threads, and other "social" topics are not allowed. Other users are not on-topic in film and person forums. The manner in which a user chooses to post, any spelling or grammatical mistakes they make, their lack of experience, etc., is not on-topic.

Other

Since we can't have a rule to cover everything, this is the rule to cover everything. These are public boards, so act like you would if you were in a public place. FilmSpot reserves the right to choose the guidelines of objectionable content based on its knowledge of users and company policy. These issues are left the individual moderators, but may include any material that is knowingly false or defamatory, misleading, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, racist, sexist, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy or that otherwise violates any law or encourages conduct constituting a criminal offence.

Plot Spoilers/Revelations

Posting "spoilers" (critical plot details) or plot revelations about a film, TV show, time-delayed broadcast event, or other media in the title of a topic or in a message without a clear notice is prohibited. To discuss such information in a topic, users should leave the title of the topic as vague as possible, ensuring that no mention of the actual spoiler itself is included, and include a warning (i.e. "SPOILER") in the topic title. In a message post in a non-marked or otherwise unexpected topic, users should leave several blank lines in a post after a warning before revealing any vital plot information.

Reviews

We've noticed a flood of reviews coming in lately for films that have not yet been screened. Either we have a growing number of users with psychic abilities or some folks out there are using the review form to speculate on what "might" happen in a film in order to gain points. Please be advised: Reviews of films that have not yet been released WILL BE DELETED. Posting these "speculation" reviews, and for that matter any other TOS violations associated with the reviews section, could wind up costing you points. So, please, if you want to write a review, watch the film first.

Signatures

Signatures may not exceed 550 pixels wide and 200 pixels tall
Text based signatures may not exceed 14 lines
Signatures of an offensive nature are not allowed
Users are allowed to include one web site address in a signature.

Trolling (Inciting Flames)

Posts intended mainly to annoy or offend other posters by going against the clear nature of a board or topic is not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Provoking other users to respond with flames
Provoking fans of a particular film or genre, especially on boards dedicated to that film or genre (i.e., "This movie suxx!!!")
Making misleading topic titles
Asking useless questions
Posting false information as fact
Threatening to report other users
Posting hostile and insulting comments about other users in blogs and non-film-related forums

Unauthorized Access

Accessing or attempting any FilmSpot user account not belonging to the user in question without permission is prohibited. Accessing another user's account in this manner is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.

Usernames, Profiles, and Forms

Violating any of rules with a username, any part of the user profile (signature, quote, e-mail, IM), or by feedback forms (such as the Mark for Moderation function) is considered a severe violation. If a Moderator or Administrator finds your Signature inappropriate and asks you to remove it, it must be removed.