Welcome & Forum Rules

[Adam]

Welcome to PentaxForums.com!

We are a forum-based site dedicated purely to Pentax-photography discussion! Our site sections include the User Photo Gallery, the Lens Review Database, Social Groups, the Marketplace, and the Pentax Forum. We feature Pentax news on our homepage, and more site details can be found below.

Our site mission is to provide you with an ideal forum for discussing Pentax and posting your photos. We are an ad-free, user-supported community. If you would like to contribute to the site, please consider donating.

Since our launch in September, 2006, we have grown into the largest standalone Pentax forum in English.

-The user photo gallery, which is linked to your forum account, allows you to upload up for 50 1.5-megabyte photos (This limit is increased to 200 if you donate).
-Within the forum itself, you can attach up to 5 photos directly to each your posts for a total of 4Mb (This can be also be increased if you donate).
-You can also link photos from image-hosting sites (such as PBase, etc.) into your forum posts.
-Our unique Lens Review Database is complete with a listing of all Pentax lenses ever produced. This section allows users to post their own reviews of Pentax lenses, and it's complete with lens photos and specifications.

Please enjoy this site! If you have any questions or need help, please post in the Suggestions, Errors and Help forum.

Please also take a moment to reading the forum rules below, and feel free to contact us if you have any comments or concerns. Note that the PentaxForums.com Forum is known as “the Forum” throughout these rules.

You may also be interested in reading the PentaxForums.com Usage Guide before you post.

-Adam
Site Administrator

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PentaxForums.com Forum Rules:

I. Registration
Anyone who can read and write in English may register a single account on the Forum. He or she must provide a valid date of birth and e-mail address to confirm age at 13 or above and to automatically activate the account. Users may only use the forum after agreement to the registration terms, forum rules, and any additional rules stated by moderators or administrators.

II. Posting
There is no limit on the number of posts made by each user, but topics must always be created in the correct corresponding forum category. Flooding, spamming, and advertising are not tolerated. Although users may occasionally post links to useful resources and personal galleries, any other sites may not be promoted. All posts are also to be written in a mature fashion with proper spelling and grammar. There is a 30-second throttle on all posts made, for security reasons.

Users may edit or delete their own posts at any time, but please be aware that double-posting or thread bumping is not allowed.

If a user spots any instance of forum abuse, spam, or illegal activity, he or she is asked to contact a moderator or administrator at earliest convenience, and/or use the thread-reporting system.

We ask that all users use BBCode styling reasonably; large text sizes, greatly varied fonts, and strange coloring are not allowed. Please note that any HTML code posted on the forum will not be parsed and is therefore not allowed.

These rules also apply to user photo gallery and links directory comments.

III. Private Messaging
All forum users are allowed to use the private messaging system (PM system) to privately converse with other members. Although there is no restriction on the total number of private messages sent and received by a user, each inbox is limited to a certain number of stored messages. Each user may delete or re-organize his or her private messages to free up space as he or she sees fit. Forum content rules apply to the content of PMs; you may not advertise via the PM system or use it for illegal activity. PMs in violation of this policy may be reported directly to a forum administrator using the private-message-reporting system.

The PM system can be disabled on an individual basis through the User CP. Administrators reserve the right to periodically prune old messages.

IV. Signatures & Avatars
All users have the privilege to display a signature, a profile picture, and an avatar, given that each does not contain copyrighted images and is not offensive, inappropriate, or vulgar.

Avatars have a height and width limit of 80 pixels; avatars consisting of copyrighted images will be removed. Profile pictures, which may measure up to 100x100 pixels, are also allowed, but they cannot be animated.

Signatures should be short and no longer that 5 lines total; they may contain up to 3 images and 500 characters. Long signatures are automatically rejected by the system, and forum Administrators and Moderators reserve the right to truncate user signatures as they see fit. Signature display permissions may be temporarily or permanently suspended upon abuse, which includes excessive linking. Site Supporters have increased signature size allowances.

V. User Privileges
Users may log in, read posts, create posts, modify their profiles, create polls, report posts, and add events to the calendar at any time. Users may also request a single account name change at any time.

Each user may upload up to 50 photos (limited to 1Mb each) to the user photo gallery and attach up to 4096Kb (4Mb) of files to his or her posts. Users are also free to post Pentax lens reviews or suggest links to our Links Database at any time. Site Supporters, or members that have donated to PentaxForums.com, have increased usage quotas and may upload up to 30Mb of attachments and 200 photos.

Administrator and Moderator requests and decisions regarding forum activity, posts, and files must be treated as final and obeyed at all times.

VI. Moderation
In an attempt to keep the Forum as friendly as possible, the Forum staff will delete, close, or edit any threads that violate the Forum Rules. Additionally, users, including "trolls," that act disrespectfully in their posts or otherwise cause trouble will be banned or warned as needed.

Should illegal action be noted, a user and his or her IP address may be reported to the authorities. Certain misconduct, including spamming, can lead to extended, immediate, or permanent bans.

VII. Forum Marketplace
Pentaxforums.com offers a marketplace section in which site supporters and long-time members are free to sell or trade their photography equipment to other members of the community, or to post threads looking for items. In order to keep item listings organized, members are asked to close their threads using the automatic thread-closure system whenever an item listing is sold, traded, cancelled, or no longer being looked for. Although linking to online auction sites is allowed, users may only promote their own auctions and such links may only be posted after an item has been listed for at least one week in the Marketplace. When posting marketplace threads, users can select thread prefixes to make their threads easier to search.

An asking price, or price range, is required for all items. False promotional information within item listings is not tolerated and will be removed upon discovery by the forum staff. Furthermore, we will remove listings and contact the respective seller if we note any suspicious material or activity. Commercial products or services cannot be advertised in the Marketplace; the section is for personal use only.

Public commenting on the price of any item is not allowed. Although the site staff will remove listings with suspicious pricing, we ask that members do not publicly intervene unless a scam is suspected and that all communication regarding pricing (and purchasing) is conducted via PM. Within each marketplace thread, users may ask questions about the item offered for sale, notify the seller of a PM or status change, or discuss technical details as well as shipping.

Upon a successful transaction, we ask that members exchange public feedback via our feedback system. Please remember that purchases of items listed in the Marketplace are made at your own risk and are in no way processed by PentaxForums.com. The site moderators, administrators, and owners are not responsible for any loss resulting from use of the Marketplace.

Abuse of this section to deliberately harm other members may result in legal action and/or a ban from the site.

Additional policies, rules, and guidelines are outlined in the official Marketplace rules thread.

VIII. Liability
The owners of the Forum take no responsibility for the misconduct of any user or guest. We are not liable for the content of any post, thread, or photo, although we will try to eliminate any objectionable material on sight. Furthermore, we are not liable for any data loss or other damage caused by the site or routine forum maintenance, including downtime.

All uploaded photos and files are copyright of their original authors; the Forum does not take ownership of any material uploaded or posted on the site. Each user is personally responsible for the content he or she posts on the Forum. By posting content on the site, each user acknowleges that it may be altered, removed, or stored at any time.

PentaxForums.com is an unofficial site that is in no way affiliated with the Pentax Corporation.

IX. Privacy
Private information (such as IP address) collected during the use of the Forum is never given away to the public or to a third party. Note that we cannot guarantee the privacy of anything that a user places in his or her public profile, threads, or posts.

When one donates to our site via PayPal, we do not obtain any personal information except the transaction ID and PayPal e-mail address. Neither of these credentials will be publicly disclosed; we only use them only to contact you if needed.

When one browses our site, information about his or her computer is temporarily logged for statistical purposes only. This information includes IP address, location, browser type, screen resolution, operating system, pages visited, and referring sites. This data, stored of the 500 most recent site visitors, is used for statistical purposes only and is immediately discarded.

Upon registration, posting, and browsing, we permanently record user IP addresses for security reasons. These will never be disclosed to third-parties or the public, and they will only be used to identify users who abuse the Forum. If we spot illegal activity on the Forum, we may report IP addresses to the authorities.

We do not recommend the disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII) in your public profile or on the internet in general, and we are not responsible for any consequences that may arise thereof. Profile privacy may be configured in the User CP.