Forum Rules

Sommelier Journal forum rules are to obeyed at all times. Failing to do so may result in your account being temporarily or permanently banned from posting on the forum, as detailed in the User Agreement.

General Rules

You will adhere to the User Agreement at all times
You will not argue with, comment on or question the actions/authority of the Sommelier Journal staff (administrators, moderators, etc.) in a public forum. Should you wish to do so you are directed to contact the Sommelier Journal staff in a private message.
You will respect and refrain from harassing and/or personally attacking other users or Sommelier Journal staff.
You will respect the rights of other users to have their own opinions.
You will not use expressions that are considered foul, vulgar, sexually harassing, racially offensive or in any way discriminatory. These expressions include, but are not limited to, ethnic slurs, hate speech and religious epithets. Whether an expression fits under this definition will be determined by Sommelier Journal staff at the time.
You will not make posts that are inflammatory with the perceived intent to rile people up (i.e. "trolling" and "flaming" are prohibited).
All posts are to be in English. Other languages may be used in parts of a posting, but whole sentences are not allowed.
You will only post messages that are within the particular forum’s scope or topic.
You will use descriptive subject titles when posting new threads.
You will not use all caps, excessive punctuation (such as exclamation points), or whole sentences as subject titles when posting new threads.
You will not post a new thread if the topic you wish to post about has an already existing thread.
You will not hijack threads for your own purpose but, rather, will begin a new thread with the new subject.
You will not repost material deleted by Sommelier Journal moderators.
You will not link to images on other websites unless you have authorization to do so.
You will not flood or post on the forums redundant, empty, or nonsensical posts or advertisements as determined by Sommelier Journal staff (i.e. no "spamming").
You will not post specific information from wine education exams: no specific questions, wines included in tastings, or specific service acts required. General discussion is permissible on topics people should know, wines they should be ready for, and service they need to be able to do, but telling anyone what was on your exam is not allowed.
You will not post messages to advertise products that benefit you financially in any way.
You will not post pornographic, sexually offensive material or images of a type unsuitable for a family/office environment or post links to such material or images.
You will not start or participate in any debates or discussions that discuss the distribution/growing/cutting/manufacture of illegal drugs.
You will not make posts of illegal nature or posts that detail ways to perform acts of an illegal nature.
You will not create offensive usernames as determined by Sommelier Journal staff.
You will not exploit any bugs or loopholes in board security. This includes reregistering to evade bans.
You will not register more than one member account without prior approval of an administrator.

Signature Rules

Your signature should be composed of the default font size or smaller and should be 5 lines maximum (including lines of spaces) when viewed at 1152 x 864.
Your signature should conform to the normal Forum Rules regarding content.
Your signature should not include ascii made images.
Your signature should not include vBB code quotes.
No HTML is allowed.
Colors and links (in accordance with Forum Rules) may be used, but no HTML links are allowed.
Any signature seen as being overly long or of an offensive nature etc is liable to be removed without notice.
Inflammatory statements or quotes (as Perceived by the Sommelier Journal staff) are not permitted in signatures and will be removed.
Sommelier Journal staff have the final say over what is deemed appropriate.