Introducing and presenting the draft rules for this community. Now, to be honest, this is a revision and expansion of the rules from Reformed Elten English, but I think they can work just fine for here, and perhaps, better than the previous ones.
The plan is for you to comment on it until next Wednesday or so and then I put it to a vote.
I'm going on vacation from next Friday the 28TH until Monday so I want the commenting period to be wrapped before I leave
Anyways, take a read, and leave your comments.

The following are the basic set of rules that will govern this forum. Ultimately, while these rules will serve as the main yardstick in administering punishment, the staff will address each situation on a case-by-case basis. That doesn't mean the staff will be unfair or partial. It simply means that not every situation will be the same and will require a nuanced examination. In such cases, the administration will provide a detailed written reason for why they took the decision they did.
Ultimately, we expect common decency and courtesy. That should be the prevailing thought in your mind when frequenting this forum. Treat others with respect and dignity. In other words, treat others as you would like them to treat you.
1. Freedom of Expression:
We uphold a strong commitment to free speech. Members are encouraged to express their views openly, even if others may find them controversial or offensive. The administration will not censor opinions based on their content alone. That being said, our principle of respect and common decency applies here as well. BE respectful and lay out your ideas. The purpose of freedom of expression is to foster constructive, and interesting debate. Not to spawn chaos and discord.
2. Respect and Civility:
While frank discussion is encouraged, direct personal attacks, harassment, or deliberate provocations against other users are not allowed. Disagree with ideas, not people.
3. Legal Compliance:
Do not participate in activities that contradict the laws of the European Union. This includes, but is not limited to, sharing pirated materials, explicit threats of violence or terrorism, distributing malware, pornography, Et Al.
In the case of knowingly distributing malware, the user will be banned immediately for 6 months in the first instance. If they return and distribute malware again they will be banned for a year.
Please note, nothing in this section prohibits the discussion of material that may fall under this rule, such as academic discussions of malware.
4. Privacy and Safety:
Do not share personal information about others without consent. This includes full names, addresses, photos, audios, phone numbers, financial details or any other Personally Identifiable Information.
5. Relevance and Quality:
Posts should be relevant to the given forum's purpose. Spam, excessive self-promotion, and low-quality content may be removed at the moderators' discretion with appropriate public notice. If you must self-promote, place such posts in the appropriate area.
6. Intellectual Property:
Respect copyright laws. Give credit when using others' work and avoid unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material.
7. Rule Updates:
These rules may be modified at any time. Users are responsible for staying informed about current rules. The staff will however announce any potential updates to the rules in advance of the introduction and enforcement of them.
8. Consequences:
Violation of these rules may result in warnings, temporary suspension, or permanent banning, as determined by the moderation team. The process of which will be outlined in a later section.

Remember, these rules serve as a general guide. The moderation team reserves the right to take action on any behaviour they deem detrimental to the community, even if not explicitly covered here. Our goal is to maintain a platform that promotes open dialogue while ensuring a baseline of civility and legal compliance.

Guidelines:

While a user may not be warned for violating these guidelines in the first instance, it is best to follow them to ensure the experience is a good one for most users. Persistent breaking of these guidelines may result in more severe action though.

1. As far as possible, use the like feature to agree with a post if you don't have anything substantial to add to the conversation. If your posts only contain phrases like, I agree, post X is totally right, etc, it may be better to like and move on.
2. As far as possible, simply reference the post number you're replying to instead of quoting the entire post. Significant leeway will be applied here however, though especially if you are responding to the post immediately before your own, it is for the best if you reply with @Post X, and write your message instead of quoting it.
3. Please make your topic titles descriptive. This is to ensure people have an idea about what they're clicking on.
4. In the case of voice posts, rules 1 and 2 apply. Do not bully someone based on speech impediments, accents, using a word incorrectly, etc. Despite the name of the forum, this is a wonderfully international community. Please be understanding and patient.
5. While conversations shift and evolve, please try not to deviate too far from the original topic. Room will be provided for the discussion to evolve and shift, however, if, for example, a topic is created to discuss the artistic quality of the English Capital H, and at some point, it devolves into a feud about Astrology on planets other than Earth, posts relating to the latter topic will be moved into a new topic. If a user is determined to be deliberately derailing a topic, they may be warned.
6. Please do not make frivolous reports. These are reports with no merit or value. They waste the time of staff and bring unwanted attention to a fellow forum member.
7. Relating to post 5, please answer the question asked or keep on topic. For example, if someone asks for help with a product or service, do not tell them to switch to another product or service without actually providing assistance on their actual issue.
8. Just be kind. Try to understand other people's points of view and experiences. Do not automatically devolve to the most primal urge to attack and destroy. Listen more, ask questions and perhaps we can learn something from each other.
9. Elten's parent company, The Prowadnica foundation is based in Poland, which is a European Union State. Therefore, this community is bound by the laws of the European Union.

Moderation
A competent, just, and engaged Administrative Team is essential for a vibrant and prosperous community. This section outlines the composition and responsibilities of the team, hereafter referred to as "the Staff," "The Admin Team," or "the Team."
1. Composition:
The Staff consists of 2 Administrators and 3 Moderators. Moderators are selected from a pool of applicants and serve as long as they remain in good standing with the rest of the Staff and the community at large.
2. Administrators:
Administrators are the overall managers of the community. They are responsible for setting policy and managing the forum's direction, selecting and, if necessary, removing Moderators, and participating in day-to-day moderation at their discretion.
3. Moderators:
Moderators (3) serve as the primary day-to-day managers of the forums. Their responsibilities include issuing warnings and cautions, moving posts to appropriate areas, and administering temporary bans in extraordinary circumstances. Moderators may issue temporary bans of up to three (3) days to users who, in their judgment, have violated principles of good conduct, common decency and courtesy.
3.1 Recruitment and Appointment of Moderators:
The appointment of Moderators is at the exclusive discretion of the Administrators. While community input is considered, it is merely persuasive, not binding. The Administrators will open a thread in the designated staff announcements forum, inviting potential moderators to apply. Applicants should provide information about themselves, discuss their potential strengths and weaknesses, and mention any past administrative experience (lack of experience is not necessarily a disadvantage). Administrators will screen applicants to select the most suitable candidates.
3.2 Removal of a Moderator:
Administrators may remove a Moderator if, in their opinion, the Moderator is misusing their powers, making inappropriate administrative decisions, or causing discord within the community. Administrators may also remove a Moderator if valid and credible arguments against them are brought forth by the community.
4. Banning’s and Appeals:
A Staff member may institute a temporary ban of up to three (3) days on a user if deemed necessary. For bans exceeding three days, all 5 Staff members must vote. The punishment must be agreed upon by both Administrators and at least 2 of the 3 Moderators. The same voting formula applies for overturning punishments in case of appeals

I like this. But, I was a bit confused about this admin/mod thing. You can't have 2 admins in a group, and we don't even have 3 moderators atm.

I see a couple of changes that need to be made. First, "Please note, nothing in this section prohibits the discussion of material that may fall under this conclusion, such as academic..." Conclusion doesn't sound right in this instance. Use Something like umbrella or some similar word.

Second, "team. The process of which will be outlined in the next chapter."
For consistency chapter needs to be changed to section.

That's a typo, its supposed to read nothing in this section. I'm not sure how that became conclusion.

Hmm. Strange.

@2, its a technical term. And well we can get 3 moderators later.

I fixed the conclusion thing and I also edited rule 5 by adding the words "with appropriate notice" after at the moderator's disgression

Chapter still needs to be changed to section in part 8.

"team. The process of which will be outlined in a later chapter."

Will make this post the one where I leave edits instead of flooding the thread with update posts.
Changed chapter to section in rule 8. 14:33:55 21 Nov 2025.

Hello there,
I think this is already a great set of rules, but I’d like to make a suggestion.
It might be helpful to include approximate penalties for each rule violation, or at least describe the punishment range in more detail. That way, anyone considering breaking a rule knows roughly what to expect.
Apart from these suggestion, I’m confident that these rules will support the community in becoming an overall great and enjoyable place.

Wellp, 3 warnings and you're out. The staff determines how long the duration of the ban is. That's how it is for now, but I'm open to adding more specific durations if people want them.

I will put the rules as they are presently up for a vote tomorrow when I wake up. It's 18:29 now so we'll see at around 9:00 tomorrow or so

OK, one thing I feel should be clarified on is about the pirated materials thing, people seem to think that things like the IBMTTS for NVDA and similar addons is pirated, when actually its just the IBM Eloquence library from somewhere and packaged as an addon with support for dictionaries. Now when it comes to things like downloading movies and TV shows for free, yeah that's piracy. I think that should also be clarified in that section of the rules.

There is some technical bullshit attached to that, and I don't know the full details tere. I need to find someone more knowledgeable about that to talk to

He's actually right. The code is not illegal at all, it's just the binaries that contain the actual Eloquence, such as eci.dll.