Rock Tumbling Hobby Forum Usage Rules and Guidelines

Welcome to the Rock Tumbling Hobby Forum

We are an international, family-friendly PG-13 forum community, dedicated to learning and growing in the shared interests of various lapidary hobbies. All are welcome to come and participate in this community, as we strive to create a fun, friendly and inviting atmosphere. Please follow these rules and guidelines and try to keep your posting civil and polite, and treat people with respect even if you do not agree with their opinions, decisions, or personal beliefs. Keep in mind that many other folks are reading what you post while trying to decide if they want to register or post. If rudeness is occurring on a forum the likelyhood that someone will wish to register or post diminishes greatly. To this end, member squabbles should be left at the door and not brought to light in the open forum. If a member feels a situation has become intolerable or violates these rules and guidelines, please privately bring it to the attention of staff.

General Posting Rules and Guidelines

• New threads should be posted in the most appropriate category for your topic. If you're not sure please ask.
• Before starting a new thread, use the search features to see if your topic has been addressed.
• Posts which are volatile in nature (politics, religion, etc.) are not allowed on the general forum or Shoutbox chat.
• Posts about the forum or requests for technical assistance should be posted in the Forum Technical Help and Testing area.
• Offensive language or photos (including creative spelling to bypass the automatic word censor) are not allowed.
• Member posts that are found to purposely berate, insult, or belittle other members are subject to disiplinary action.
• Staff may lock, move, or delete any thread at any time for any reason.
• Do not create a new thread for the purpose of discussing a locked thread or other staff activity.
• When a spam post is encountered, please use the "report post" tool to notify staff.
• Posting of images that can cause distress such as 'flashers' and 'screamers' are not allowed
• Do not post images (including avatar and signature) hosted by another site unless allowable by the host site.
• Posts that discuss illegal activities, transactions, or websites are not allowed.
• Do not abuse the private message system to spam members or to direct them to another website.
• Automated account creation, participation, and content scraping is not permitted.
• Any other activity that violates the Proboards Terms of Service, thus putting the entire forum at risk, is prohibited.

Selling on the RTH Forum

Registered members in good standing with 100+ community quality posts are welcome to wear a link to their personal sales page in their signature, populate social media fields in their profiles, and or offer items for sale or trade in the RTH Marketplace. Please read the pinned article General guidelines and policies for the RTH Marketplace before beginning to sell or trade on this forum.

Please do not attempt to artificially increase your post count with mass creation of short or meaningless posts. Any post on the forum, Shoutbox chat message, or unsolicitated private message judged to be a deliberate attempt to circumvent the rules, can potentially result in loss of selling priviledge, deleted posts, manually lowered post counts, or permanent ban from the forum, with or without warning.

Reporting a Post

If you encounter a post that you believe is in violation of our guidelines, or was obviously made by a spammer/robot, please use the "Report Post" tool to notify staff. To access the "Report Post" tool, click on the gear icon in the top-right corner of the post and then choose the “Report Post” option. Please include a short, valid reason for the report even if you think it is obvious. Staff will review the report and take appropriate action. Repeatedly making reports without proper justification or any other abuse of the system may result in a warning.

Member Ranks and Stars

Member ranks and stars that are displayed in the member's profile are intended only as a fun way to recognize the community participation of our members. Member ranks change incrementally based on post count, or custom ranks can be assigned solely at the discretion of the staff.

Safeguards and Recommended Cautions

• No member of this board will ever be forced or coerced publicly or privately to reveal any personal information such as picture of self, real name, phone number, address, Paypal address, etc. We highly recommend against sharing of said personal information with any other member. Sharing of any personal information with other members or staff is 100% voluntary and done at your own risk.



• Email addresses - the email address you used to create your membership is visible to staff may be used occasionally for communication or notification purposes. Staff will never use your email malisciously or to spam you to buy products or services. We highly recommend that you protect your email address and never post it in a forum post because public forums are continually subjected to visits by email harvesters - scripts with the purpose of collecting email addresses to compile lists which are then sold to spammers.



• External Hyperlinks - Links to information on sites other than those directly affiliate with this forum are done occasionally by staff and or members and are intended for information or entertainment only. We recommend that you exercise extreme caution before clicking on any links you encounter in any forum posts. Staff here is not able to verify the accuracy or reliability of any link posted on this forum for content or safety and therefore clicking on any link that leaves this forum is done solely at the user's risk.