**** Code of conduct and new announcement ****

[welwynnick]

The various High Definition Players forums are becoming increasingly busy with lots of people wanting to discuss the next generation players. The novelty and bredth of the subject traditionally attracts the more progressive members of the AV community, and the forums get difficult to manage. Opinions become very polarised in many cases, and this causes problems.

AVForums are successful for many reasons, and the line between freedom of expression and protection has probably been drawn in the right place. That line is being crossed too many times, though, so it's time to restate the rules of the forums, which are found on the Forum Information pull-down (a pop-up) and to remind people that administrator Stuart Wright's guidance on behaviour, which is that you should tread other people as if you were talking with them in person.

Please follow both the letter and the spirit of the forums, otherwise transgressors will be penalised without further warning. Most people read and contribute to a range of forums, so it should clear what is expected.

Please take four things away with you:

1. Do treat people with the same respect you would talking face-to-face.

2. Please please check all recent threads to see if someone has already started one with the same subject (it's quite likely!).

3. These forums are only for players - please discuss films and discs on the Source Material forums.

4. Don't hesitate to click the "Report Post" button to alert the moderators where necessary

Thanks for co-operation and especially participation,

Welwynnick and Richard Plumb

Members of these forums must not

1. Post libellous, insulting, antagonistic, racist, aggressive or otherwise abusive remarks about any individual or company either within forum posts or the PM (Private Message) system. (More details on this issue are found below). We reserve the right to read the relevant PM or PMs where we receive a complaint that a forum user has received a PM or PMs breaking this rule.
   
2. Post swear words in such a way as to circumvent the forums' built-in swear word removal system (including in signatures)
   
3. Post any images or text which are pornographic or violent or otherwise inappropriate for the viewing by younger and older people alike
   
4. Promote websites which contain inappropriate material (such as pornography) or which are in competition with the AV Forums. (More details on our policy towards piracy are found below). Using the AV Forums via posts or PMs or in your profile to invite people to competing forums or websites is a bannable offense and we reserve the right to check PMs should we believe this is happening.
   
5. Post promotional information about any illegal activities (including bulk piracy of VCDs & DVDs). We will not permit people to use the forums to distribute files which are pirated or aid in the production of pirated material.
6. Post any spam. People posting spam will be instantly and permanently banned and their posts will be deleted.
   
7. Solicit business unless they are allowed in specific forums, and then the posts must conform to forum rules. An example of this is saying 'We sell...'. Soliciting business undermines paid advertising which keeps these forums running. Retailers, manufacturers and distributors are invited (even encouraged) to post information about products on the forums provided it is factual, is generally for the benefit of forum members and doesn't break this rule.
   
8. Create their new threads in more than one forum. (Doing so is called cross-posting). You should pick the single most appropriate forum for your message. Duplicate posts will be deleted.
   
9. Use images from 3rd parties' websites without their permission. Linking to an image on someone else's website without their permission is considered to be bandwidth theft. This is not a copyright issue but a bandwidth issue. We have had big problems with people linking to our images without permission and we don't allow members to do the same to other people.
   
10. Include retailer or manufacturer/distributor information in their signature. We encourage representatives of AV retailers, manufacturers and distributors to declare who they work for in their user profile. This enables readers of their posts to judge the contents accordingly. Such people should contact admin and asked to be put in the retailer/manufacturer user group so that other forum readers can identify them as being in the industry. However, we prefer people not to include their employer's information in their signature as this constitutes advertising. The only exception to this rule is if the member's business advertises with the AV Forums in which case they can include their business details (with hyperlink) in their signature.
    
11. Have an inappropriate login name. We do not permit a login name which breaks any of the rules above or includes a business name. The only exception to this rule is if the member's business advertises with the AV Forums in which case they can include their business name in their login name.
    
12. Register more than once. Doing so will get one or both registrations and all the posts deleted.
    
13. Question the judgments or actions of forum moderators. They are far too busy to enter into discussions or arguments.

[Kopite4Ever]

Ive came into this section a few times to have a browse of what looks to be an interesting thread then that either gets closed or goes totally off topic sadly.

Worse thing is it seems to be the same lot of culprits over and over again it becomes very tedious to read into what decends into basically a school ground arguement.

Hopefully this post will just remind people of why we are here, we are all like minded (for the most part), in reality we all just want the best PQ & AQ available (i hope anyways if not i think a rethink is needed) & wether you think thats on BD or HD-DVD is your choice but present your opinion in a less arguementative manor and i think this whole section could be a nicer place to visit. Lets not turn into AVS forum please

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by Kopite4Ever

Ive came into this section a few times to have a browse of what looks to be an interesting thread then that either gets closed or goes totally off topic sadly.

Totally agree. Threads being trolled, then locked and then restarted under a different title - it's all getting pretty pointless. It's been interesting to see the forum from it's initial 'High Definition' origin to what it is now: an extension of the PlayStation and Xbox forums.

Lets not turn into AVS forum please

AVS isn't too bad - yes it has forum trolls on both sides - but at least the sections are completely seperate. Personally I'm inclined to spend more time in that forum these days.

[rooster-x]

AVForums is a much nicer place than AVSForums, they are really nasty to people on there. Some poor guy got flamed the other day because he was from Portugal!!!

Rooster-X

Shouldn't the original post be made into a sticky?

[Pincho Paxton]

I'm fed up of people using the term Blurry.

Mod comment: Agreed, but to stop people saying it would be seen as favouritism.

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by Pincho Paxton

I'm fed up of people using the term Blurry.

I'm fed up with a select few saying, with cast iron certainty, that "HD DVD is dead". It clearly isn't. But it's just something that has to be put up with

[mmace]

Am glad the childish behaviour by the fanboys of both camps is being stamped out, just about all threads end up being unreadable due to the childish few who insist one format is better than the other with nothing to back up their claims.

[Ian J]

May I just add that most websites and forums (including ourselves) will include statements on their websites that all material on it is copyright and not to be reproduced elsewhere without permission.

It seems to be a common practice here to copy & paste chunks of text from other forums for discussion and this practice could land AV Forums in trouble which is why we delete threads that start off with copied text.

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by Ian J

May I just add that most websites and forums (including ourselves) will include statements on their websites that all material on it is copyright and not to be reproduced elsewhere without permission.

It seems to be a common practice here to copy & paste chunks of text from other forums for discussion and this practice could land AV Forums in trouble which is why we delete threads that start off with copied text.

Apologies - - I will just post the link next time

[zz101]

Originally Posted by Pincho Paxton

I'm fed up of people using the term Blurry.

Mod comment: Agreed, but to stop people saying it would be seen as favouritism.

Re. the mod comment...

One of my posts was edited earlier to remove the term 'VD-DVD' which I created in response to the idiots that refuse to stop using the irritating term 'blurry'.

So is 'blurry' now banned as well or are you showing favouritism????

[Nic Rhodes]

I think most of us think anyone using either 'term' is pretty poor tbh, doesn't matter what format it is.

[pythagoras]

At last a sensible thread in here. I only came here about 12 months ago, I was looking for information on getting into HD tv. I found a wealth of information and really enjoyed my time here, plus got some great kit as a result .

Next step high definition discs, again great info and I bought kit I'm really happy with.

But then all at once the hi def forum descended into petty rivalry, no tech details no sensible debates just utter drivel, to be quite frank. I feel all posters in this section have a responsibility for this situation(including me). Lets get back to what this forum is good at, blurry/ vd-dvd says more about the person using those terms than the format. No need to ban them, peer pressure is far more potent

I think we all want the best format to win, so lets get back to discussing the technical merits not bogus statistics, or oneupmanship.

Regards

John.

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by zz101

Re. the mod comment...

One of my posts was edited earlier to remove the term 'VD-DVD' which I created in response to the idiots that refuse to stop using the irritating term 'blurry'.

So is 'blurry' now banned as well or are you showing favouritism????

I have never banned or deleted the expressions "Blurry" and "VD-DVD".

But they do make very efficient search strings.......

Nick

[Duncan Harvey]

Have never heard of VD-DVD must be said - afraid it says more about the person who is using it than anything else.

Do hate blurry though - such a lazy attempt at humour, akin to $ony, micro$oft etc...

Hardly favouritism to want to stamp it out either I would have thought.