Posting Rules

No ad hominem attacks or contentious off-topic comments.

We want everyone's experience on AudioRoundTable.com to be a good experience. The idea is to make this a nice place to discuss audio, video and related topics and not a place where personal attacks are seen in every other post. We encourage debate, but the discussion must remain on-topic and cannot be allowed to descend into an escalating exchange of insults. Ad hominem attacks will be deleted, no matter what the reason.

Don't make your arguments too personal, instead, focus on the content of the post rather than the personality of the author. Posts containing overt or covert personal attacks will be deleted. Do not attempt to circumvent this rule by attacking everything about a person - their sound system, their car, their job, their dog, etc. - when the intent is to discredit the person written about.

We don't mind occasional off-topic content, but if you start in on a long discussion about a controversial topic not related to audio, expect to find your posts deleted. Discussions about political matters and the state of the world may be very important, but there are other places for that.

No defamatory or false statements.

Defamatory statements are those that harm the reputation of another using untrue, exaggerated or equivocal information. You may state your opinions and you can describe your own observations, but you cannot make false statements that discredit a person, company or product. As an example, you can say that you prefer "Product A" to "Product B" and you can say that you think "Product A" has more extended highs, if in fact, it does. But you cannot say that "Product B" doesn't meet its published specifications unless you back the statement up with unambiguous proof.

You are encouraged to show your own measurements or calculations, but please be careful to reduce ambiguity, because another may come along with other measurements that contradict yours. This is not uncommon, and it does not necessarily mean that one or the other sets of measurements were falsified, although this may be the case.

You are not allowed to provide false specifications or statements that aren't reliable and factually accurate, either to support or discredit a product, process or person. Posts containing false, exaggerated, equivocal or ambiguous data used to defame another will be deleted.

Tests are not usually considered to be unambiguous unless they are repeatable and substantiated by third-party agreement. We don't require this level of control for evidence proposed here in casual conversation on these forums, but we do want you to understand that test data does not necessarily rise to the level of "proof."

Without unbiased third-party evidence, it may be best to qualify your comments, even when backed up by personal measurement, with some restraint and humility of opinion.

If an argument becomes heated, we will consider test data to be opinion unless it is unambiguous, repeatable and substantiated by third-party agreement. We may consider unsubstantiated tests or the discussions of such tests to be controversial and argumentative, and posts containing them may be deleted.

You may not accuse a person or company of being dishonest, committing fraud, etc. If you feel that someone is defaming another on one of these forums, please let us know and we will look into it. But if you simply want to warn others about a person that you think is a charlatan, please refrain from doing so here. Allow others to form their own opinions based on the content of discussions, and not on the personalities involved.

As a general rule, avoid repeating vague and unsubstantiated rumors about someone or some company. Stick to your experiences and your opinions, based on what you know rather than on what others said or wrote.

Choose a single posting name.

You may call yourself anything you like. Nicknames and monikers are allowed. You don't have to use your real name; However, you must be consistent and act in an ethical manner. You cannot post under other's names. You cannot use multiple names in an attempt to deceive. And you should not change names every time you engage someone in a heated argument that you don't feel has gone your way. If you haven't considered ethics, please do so before participating on this forum. Otherwise, you will find many of your posts being deleted.

In the open forums, there shall be no advertising, of either personal or business nature.

You may not post unsolicited announcements, advertisements, sales information or the like about a product or service that you or a person or organization that you represent makes or sells. AudioRoundTable.com is most definitely not anti-trade. On the contrary, trade members are a welcome and vital part of the Round Table; However, AudioRoundTable.com is not the place for self-promotion and advertising of audio products or services.

Advertisements are limited to paid banners, logo displays and sponsored forums. Sponsored forums are those which are controlled by the company that sponsors them, and advertisements and product announcements may be made there. There shall be no advertisements placed in the open forums.

A member of the trade may not volunteer any information about a specific product that he is selling or making in response to a general request for information about a type of product or in any other discussion. Replies to questions or statements about a specific product are permitted, as long as the reply specifically addresses the question or statement posted, and is not used as a launching point for an open-ended advertisement.

No product announcements, advertisements or unsolicited information regarding a professional service or product can be offered by a person related to the company offering the service or product in an open forum. This includes company employees and representatives, but is not limited to those. If a relationship is established between you and a company, professional, product or service beyond that of enthusiast, then you may not post unsolicited announcements about the company, professional, product or service of any sort.

Cooperative alliances whereby one party posts about another so that product announcement rules can be circumvented are prohibited. If we see these kinds of relationships develop, we will consider the parties to represent one another, whether a financial relationship exists or not. In other words, if you consistently support a particular person or company, we will view you as a representative of that person or organization even if you're not currently on their payroll.

The things that are essentially being traded in many of these informal cooperative relationships are goodwill and credibility, things that have an actual value even though no money may have changed hands. These kinds of cooperative relationships are actually pretty common between certain individuals, dealers and manufacturers. We encourage your participation here, but please realize that these alliances can unfairly disadvantage others. We hope that you will share your views openly, but please be careful to refrain from the temptation to advertise.

While all are welcome at AudioRoundTable.com, abuse of the rules will not be tolerated.

These rules are not about censorship. However, while we do not and cannot police every post, we will delete posts coming to our attention that we believe violate these rules.