Here's the basic rules, folks. Follow them, and everyone's happy. <-- a happy admin

Instances of broken rules will be edited / deleted / reprimanded as the staff sees fit.

Play Nice
Let's try to keep this forum to a friendly atmosphere. If you have problems with someone, keep it to PMs -- that means no publicly attacking, insulting, or generally being a jerk to other members.

Do NOT post graphic photos or inverts eating verts
If you have a predatory vertebrate where mammals are in their natural diet, feel free to post feeding photos, but if there's any gore, please link the photos instead of directly showing them, AND include a "graphic" warning in either the link or the thread title. A snake with a mouse sticking out its mouth is fine, a monitor lizard with rat guts hanging from its teeth is not. And if you like to feed your T. blondi mice, go ahead, but don't post about it here. Those threads always result in flame wars.

Don't talk about other forums
Some of our members frequent multiple forums dedicated to our hobbies, and we don't want anyone to start a contest of "my forum's better than your forum." Those things turn ugly fast. If you want to link to another forum in your signature, feel free.

No swearing or adult content
This kind of falls under the "play nice" rule. We'd like to keep this forum family-friendly.

No spamming
This should go without saying. Posting appropriately in the classifieds is OK, but don't flood the forums with ads.

No thread-jacking
Stay on the original topic of threads. If you have something unrelated to say, start a new thread.

No grave-digging
If a thread is more than a few months old, please leave it be (unless you are the original poster with updated information).

No netspeak / unreadable grammar and spelling
Not only is netspeak hard to read, it's almost indecipherable for some of our international members. Let's try to keep the community open to everyone.

Please post in the appropriate forums
Caresheets and breeding reports are put up as guides for hobbyists, not as points of discussion. If you have a question directly pertaining to them, go ahead and post, but commenting on a caresheet with "Hey, I'm getting a _____ what _______ do you recommend?" or "nice writeup" will get your post deleted.

Posting in appropriate forums - addendum October 2009
Replying to multiple threads asking about buying someone's scorpions or asking every Tom, Dick, and Harry if they sell ____ species is rude and doesn't contribute to the hobby. If you're looking to buy a species, please post a "WTB" ad in the classifieds. That's what they're there for. Posts that do not adhere to this will be deleted.

Admins and mods, please add / update as necessary.

Addendum to the no swearing rule:

If we can tell what you're trying to say, asterisks still count as swearing.

If you want to express your frustrations, saying [insert expletive here] is ok.

This subject has been popping out in other forums, so before they make their way here I'd like to make a rule against it.
NO POST ON ANIMAL CRULETY
If you find an article you want to share, thats fine but no posting videos or pictures of "Scorpion VS. Mouse", "Tarantula Vs. Bird", ect.
There are a few exceptions to this rule. Feeder bugs are okay. ABSOLUTLY NO GLADIOATOR BUGS OR JAPANESE BUG FIGHTS. If you find a video DOCUMENTARY style of an encounter between "scorpion vs. tarantula"or similar that is excepted. If you post any of these videos here you will be suspended or banned depending on the seriousness of the video.
-Eddy

A thing along the same lines as Eddy's post:

Do not post pictures of invertebrates being fed vertebrates! Some people object, some people don't care, but these pictures ALWAYS incite debate that quickly degrades into childish insults and name-calling. This result NEVER contributes to the nature of the forum or to the promotion of our hobby.

Thanks