Welcome to Parents Time Out. Aside from the terms agreed to upon registration, here are some of the rules that will help you get along with the unique collection of parents on this forum.
Joining the ForumThe first rule of Parents Time Out:
Please lurk before joining. I will repeat this for emphasis:
Please lurk before joining. We do not filter ourselves much here. The content is guaranteed to be full of cursing and snarkiness. If you think you may be offended, please do not join.
This is a forum for parents. While it is not a requirement that you are also a parent, this will be the tone of the board.
One account per member please. If you want to change your username every day, we don't care, so long as you change it on your one account.
Likewise, please do not share an account. The accounts here are free, so there is no reason for "Dan&Dana" to join as one.
Do not share your password with anyone.
Once you've joined the forum, please post. The more you post, the more discussion will come from it. Please post as often as you like in any of the open categories.
PostingAbove all else, you must be respectful of the other members of the forum. Personal attacks may get you banned.
Individual members will be held responsible for the accuracy of their own messages. Legally and otherwise. We will not fact check anyone, so please consider your options and do your research before following any advice posted on this board.
Unlike other forums, we're not particular about the length or relevance of your posts or responses. We are not that good at keeping to subjects. (see exceptions under the Harassment, Hate Speech and Other Maliciousness heading)
These are good examples of the turns discussions may take here:
Original post:
"I just don't understand people who bring their small kids to rated R movies!"
Possible chain of responses:
Member 1: "Ditto."
Member 2: " :x "
Member 3: "I don't understand bikes."
Member 4: "Wow. I haven't owned a bike since junior high school.
"
These posts are acceptable, because this is how a group of people would conduct a normal conversation. In real life, you don't always have a witty retort and sometimes the turns a conversation takes will end up being more interesting that the original point of the discussion.
In real life, your every word is accentuated by the tone of your voice, the expression on your face and your body language. Online, you don't have the benefit of being able to express tone and emotion except by emoticon. Using them liberally will help people understand your intended tone.
If you got annoyed reading the above 2 paragraphs, please do not join this forum. Complaints in respect to them will be ignored by Admin and moderators.
Harassment, Hate Speech and Other MaliciousnessThere is such a thing as healthy conflict. At PTO, we keep it contained in the "Controversy Corner" category. Please do not carry on any debate from this category to other topics. Any posts that suggest a carryover argument will be deleted and the members involved will be warned.
Hate speech will not be tolerated. This would include any racial slurs, generalizations about people based on their ethnicity and anything else that a reasonable person would be offended by. The rule about what will qualify in this category will be completely subjective to the Admin and moderators' sensibilities as well as judged by individual complaint. The ideal would be that we could clear up a misunderstanding, if a comment was never intended to insult, however, understand that the offending member may also be banned without warning depending on the content.
Other Maliciousness will include, but not be limited to: trolling, spamming, flaming, the publishing of another member's personal information, posting links that contain viruses, posting porn of any kind or hacking another member's account. Any member engaging in this behavior will be banned without warning and their offending posts will be deleted.
Suggestions?If you have a suggestion for improvement to the way this board works, please submit it under the Suggestions category. We would like to make this place as entertaining as possible for everyone, so your recommendations are not only welcome, but essential.
Some things may not be possible because of the restrictions of the host of this forum. Other suggestions may not be feasible for various reasons. Please do not be offended if your ideas are not used.
CYAThese rules are subject to change at any time.
Our rules are very lax, so attempting to circumvent the few that are firmly in place will get you banned. And laughed at.
If you have technical questions, please refer to the handy FAQ:
https://parentstimeout.forumotion.com/faq
Mon Oct 03, 2011 8:40 am by 
Subject: The Rules of Time Out 
crap, and I just started a cake porn thread in team cake 
