TimeGhost Army Community Rules and Guidelines

Please read this post before you start posting and commenting.

What is the TimeGhost Army Community?

The TimeGhost Army is a place to come together and discuss history and history related topics, as well as the TimeGhost content and its creators Indiana Neidell and Spartacus Olsson.

Indy and Sparty are deeply committed to an unbiased discourse around history as far as that is possible. While each of you has opinions and feelings, we try to leave them at the door when we talk about the past. Thus, the following rules apply in this forum:

1. No partisan politics

Please avoid any partisan political discussions. Now, we’re not robots and we can’t just ignore that we have strongly held beliefs, but try to think twice before you share opinions, rather than facts. Most important- do not provoke an infected political debate here! Political slurs are especially forbidden - if you want to use words like ‘nativist’, ‘social justice warrior’, ‘lefty’, ‘fascist’, ‘nazi’ or so on - think four times before you post. Ask yourself if the word in question is relevant to our topic in context of your post. (see: ‘Stay courteous’ too).

2. Stay in the past as far as possible

This place is about history - there are loads of better places to get deep into current affairs. Obviously we live in the here and now, and some talk about the present is welcome, especially if it’s relevant to the community. If you just want to have a long deep social talk that’s OK too.

3. Don’t publish, or promote false facts

Facts are our common passion, so don’t insult the TimeGhost Army. If you’re not certain that what you’re saying is factual, phrase your post as a question - there are tons of experts in our community. Here’s an example: “Is it true, like they say on the History Channel, that Hitler might have escaped after WWII?” And the answer would be, “no he died in the Führerbunker by suicide, there’s no doubt, none whatsoever.”

4. No racism, no hate speech

And what this is, is not a debatable issue. This is a hard and tough rule - any racism or hate speech, and your posting privileges will be revoked immediately, no second chances on this one.

5. Stay courteous

We will not tolerate personal attacks or ad hominem posts, not from anyone. If your temper overflows, try to take a deep breath and remain a lady or a gentleman, however inane the post that made you blow that gasket was. We pride ourselves with some of the cleanest commentary sections in social media and we want to keep it that way.

That’s the rules, please respect them - we are grateful for your participation and hope you enjoy being part of the TimeGhost Army. And here’s some more detailed guidelines to help us all make this a wonderful place.

This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules, merely guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a clean and well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

• Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
• Knee-jerk contradiction

And we will not tolerate any:

• Name-calling
• Ad hominem attacks

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave our community better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

• Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
• Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
• Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
• Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of the New York Times.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

• Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
• Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
• Don’t post no-content replies.
• Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
• Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

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This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.

Terms of Service

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.