Announcements

[John Holzmann]

Strategic Inheritance Forums Rules

Last Modified 16 October 2009

Welcome . . . and thank you for joining the Strategic Inheritance Forums community!

Strategic Inheritance has only a few basic rules summed up in the phrase . . .

Show respect for others. Please.

In case that is unclear, this is a more detailed summary:

Please do not post any material which is false, inaccurate, insulting, vulgar, hateful, persistently irritating or tormenting, profane, tending or intended to menace, unreasonably and without justification placing any person in a false light, or otherwise in violation of ANY law.

Note that Strategic Inheritance reserves the right to

* View, edit, and/or delete any post, message, private message (PM), user profile, or any other communication that fails to meet these guidelines.

* Deny or revoke any membership and/or use of these forums if our guidelines are ignored or violated.

* Make the final determination of what constitutes a breach of our rules.

A few additional rules:

No commercial messages. We will not tolerate commercial messages of any type.

* Thoughtful reviews and/or discussions of goods or services specifically related to the subject matter of Strategic Inheritance, and links to suppliers of such goods and services are always welcome.

* If you yourself are the author, publisher, or producer, and/or if you are in any other way an interested party in the product or service concerning which you are making a post, we respectfully request that you make your relationship known; i.e., we expect full disclosure.

* If Strategic Inheritance finds you have withheld such information, we reserve the right to revoke your membership in this community immediately.

* If your first post on any Strategic Inheritance forum consists of a product or service "review," we recognize it is possible you have joined our community for non-commercial reasons, but we reserve the right, in these circumstances, too, to revoke your membership immediately and without warning.

Post only materials whose copyrights you own. Do not post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material.

No spam. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also inappropriate to these Strategic Inheritance forums. (Spam includes sending identical and irrelevant or unsolicited submissions to many different users, and includes misrepresenting the source of anything you post.)

No Personal, Private, or Prolonged Feuds. We do not tolerate airing personal feuds, naming any people with whom you have an on going disagreement, nor the identification of such persons by inference.

You take full responsibility for the things you post and the things you read.

* You are solely responsible for the content of your messages (whether posted or sent privately via private messaging), and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless these forums, any related websites, and Strategic Inheritance itself. Strategic Inheritance reserves the right to reveal your identity (or any information we have about you) in the event of a legal action or any validated complaint arising from any information posted or privately emailed by you.

* You are responsible to use your own judgment when evaluating information provided through any communication service, including these forums, and you are responsible for any actions you take as a result of advice or information you receive online. Remember: the information could be from people at any age and experience level. The decision to conduct transactions is your own and you should perform your own research prior to making any decisions.

Strategic Inheritance warrants nothing concerning content. The messages posted on the Strategic Inheritance Forums express the views of the authors alone and are not necessarily the views of Strategic Inheritance. Strategic Inheritance makes no warranties concerning either the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information presented on these forums.

It is impossible for Strategic Inheritance to confirm the validity of posts on its forums. Though we will seek to remove false, malicious, harmful, and/or otherwise illegal posts as soon as we are able, you must recognize that messages are not monitored before they are posted and, therefore, Strategic Inheritance cannot be held responsible for their content.

If you feel that a message or PM (private message) is objectionable, please email the Forum Administrator immediately. As noted above, Strategic Inheritance retains the right to remove any objectionable content within a reasonable time frame and to discipline offending parties, if we think such actions are necessary. These are manual processes, however, and our staff is not available 24/7, so please realize that we may not be able to take needful action as quickly as you or we would prefer.

You grant Strategic Inheritance implicit permission to use posts you make. Strategic Inheritance reserves the right to use any of the materials posted on these forums for the benefit of forum participants, and other audiences who, in the judgment of Strategic Inheritance management, may benefit from the information contained in such posts. By posting on the Strategic Inheritance Forums, you grant Strategic Inheritance permission to use your posts for these purposes.

Note Well: In accordance with the implicit permission you grant Strategic Inheritance to use materials posted on these forums, Strategic Inheritance reserves the right to attribute such quotations when and wherever they are used. Such attributions may include a first name and last initial and name of city from which you come. We will not share any additional personally identifying information. If, however, you do not want us to use an input or quotation or ANY input or quotation, or if you do not want us to use your first name and last name initial or name of city when attributing your quotation, please indicate your desire within the post itself and/or say so by emailing us your request or in writing to 8024 South Grant Way, Littleton, CO 80122-2705.

You need to guard your own privacy. Because this is a public forum, for obvious security reasons, we strongly urge you not to include either your email or physical address as your username or in the body of any post. (We will remove such personal information if we find it.)

Honest identity/no impersonation. You agree not to impersonate anyone—no Strategic Inheritance employee, agent, manager, host, or moderator, nor another user. This rule means only one person in a family may use an account. If you want your spouse to have access, then your spouse must apply for his or her own account.

If we discover that your registration information is incomplete and/or inaccurate, we will deactivate your account until you provide accurate information.

After you register and log into the Strategic Inheritance Forums, you may fill out a detailed profile. To the extent you intend to use this feature, you must supply appropriate and accurate information. Any information we deem inaccurate and/or vulgar will be removed.

Please note that, though it is not displayed to the general public, every time you post, we record your IP address. We may use this information in the event we need to deactivate your account or contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP). We will only take this action in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

Password must not be shared. For your protection and valid security reasons, you agree never to share your password with another community member.

Some information about our community members. To avoid surprises that may lead otherwise calm and kindhearted people to become unhinged, many community members have said they have found the following information helpful.

You should know that:

1. The Strategic Inheritance Forums cater to—and we desire them to cater to—people with a wide range of beliefs and perspectives. We expect that a large majority of participants are likely to be white, middle class North Americans from the United States. However, you must keep in mind that a significant portion of our community may consist of people from other ethnic backgrounds, from other countries and cultures, and with religious beliefs very different from your own. They may also have different political affiliations and persuasions. And we welcome these participants as well. If you seek to make any of these majority or non-majority members feel unwelcome, you may be sure that you will quickly find yourself unwelcome.

This is because,

2. Strategic Inheritance and its Forum Administrators, Moderators, and other employees aim to foster as wide a range of thoughtful and civil discussion as possible between our diverse members. Moderators appreciate being warned if members feel a discussion is inappropriate; however, in many cases the best defense is simply to ignore what offends you.

With respect to:

3. Sensitive or potentially offensive topics. If you are aware that a topic may be sensitive to or offend others, we urge you to forewarn members with an appropriate note in the subject line, so they are able to avoid the discussion.

4. Sensitive words. Certain words are likely to trigger content filter software. (Words related to certain parts of the anatomy will do this, even when used in a polite conversation. Same with almost any words related to s*xuality.) In order to aid your fellow readers, if, for some reason, you find the need to discuss a topic that includes such words, please include asterisks (*) as appropriate so that fellow community members can have at least some idea of what you are talking about but yet without triggering their filters and precluding their ability to gain from your input!

Note that other words—usually of the "four-letter" variety—are never appropriate in polite society, and we ask you to refrain from their use.

Speak about subject matter, not persons. You will avoid many fruitless arguments and hurt feelings (both your own as well as others') if you seek always to speak to the subject matter under discussion, the specific content, rather than comment about the person who posts or the character of the person the poster quoted. Point out what you believe are weaknesses in the evidence; don't cast aspersions on the poster's character.

One of the goals on the Strategic Inheritance Forums is to encourage free and open discussion by all forum members. Everyone who abides by the basic rules of sound etiquette and civil discourse has a right to "be" here and to say what he or she may want to.

If another forum member's opinions and/or behavior is so frustrating to you that you find yourself unable to interact with within the bounds of sound etiquette and civil discourse, you have two choices. One is to exercise restraint and ignore any threads or posts authored by that individual. The second is to make use of the forum Ignore feature which will effectively make that individual's posts invisible to you.


To make use of the Ignore feature . . .

• Click on the Members List link found on the blue menu bar at the top of any forum page.
• Locate the name of the forum member you wish to ignore and
• Click on the username. Directly under the username you'll find another blue menu bar with options.
• The User Lists option provides the ability to add the member to your Ignore list. Click on that link. When the Ignore List opens,
• Simply click on the YES button.

What happens if I break the Forum Use Agreement?

If you violate any of the above guidelines then you may expect the forum moderators to follow these steps:

1. On your first offense your post will be deleted and you will be contacted privately via email explaining the reason for our action.

2. On your second similar offense your post will be deleted and we will publicly post the reason for our action on the forums.

3. On your third similar offense we will ban your entrance to the forums (and take other measures) so that you can no longer post on the Strategic Inheritance Forums.

Thank you for reading and agreeing to these terms!

John Holzmann, President