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UKAPS Forum Rules and Guidelines

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LondonDragon

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UKAPS Team
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UKAPS Forum Rules and Guidelines

1. Treat others how you would like to be treated yourself. Remain polite at all times and avoid aggressive styles of communication. Criticisms are often welcome, but ensure they are constructive.

2. The written word can be easily misinterpreted, so carefully consider your post's content before submitting. Consider how the post may be interpreted by others, especially if the content is directed towards a member, personally.

3. Try to avoid ambiguity and make an effort to use correct spelling and grammar. You will likely receive more constructive replies if you put some effort into your posts.

4. Abusive language, swearing and being aggressive will not be tolerated. See Rule 5.

5. The safety, health, and well-being of livestock is always number one. Be careful when adding CO2, chemicals to your aquariums. Also, UKAPS does not promote any experimental practices, or any other practice, that might put livestock in danger. Practices that might encourage other members to risk their livestock will be removed from the forum.

6. A three strikes rule is in force. Any transgressors to these Rules and Guidelines will receive two warnings via PM. Further inappropriate behaviour will result in a ban. Obvious 'spammers' and troublemakers will be banned immediately without warning.

7. Any complaints towards our Sponsors should be dealt with privately with the sponsor via PM, email or telephone, in the first instance. However, in the interest of maintaining transparency, a degree of free speech and to educate other members, you should feel able to leave feedback on products and service. Remember to be constructive in any feedback, as per Rule 1.

8. Any complaints regarding other, non-sponsor suppliers, manufacturers etc. should also be dealt with privately with the relevant party in the first instance. UKAPS do not wish to deal with potential libel cases. As always, be constructive in your feedback about products/services, one bad experience doesn't mean it's all bad.

9. The Sponsors are responsible for moderating their own sub-forums, but the Moderating Team will take action if seen necessary.

10. The Sponsors are politely requested to post exclusively in their own sub-forums. We recognize that the Sponsors have a wealth of knowledge worth sharing with the UKAPS membership, so would encourage the Sponsor to post under a pseudonym username.

11. Employees of aquatic retailers are not to promote or advertise their products and/or services without prior permission granted from the Administrators. However, they are welcome to contribute to the forum as a regular member.

12. Any personal issues with any UKAPS Member, Moderator, Admin or Founder should be dealt with privately via PM. Public displays of aggression and inappropriate comments are not acceptable. Refer to Rule 1 and 5.

13. Please do not register duplicate accounts just to ask the same questions over and over again, in the event you have forgotten your credentials of your old account or you no longer have access to the email, just contact UKAPS, and we will resolve the issue for you. You can always use the Contact Us button on the footer of the forum.

14. UKAPS wish to operate under a positive environment for the benefit of its Members and the planted aquarium hobby. The Founders, Admin and Moderating Team reserve the right to edit/move etc. post/threads with this in mind. However, if the above rules and guidelines are followed, then this should not be necessary.

Rules for the Sales Forum can be found here: Trading rules for Sale/Swap/Wanted forum | UK Aquatic Plant Society

We thank you for your co-operation.

The UKAPS Founders, Admin and Moderating Team
 
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Hi everyone,

Just quick update on the rules mentioned above, they are here just to give a guidance to members so that everyone can have a nice and enjoyable experience and hopefully benefit from being on UKAPS and getting good results with their aquascapes/planted tanks.

We understand there are various levels of knowledge from members, but most are here just to get a quick fix on their issues and want nice and clear replies so that they can digest and try and apply to their aquascape.

No theory is set in stone and most are just starting points to get to an healthy stable aquarium, there are so many variables that would be difficult to say in any case 100% the problem is this and this will fix it.

What we would appreciate for those advanced users with more scientific knowledge is not to apply advanced theoretical ideas to a new member that just joined, this will just confuse the user, become frustrating for everyone involved including the moderating team, there are tried and tested methods that have worked for many for years which is what is usually recommended as a starting point and most of the time works, but those always need slight adjustments to the user’s tanks and needs. (not everyone needs EI and most do not use it, off the shelve products work just fine and remove the headache, not everyone needs 10X turnover, depends on the tank, the scape and plant mass also, 1X is fine for the right scape, nothing is set in stone).

If you have advanced theories or different opinions that you would like to put foward we are not against it, if they contradict existing theories being promoted there are no issues with that, but unless there is concrete evidence that these work, do not start discussions on threads of members asking for basic advice on how to fix an issue, this will just distract away from what the user is actually asking, and turn the whole thing into an unpleasant experience.

Please discuss these theories on separate threads, if members want to join in these conversations then they can provide input and maybe some members can even put these theories to the test, so these can then become actual suggestions to members going forward when we know they work.

Many thanks and stay safe
Paulo
 
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Quick feedback in regard to my last post in this thread, seems that this has gone astray once again, and I have had to spend sometime contacting some members regarding this. So going to repeat myself a little here!

This forum is for the hobbyist by the hobbyist in general of all ages and all levels of knowledge, the aim is to guide members to get results in growing their plants and have healthy tanks in general. This is not a scientific discussion board on the offset, there are practices and solutions that work to grow healthy plants, and we also have to keep in mind the equipment/solutions available to the public off the shelf too. Members are hobbyist with lots of experience in growing and creating great aquascapes, the tried and tested methods work as evident by the journals section, so let's concentrate on those.

Nevertheless, you are free to discuss theories/ideas on separate threads, and then is up to members to participate in these or not. Take any of the advice given in these threads with a pinch of salt and apply to their tanks if they so wish to test any of these theories/ideas, but please do not clutter the forum with theoretical ideas that have not been tested and proved as working, or are way too far advanced for the ordinary member, specially a beginner, this is getting quite annoying and diverging from what the message is all about, creates confusion, contradicts the messages, and overall leaves the member with the issues helpless and clueless on what to do next. We are here to guide new members in the right path and not lead them to total failure and confusion.

If you are not happy/agree with this approach, please refrain from posting on UKAPS, the staff are getting a little annoyed having to go and clean a lot of posts, and a lot of the information across the board then becomes meaningless and contradicting.

Many thanks
Paulo
 
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