The Avian Enrichment Forum is a place to exchange information and ideas related to the care and enrichment of pet birds. Whenever you are participating in this community, please keep in mind that we strive to create a fun, friendly and inviting atmosphere. Please abide by our forum rules so it can be an enjoyable experience for all participants.

Because of the live nature of the discussions on this community, it is not possible for us to review and/or confirm the accuracy or validity of a message before it is posted. If you believe that someone has violated our User Guidelines or you have spotted content that may otherwise require attention, please send a private message to me or a staff member with a link to the content and a brief description of what you believe is wrong. Notification is voluntary and anonymous, but in no case should a user respond to a situation personally, thereby aggravating the situation further.

Any content that violates our User Guidelines will be removed. Interpretation of our guidelines is at the discretion of the staff.

1. Agreement: Participation in the Avian Enrichment Forum website constitutes agreement to the forum guidelines, which apply to posts, profile information, avatars, signatures, any other content on this site and participation in general.

2. Respect is the name of the game. You must respect your fellow members. Please refrain from inflammatory and defamatory comments as well as flaming, taunting, and general disrespect. Do not simply put down the opinion or advice given by others. If you don't agree with it, say why - respectfully. Don't just tell them they're wrong. Do not make uninvited remarks about typos, duplicate posts, posting styles, etc. When an opinion-based discussion is being had, do not state things like "there is no argument" as if your opinion is the only one or the only one that matters. When someone has clearly stated their opinion, do not say things like "Are you serious?" and "Are you kidding me?" Remember, this is not a debate club. This is a friendly discussion community. Allow people to have their opinion. No one is to act as some sort of opinion judge, responding to each one to say whether they agree with it or not or whether or not it is a valid, well thought out opinion.

3. No offensive content. Vulgar language and inappropriate material is not allowed and will be removed. Abbreviations, self censoring, and attempts to circumvent the word censoring feature of the community software also violate this guideline. If your post contains a word that is censored by the software, you must remove that word or the post will be removed. If you feel that the censor is acting in error, please contact us. We try to maintain a family friendly atmosphere whenever it is possible within the main subject matter of this community.

4. No political and religious discussions are allowed on this website. If it is believed that the end result of a discussion will be political or religious, the post may be removed. Likewise, strong political and religious sentiments should be kept out of profiles, signatures, and other content.

5. Commercial advertisements are not allowed. Generally speaking, posts made specifically for the purpose of promoting of a website, product or service are considered advertising. It does not matter if it is a commercial website, a personal website, a non profit website, etc. Anyone found to be posting excessive links to their websites or suspected of using "sneaky" advertising methods is in violation of this guideline. All posts that feature inappropriate links will either be censored or removed. If you are found to be excessively posting links to your site you may lose the ability to post links to your site.

You may mention websites and ventures that you are in some way related to, as long as they are otherwise appropriate for this community. You may only post a link to your site/a site that you are in some way affiliated with if the link specifically answers the question that is being asked and the answer cannot be simply posted without the link. Even then, link directly to the page where the information can be found.

When linking to outside websites, you must ensure that the content of the linked website is appropriate for our community, in line with the guidelines laid out here. This includes mentioning or referencing a site, even if the mention is not hyperlinked.

6. Do not post copyrighted materials (articles, videos, audio, etc.) that you do not have permission to reproduce or distribute. For text articles, most of the time you may quote a small portion of the article (usually no more than 1/5 or 1/6) and you must link to the source (if online) or provide the source (if offline). Posting the entire article, even with the source, constitutes copyright infringement. This is not the place to illegally trade or distribute copyrighted (or those with questionable copyright status) video or audio clips.

7. Cross-posting is not allowed and will result in the removal of one or more posts. Cross-posting is defined as posting the same information in two or more locations. When posting your topic, please try to post it in the most appropriate place within the organizational structure of our community. Please keep posts brief and on topic.

8. No disclosure of personal information: For your safety as well as that of others, do not post personal, real-life information such as home addresses and home phone numbers.

9. No Reliance: Making decisions based on information posted is at your own risk. We cannot monitor all posts in real-time, do not verify the accuracy or validity of posts, or in any way endorse the opinions expressed by individual posters. Please consult with an avian veterinarian before utilizing medical information posted in the forums.

10. Post in English only: As this is an English-speaking community, we require that posted content be in the English language, so that it can be well received and properly monitored.

11. No all CAPS messages: The use of all caps is considered to to be shouting, please use mixed case text.

12. No Multiple Accounts/Screen Names: Each user is allowed to create one account. If you would like to change your username, please contact us and, most likely, we can do it for you while you can keep all of your profile data, posts, and other content.

13. Violations: Violations of these rules may be subject to one or more of the following - warnings, edited or deleted posts, timeouts or bannings. Moderators and myself have the final say on anything. If you have a problem, you may make a complaint to them directly and not publicly on the website. Creating threads or posts that question or reference administrative decisions or potential administrative decisions, such as post removals and thread closures, is not permitted. We are not perfect and if you feel that we have made a mistake, please privately contact a staff member and we will review the situation.

Freedom of speech rights do not extend to privately owned websites, such as this one. These guidelines detail the types of behavior and activities that are allowed here. If a user violates our guidelines and shows a disregard for them, our staff and our community, they run the risk of losing their account. We reserve the right to deactivate any account and to edit or remove any content without warning.

While these rules cover common forum issues we may not anticipate every situation and therefore reserve the right to change and update the rules as appropriate to ensure this forum is not disrupted or abused in any way. These guidelines are subject to change at any time without notice. Please check back and revisit the rules periodically for updates.

So, please have fun and enjoy the forums!

AEadmin