Forum Rules

All posts must be written in English. Salutations and translations to aid those that do not have English as a first language are acceptable, but the English version must be included.

Usernames. One of RMR's major goals is to foster a community that resembled what you may have experienced visiting your local hobby shop, where you could join in on informative conversations about model railroading. And that's where your choice of username comes in: Because we're a community, we kindly ask that you choose a username that has your first name.

Our experience has shown that this small, but important, request has greatly contributed to RMR's positive atmosphere. The use of first names has gone a long way toward eliminating the drama, flame wars, and other poor behavior seen on other forums that in large part results from hiding behind a false screen name.

We have no plans for sharing any of your information or selling it to the highest bidder. We just want everyone to feel comfortable and at home with others.

Some suggestions, say, if your name is Jim Jones: Jim, Jim J, Jim Jones, Jim123, NScale Jim, Jim B&O, JimRR, etc.

To mention a user in a post, put an "At" symbol (@) before their username.

Members' display names can not be email addresses. This rule is in place to protect you from spam bots that will pick up your email address and spam you. If you used your email address when you first signed up, please change it.

Do Not post or link to content that could be deemed religious, political, sexual, or derogatory in nature. These will be removed and the poster will be warned.

Do Not SPAM other members via e-mail or Private Message.

Do Not breach copyright laws. Posting content that you do not have the rights to, or have permission to post... if you own it, post it... if you don't, link to it.

Do not copy and paste content from posts that are from other forums; use a link to them instead.

No Flaming, Harassment or Threats. It will NOT be tolerated. Purposely intimidating a particular member, harassing them, sending them rude or unwanted private messages, etc., will be not be tolerated. This includes personal attacks on administrators and moderators for doing their jobs. Any threat or intimation of a threat will result in one warning. If you continue, you will be banned for a short time. If the behaviors continues, you will be banned from the site permanently.

Be courteous to your fellow members. This is a friendly and helpful community of modelers, so please view comments in a positive light, as that is most likely how they're meant.

Please use proper terminology when referring to other scales, ie: HO, N, O, Z. Please do not use colorful nicknames for other scales.

Members are to read, comprehend, and abide by Notices and Announcements. Also, PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING Stickies, particularly before posting to a forum that contains them. Keep up to date with Announcements, Notices, and new posts to the forum as you can.

Do Not Create Multiple Accounts (Sock puppets). Do not create multiple accounts, aka sock puppets. Sock puppetry is often used for nefarious reasons, and as such we ask that you simply don’t do it. If a sock puppet account is identified, it will be closed immediately.

Do Not post your personal information on the OPEN forum. Names, mailing addresses, emails or phone numbers. Use a Private Message to pass this type of info along to others on forum. The administrators and moderators will remove personal information from posts to protect your privacy.

Do not cross-post questions. Please refrain from posting the same question in several forums. There is normally one forum which is most suitable in which to post your question.

Please use SEARCH first! There is a pretty good chance that unless you have some really odd or unique problem, it has been addressed on our forum before, so please use the forum's search feature first to see if there are already some good threads on the subject. It’s easy to search &ndash: just click the “Search” button at the top right of the page.

Use a DESCRIPTIVE title for your topic names. PLEASE post a descriptive topic name! Give a short summary of your problem IN THE SUBJECT. (Don’t use attention getting subjects or clickbait titles; they don’t get attention and only seem to annoy people).

Do Not Bump Posts. Posts that bring a thread to the top of the New Posts list but add no content to the thread (bumps) are not permitted. This applies not only to posts that say "bump" but to those with the intent to bump, e.g., posts saying "Anyone?" or the equivalent.

Do not play the part of a Grammar Sheriff. There is no need to point out another poster's minor spelling or grammatical errors unless you think it is causing confusion. Remember not all members are native English speakers. Communication, not correctness, is our goal.

However, please keep in mind that an effort at using proper grammar demonstrates a degree of respect for the reader, as well as your desire to be clearly understood. Chronic cases of blatantly poor grammar apart from extenuating circumstances may result in administrative intervention, such as requiring use of a spell check program prior to posting. Again, this is meant not as a punitive measure, but to ensure that good communication occurs.

Advertisements of any kind are not permitted. This includes member names and links to commercial sites in signatures or in posts.

Avatars. Avatars must be in good taste. This means no vulgar or violent images, pornography, or profanity. Avatars that are found to be inappropriate will be removed at the discretion of the staff.

Banning Complaints. Do not complain about getting banned, and do not make another account to circumvent a ban. Do not complain about other users being banned, either in the forum or on profile pages of other users, unless you wish to be banned as well.

Do Not post editing complaints. Do not complain on the open forum if a moderator removes or edits your post. Rather, reply in a PM to the administrators or moderators. We trust our moderators, and if they’ve removed a message, they had a good reason.

CENSORING. Do Not post any word which bypasses our profanity filters by purposely misspelling, using letter/symbol substitutions or any other means to bypass our censoring. You will only get one warning for this, then you will be banned from the site.

Do Not Hijack a post or thread. Please do not “hijack” a forum thread by changing the subject. If you want to change the subject, please start a new message thread. We expect new subjects to be in a new message thread.

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For choosing to ignore specific forum rules; you may be warned, have your thread/post locked, edited, or deleted (as deemed appropriate), or you may be invited to "The Scrap Yard" (read the FAQ to see what "The Scrap Yard" is about).

Violation of general rules may lead to warnings, suspension of privileges, or in extreme cases, banning from the site.