Web forums offer an exciting way to meet people who share your interests. However, unlike a normal discussion you’re on a platform, and your words will be accessible by the entire world.

The most common mistake a newcomer can make is simply wading into a discussion on any topic without thinking of the person at the other end. One man’s hilarity is another man’s offense. etiquette's rules are based entirely on this simple precept.

When talking to anyone, irrespective of medium, do not type with the Caps Lock key TURNED ON. It’s known as ‘shouting’, and is considered extremely rude and provocative. Similarly, overuse of abbreviations can cause offense. If a recipient has to fight to comprehend a confusing cryptic message, the sender has failed and you may not even get a response.

Search First
To save everybody time, use the search tools that this forum provides to look for similar topics, and check them before you post. If your research draws a blank, it’s now time to post.

Help Us to Help You
Ensure that you provide all relevant data that might help in diagnosing the problem; this should include your PCs specifications, any patches or updated drivers you’ve installed, including version numbers, external hardware and what fixes you have attempted. Most members here at PCReview are only too pleased to help out, but can only give effective advice if you provide detailed explanations of the problem or fault.

Abusive & illegal Material

Pornography, Warez, or any other illegal transactions may NOT be linked in any shape or form. PCReview.co.uk does not condone or promote piracy of any kind. This specifically includes piracy of

• Video material (copying DVDs or HDTV encoded movies via the Internet)
• Music via file sharing MP3/WMA and other digital music not specifically permitted for download in this way
• Games and other applications leaked, downloaded or copied

Why do we take this position? Because doing the above is theft and illegal.

Whether or not you agree with file sharing and whether or not you agree with the ways the big corporations try to combat this 'problem', you may not post anything on these forums which can be interpreted by our moderators as directly promoting piracy.

Flaming & Derogatory Remarks

Will not be tolerated. Whether it be directed at another forum member or a business. Statements such as 'Don't buy from retailer x as they are a bunch of lying cowboys', and someone replies 'thanks for the warning, I was going to buy from them but will go elsewhere', then the first post has led to a loss of business from the retailer and is therefore DEFAMATION and ILLEGAL. These posts will be deleted. Feel free to give an account of your experience, but please back it up with facts.

PMs & Emails
Please, do not contact individual members for a private consultation as they will just delete your message … use the forum, where, you can be better assisted by all. PMs are for private discussion which is not relevant to the forum and can be thought of as a local e-mail system.

User Name Policy
Please note that the User-name should conform to the following guidelines and it should not be changed once set. Forum members are required to register with a displayed name or user-name which does NOT feature an email address, ALL CAPS, an obvious company name, or names that may carry a message or meaning that may be interpreted as inappropriate. Admin decision in this regard is final and user-names deemed inappropriate for the forum will be deleted or renamed.

Signatures
Everyone is able to insert a forum signature at the bottom of their posts by modifying the user profile. Please keep these quite short and clean so it doesn't interfere with the general forum posting. Small images are allowed, but no HTML. Links in signatures are not allowed unless permission has been sought & given by an administrator. Any signatures not complying will be deleted.

Language
Foul Language and obscene images will not be tolerated. This site is family friendly, and all posts and posters must respect the integrity of the site.

In addition, you may not deliberately misspell, or substitute punctuation or other special characters in filtered words to circumvent any profanity filters of the Forums you are posting on.

Spam
Posting of unsolicited messages on the forum to advertise your services are not acceptable. If you post spam, your post will be deleted and your account banned.

About our Moderators
Forum Moderators are community volunteers that give up their time to help build a better community. They will assist with focusing topics and enforcing guidelines. They have the ability to edit/delete posts, to move, close or delete topics, to temporarily moderate users’ posts and have a very effective ban button. Our moderators are equipped with Kevlar flak jackets and an unlimited supply of Admin bricks. Do not attempt to engage them in direct combat, especially muckshifter.