Terms and rules

Forum Rules

We have some very general rules and guidelines in place to make the board more efficient and a better place to hang, sell, and gather. Please follow the rules posted below to help keep the site clean and running the way we would like.

All administrators and moderators have TOTAL discretion to moderate posts and replies as they deem appropriate and any post or account may be edited and/or censored if it is judged appropriate by a moderator or administrator. Any member may be warned for breaking any rule. Any member may be banned for breaking any rule.

Softball Fans Inc. the storefront is not liable or responsible for any transactions, and or bad deals on this site.

It is the responsibility of the members to check feedback, and do back ground checks on members they are doing deals with.


All Product Sales

When selling any item, a picture of your item is required at the time you post your thread.It needs to be a picture of the actual item you are selling. If there are no pictures, the thread will be deleted. All pictures must contain a piece of paper with the seller's username and date written clearly and legibly.
If we can't read it, it isn't there. If the username and date is not clearly visible in the photo, the thread will be deleted. The purpose of this rule is not to let members see what a "stock" item looks like. We all know what a new Miken Freak looks like, but we don't know what yours looks like right now, so post up an accurate picture.

New Product Sales

Buying, Selling or Trading of any New softball related products (bats, gloves, apparel, softballs, etc.) that the store sells is forbidden. New No Return/Warranty Return bats that the store sells are also not allowed.
If you cannot see signs of use then it is probably going to be considered new. If you have a doubt, PM a mod or admin for clarification before posting.

If you post multiple items and there is a new item in the picture it will be considered as being sold and may result in an infraction or ban.
EXCLUSIVE bats that are NIW or NOW are NOT allowed (regardless of model year) as it promotes competitors to sell on the forum.
Any violation of this rule may result in a permanent ban from the community or an infraction given and offending threads will be deleted.
The forums are funded by the store and they are not making any money from vendors coming in and selling product to members.
SBF staff has discretion to remove any posts or members if they are a vendor or working with a vendor using SBF as a place to move product.


Multiple Items / Dealers

All buy-ins of softball related items will be deleted and the member will be banned if caught, plain and simple.
We will not tolerate any dealers, friends of dealers, retailers or anyone else who comes to this site to sell mass items as a store would for profit. This goes for ANY item not just bats, there may be a way in the future to sponsor the site to be able to sell items but as of now it is not allowed, if any member is caught selling for a dealer they will be banned.
Exclusive bats sold only by a specific store or retailer are not allowed here, Linking to them or the company who sells them is also prohibited.


Website links

No personal auction links of items you are selling or to bats that are altered. Not excluding to Ebay, Craigslist, and definitely NO competitors sites. Any mention of competitor's websites is expressly forbidden.


Altered and Compressed Bats

No juiced/altered/painted/conversion bat sales or requests allowed AT ALL. Do not post looking for decals, endcaps, how to remove endcaps or bat docs to do this for you. This now includes Viced, Rolled, ACT or any other compression related bat sales, services or products.


Price Posting

Posting a selling price is required for all "For Sale" and "For Sale/Trade" threads. If you do not have a general idea of value then post a value question in specific manufacturer forum and you will be provided with that info. This means that no price check threads are allowed in the selling sections.


Receipts

Do not post asking for or to sell/give a valid receipt or RA# to/from another member.


Broken Bats

Do not post that you are looking to buy, sell or trade for broken or cracked bats. If demo or prototypes are sold, both buyer and seller accept full responsibility.


Images

No ***ual references, pornography, swearing or unsuitable graphic imagery including links to such materials are allowed in posts, images or as avatars. The same applies to user names.


Raffles

There are no Raffles, Raffle links or pools permitted on Softballfans due to a Michigan law that requires a permit to hold such raffles. This was ceased by Coach in 2005 and may resume later if the permit is obtained.


Copyrighted Material & Firearms

We do not condone or allow copyrighted software to be distributed illegally here (IE. Burned movies, MP3's of copyrighted material, or any other Warez material including keys or codes). All counterfeit/replica goods' sales not allowed here, please report any counterfeit items for sale to us for removal. Firearms are not to be sold/traded here even if you are an FFL, this is to protect the forum from any kind of legal issues that could arise from it.


Swearing Filters

There are filters that prevent the use of certain words. The use of swearing or use of alternative spellings, substitute characters or other languages to circumvent this rule is NOT acceptable and such posts are liable to be edited upon discovery. Breaching of this rule will result in warnings and continued breaching will result in a ban. (Example of bypassing the filter... sh**, f#$k, f**k, f*ck, etc)


The Lounge

The lounge has been restricted to users who have been here 1 year or have more than 200 posts. If a subject is deemed unsuitable it will be removed without warning. Please do not post personal information of others members unless it is to aid in assisting in a bad deal. If you post personal information or PM's for reason other than a bad deal it will be deleted and subject to infractions or warnings.


Trolling

The act of "trolling" will not be tolerated. If you blatantly attempt to derail the topic of a thread or harass a member, you will be subject to a temporary 1 day ban, increasing to a 7 day ban for the second offense, then to a 30 day ban for the third offence and finally a permanent IP ban for a final offense. This will be enforced in all sections EXCEPT the Lounge forum, however we will enforce harassment in the lounge when needed.


Post Counts

Members should not assume that size is everything. We do not admire high post counts here, but we do honor quality. A high post count does not always indicate that a member is respected for their opinions. Spamming or posting gratuitously (i.e. "Repost" or "I agree") to achieve status on these forums is frowned upon and in fact you may have your posts removed if you continue to post along those lines.
If you are noticing your post count is not increasing it is due to the fact that posts in the lounge do not add to your post count. This was done long ago when people were here building their count and then ripping people off because people thought the high post count meant they were GTG.


User Titles

User titles are those that sit under your user name and by default will change with time registered. If you qualify for a custom title his may be changed to any free text you wish with the following exceptions:
The text must NOT be offensive
The text must NOT be inflammatory or derogatory
The text must NOT be manipulated to give the false impression you are a member of staff on these forums i.e. Moderator, Super Moderator or Admin etc.

Time Registered - User Title:

0-3 Months - New Member
3-6 Months - The Rookie
6-12 Months - Part Time Player
12-18 Months - Extra Hitter
18-24 Months - Starting Player
24-30 Months - Star Player
******** Custom Titles Start Here***********
30-36 Months - The Veteran
36-42 Months - Coach
42-48 Months - Manager
4+ years - Addicted to Softballfans

If you don't want to wait you can donate to the SBF fund by adding a subscription payment of $5 by going here:

http://forums.softballfans.com/payments.php

These are the available perks that you will receive:
1. Custom user title access
2. Colored user title
3. 600 PM max box
4. Bigger avatar size (Avatar Increase from the 100x100 8k limit to 100x100 50k)
5. Picture in signature

*note, The custom title access will be a perm perk not a onetime thing, you can change your user title as often as you would like but please keep in mind any changes to the title will lose the color after it is set and is a one time color change.


Infractions

If a rule is broken the staff may issue a written warning or an infraction point may be given. A warning is simply a written reminder that the rules should not be broken. If the violation is severe enough an infraction may be given to a member.
If a member receives 3 infraction points within 90 days they will be banned for 90 days.

Warnings and infractions are determined by a staff member and are at total discretion of the staff. An infraction can be reversed if you think the infraction was unjustified you will need to contact an Admin to have it reviewed.


Reporting Posts

If you see any of these thread please use the "Report Bad Post" feature, located under the user name and Avatar, to let the mods know and it will be taken care of. Please take advantage of using this. This is a helpful tool to help administrators, and moderators police the message board. This feature is strictly confidential.


Softball Fans Online Store

As an added benefit for all new forum members, you will automatically be registered for an account in our online store, softballfans.com.. This account will share the same login credentials as your forum account.


Final Thoughts

Although the administrators and moderators of Softball Fans will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of Softball Fans, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message or legal liability.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, ***ually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violate of any laws.

The owners of Softball Fans reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason and have no privacy policy. These rules and TOS are subject to change without notice by the administration


Top