RCGroups moderates online discussions using a sophisticated, highly customized, infraction system.

When a user is assessed an infraction, his "infraction level" increases according to the point value of the issued infraction. Infractions "age" and are removed from a user's infraction level after a period of time elapses.

Users are automatically subjected to a 5 day ban when their infraction level reaches 10 points. If a banned user causes further trouble upon his return, his punishment is stepped up until ultimately he may be subject to a permanent ban.

Note that the Life, the Universe, and Politics forum has a special rule - users with more than 5 infraction points may not post in this forum. This is due to the special, often volatile discussions in this forum.

The Administrators sometimes make exceptions to the usual automated banning system if the account in question is clearly a "spam" or "troll" account. This is a judgment call based on the user's post count and the content of the posts that have been made.

In some cases a moderator may elect to issue an "alert" instead of an infraction. In that event, the user's infraction level is not increased. Alerts otherwise operate the same as regular infraction.

A user who is warned or alerted through our system will receive a private message indicating the reason for the infraction. A link to the warned post, if applicable, will be provided in the private message.

Users may appeal their infractions by posting a thread in the Site Suggestions / Complaints forum, which is monitored by the site administrators. Please provide the administrator with a link to the post and a brief explanation of why you are appealing.

Certain infraction types (such as offensive content or copyright infringement) cause the post to be hidden from view. When hidden, a post may only be seen by a moderator or administrator. Posts warned for other reasons will be collapsed in the thread view and visible by regular users via an additional mouse click.

The vast majority of infractions are issued for personal attacks or foul language.

Personal attacks usually come up during arguments. Some people have a hard time expressing themselves without attacking others and it is fairly common to see "personal attack" infractions handed out. Please remember that RCGroups believes strongly in protecting the dignity of its users and a confrontational debate style is not welcome here.

Foul language is more than just the classic list of "swear words". Users often try to circumvent our "swear word filter" by substituting asterisks for certain letters, or by deliberately mispelling words. Please keep in mind that our site has a firm "family friendly" policy that has served us well since our founding in 1996. RCGroups censors language, text, videos, links, and other media that could potentially cause the site to be blocked by a school, library, or church. This policy is designed to make RCGroups accessible to the widest possible audience.

At RCGroups each user is responsible for his own posts. It is not possible, therefore, to successfully argue an appeal on the basis of what other users did prior to the action that was warned. Quoting an offensive word originally typed up by someone else will still result in an "Offensive Content" infraction. Likewise, responding to a personal attack with a personal attack is not acceptable.

Each post at RCGroups has a "Report This Post to a Moderator" link. Simply click on that link to report a violation of the rules. If you report a post and do not see any action within a reasonable period of time, you can escalate the issue by posting a thread in Site Suggestions / Complaints.

Please note that while we allow all users to see the Recent Infractions, appeals are best made by the user who was warned.