Hi all,
We’ve come up with rules and general site etiquette in response to overwhelming member demand and we hope that helps.
Thanks
Your Lycos iQ team
Site rules:
Swearing is not permitted. This is an all-ages site, so obscene words and phrases are not allowed. Some impolite words and expressions may be used, but as a general rule if it couldn’t be said on television before the watershed, don’t say it here. Racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise discriminatory language is forbidden. Starring out certain letters of a swear word, or abbreviating it, are also not permitted.
The same rule applies to pictures, videos, links or avatars. No obscene or vulgar images, no links to inappropriate material.
Questions or answers that encourage illegal activity are not permitted, from software or music piracy to physical violence or drug abuse.
It is not permitted to advertise your own services or website or anything else on Lycos iQ. You must not ask questions about the best budget furniture store in the West Midlands if you own a budget furniture store in the West Midlands.
Behaviour towards other members must be polite. We don’t expect people to agree on everything, especially in answers given to opinion questions on emotive topics. However, members must not directly insult one another, harass one another, accuse one another or hold vitriolic disagreements in the public areas of the site.
Copying content from other sites is only permitted if you give a link - it must be made clear that you are not attempting to pass off another person’s or site’s work as your own.
Nonsense questions - single word questions, random collections of letters and numbers, questions that don’t make sense at all - are liable to be removed. An opportunity may be given for the questioner to clarify what he or she meant to ask. Questions should be in English. Nonsense answers are less likely to be removed, as the member asking the question can rate them ‘not helpful’.
Asking the same question over and over again will result in most of the versions of the question being deleted. If a question has been repeated several times in the space of a few minutes it is likely to be the result of a bug. The version of the question with the most answers will be the one that is left on the site. Asking questions that have been asked before by other members isn’t abuse as long as it isn’t done several times on the same day.
Do not give out personal information on the site. You may if you so choose include your email address on your profile, but please do not post email addresses, phone numbers or anything else of that nature in questions, answers or comments.
Excessively personal questions are not permitted. Questions such as “How are we all feeling today?” are not acceptable. Questions should be general and able to be answered by all members; it is not permitted to ask questions addressed to just one member - in those cases please use the messaging system. Members must not use questions to thank other members for their answers (that is what comments or messages are for). Questions must not be used to wish members a happy birthday (again, comments or messages should be used). There are exceptions - if a member is known to be unwell it is acceptable to ask how they are getting on. The tradition of congratulating members on reaching the rank of ‘Einstein’ is also fine.
General opinion questions are, of course, fine, but they must have some substance to them. “What do you think of Harry Potter?” is fine. “Have you read the latest Harry Potter yet?” is not, unless it is supplemented with a request for opinion. Opinion questions that encourage one-word answers (”do you like Coke or Pepsi best?”) are not permitted. It is interesting to read other’s opinions on political issues or television programmes; it is neither interesting nor useful to read a list of which soft drinks people like.
Almost any type of opinion question is acceptable as long as it encourages substantial answers.
It is not allowed to ask questions that are just links to questionnaires or games on other sites. These are ultimately no different to spam. Questions which ask members to come up with funny captions for pictures are not allowed either.
It is not permitted to have more than one user name on iQ. If you want to remove your current username and start a new one that’s fine - please contact a moderator to do so.
General etiquette:
It is considered bad form to post answers on factual questions that do not add any new information - this is likely to lead to accusations that you are ‘point poaching’. If you do it on a guest question there is a good chance that your answer may be removed.
When rating answers to your questions, do not be afraid to rate questions as ‘not helpful’ if you did not find them helpful - if they didn’t address the question, for instance, or if they were humorous answers when you were looking for serious ones. There is one important exception to this, though:
It is considered extremely bad form to rate answers to opinion questions as ‘not helpful’. If you ask for the opinions of other people, you must be prepared to accept that they may not all agree with your opinion. Obviously if someone leaves a nonsensical answer you can rate that as not helpful with clear conscience.
If you have a personal disagreement with another member and cannot resolve it civilly, please just ignore or blacklist the member in question rather than bombarding them with snide remarks. If you have blacklisted another member, please refrain from answering their questions or commenting on their answers.
When answering a question, please try to provide the best answer you can.
Read the question carefully and make sure you give the information the questioner has asked for rather than just googling a few key words and pasting the first link that comes up.
Although there are no rules about how many questions can be posted in a short space of time, please don’t flood the site or you risk making yourself unpopular. A few questions every hour should be sufficient.
Don’t be afraid to use the report abuse button if you see content on the site that you feel goes against one of the rules listed above. Abuse reports are treated with confidentiality - they are simply the easiest way of bringing something to the attention of the moderators. However, moderators will not always agree with you, so don’t expect everything you report as abuse to be removed as a matter of course. You can also use the report abuse button to request to have your own questions or answers removed (if, for instance, you have answered the wrong question by mistake).
Moderators:
If you disagree with a decision a moderator has made then you can send a message to a different moderator to appeal against it.
Unless you do something spectacularly bad you will always receive an official warning before being deactivated. Repeated bad behaviour in a short space of time may result in a temporary suspension of your account, which may be reactivated after a ‘cooling off’ period.