Registration to this website is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If at anytime you wish not to abide by these rules and policies then contact the administrator through the contact form to have your account removed, and immediately cease using the Extreme Astronomy website.

This is a community of astronomers, both professional and amateur as well as those with a budding interest in astronomy. Extreme Astronomy is a place where it's okay to be yourself as long as you always act with respect for your fellow members as well as the Extreme Astronomy staff. Our goal will be to treat our members as we would wish to be treated. You are not expected to leave your personality at the door. There are going to be topics and discussions that will have heated debates. Please think before you post and re-read what you type before you post it. Keep your comments limited to the debate at hand and do not make this a personal issue between you and another member.

The membership at Extreme Astronomy, consists of a tremendous diversity in age, race, gender, language, location (worldwide) and more. There will be a lot of varying opinions on different subjects. We're all human beings and we're all drawn to this site because we have a common bond in astronomy. We will willingly listen to your suggestions and complaints, and try to incorporate your ideas into the Board.

If you come across any violations to these rules and policies and those that follow, or have any problems navigating the site, do not hesitate to let us know through the Extreme Astronomy Contact Form. We will be happy to address your concerns. Here at Extreme Astronomy we encourage everyone to participate in and enjoy the Community while at the same time adhering to all of the rules and policies:

Be Welcoming
When newcomers arrive, welcome them to our growing community. Many of our community's senior members are a wealth of knowledge and have much to share. Help new members learn about how to find information and resources, save time, and how to get involved in the Community.

Be Courteous
Don't attack others. Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully ... without insult and personal attack.

Be Cautious
Think before you post or speak: Do you really want to put your address or telephone number on a public discussion forum? We encourage you to keep personal information private and not post them in any place accessible to the general public, such as the forums on this board.

In the same vein, do not ask for personal information from others. Discussion forum posts that request members to submit personal information to another party will be removed upon detection. Information that should be considered personal includes but is not limited to your home phone number, name, and age. If you must give this out for any reason, please do so privately.

Be Appropriate
Explicit, obscene or vulgar language, graphics, inappropriate behavior, and illegal activities will not be tolerated. Posts containing explicit, obscene, illegal content, or vulgar language will be removed upon detection. Posts that solicit or offer explicit or X-rated GIFs, JPEGs or similar content files will be deleted without notice! Links to Websites with adult content/images anywhere on the site will be removed upon detection. The appropriate law enforcement agency will be notified should any behavior of a member be considered illegal by the Extreme Astronomy staff.

Be Ethical
The Extreme Astronomy  website: resources, articles and discussions are based on basic, appropriate professional ethical behavior. Unethical behavior: use of other administrators member lists for PM invites, email invites, spamming, warez, license sharing, and other illegal activities are completely inappropriate and will result in the loss of membership at Extreme Astronomy.

Signature Guidelines

-    No large font sizes.
-    The maximum number of lines in a signature is 3.
-    No images allowed in signatures except for a maximum of 2 smilies.
-    Signature text should comply with our regular posting rules. No all-caps, no alternating caps, etc..
-    Signature text that is too long or obtrusive will be removed. This would include overly creative use of punctuation, color, etc. which make the signature too flashy.
-    Signatures with just your user name will be removed. User names are on the top of every post, so there's no need to have it in your signature too.
-    No Links

If your signature is in violation of any of these new rules, the Staff may remove it without prior notice. If you have any questions as to whether something is acceptable, please PM a Staff Member.

No Cross-Posting
Do not post the same discussion more than once on a discussion forum or on many forums. Duplicate discussions are frustrating and counterproductive for other members, especially for those whose time and energy is limited. Duplicate discussions will be deleted.

No Advertising – Spam
Do not heedlessly place your advertisements through the Discussion Forums. This will be considered SPAM and could result in the loss of your Admin Zone Community Membership. Affiliate links are not allowed within the forums. If you wish to promote a particular program then promote the program not your own affiliate tie with it.

No Abuse of Extreme Astronomy messaging systems (PM's, IM's, and email form)
Personal Messaging is provided to the members of Extreme Astronomy as a service intended to enhance the Community experience. The purpose of personal messaging is to allow for discreet conversations to take place between members. This privilege is not to be abused! Solicitation, spamming, or harassment of any kind is strictly forbidden. Any member receiving an inappropriate personal message should forward that message to an Administrator or Moderator right away. Although PM's are normally only accessible by those who send and receive them, they are part of the database and as such, property of Extreme Astronomy. An Administrator, if so inclined, could locate the Private Messages in the database and read them. They are private, but not necessarily secret. In addition, Private Messages are not intended to deprive the Community of valuable information or experiences which could benefit the entire group. Please do not use private messages if the content of the message can be helpful to others.

Competing Sites & Linking
The internet is a big place, and it's no surprise that from time to time a site will come along whose mission is to occupy the same niche as Extreme Astronomy. We have no issue with that. However, it would be against our best interests, and therefore the best interests of our members, for us to allow such sites to build upon our popularity by promoting themselves on Extreme Astronomy. Therefore, no competing site may attempt to gain traffic from Extreme Astronomy in any way, including but not limited to links in posts, signatures, profile information, PM's, emails, or IM's. The only acceptable place to advertise a site of any sort is in the Links section of the site. All links submitted to the Links section are subject to review. Only astronomy related sites will be considered for inclusion in the Link section.

No Copyrighted Material
Information copyrighted or owned by any individual or entity other than the member should not be posted on the discussion forums or anywhere else on Extreme Astronomy without the consent of the owner. If such an event occurs, the individual posting the information shall be held solely responsible. Extreme Astronomy shall not be held responsible for member-posted information that may violate copyright law.

You cannot legally post entire articles or news in the forum without permission from the copyright holder. Even if you attribute the article correctly it’s still copyright infringement. Copyright law does not care if you make any money off of the work or not, what matters is if you hurt the potential income of the copyright holder. In this case you would be depriving them of ad revenue and it is illegal. Under Fair Use provisions you can legally post a small abstract of an article - or perhaps the opening paragraph. So if you want to post an article you should do this and include a link, or just post the link. The exception to this rule is press releases; press releases are meant for distribution and can be copied and distributed as much as you want. If you are not sure if you can copy something then always err on the side of caution and simply post a link to the material.


Extreme Astronomy Discretion
Extreme Astronomy and its assigned agents reserves the right to remove a post which does not relate to the topic being discussed in the forum. In addition, Extreme Astronomy reserves the right to organize discussion forums in order to best serve the majority of our members. For example, narrow-interest or minimal activity topics may, at the discretion of Extreme Astronomy staff, be relocated to a more appropriate discussion forum, or deleted entirely. Extreme Astronomy or its assigned agents also reserves the right to prohibit or delete discussions that are thought to violate applicable law or that may be harmful to other members or Extreme Astronomy or others. We cannot ensure prompt removal of offending or illegal posts or content. We also reserve the right to remove your membership from Extreme Astronomy should you violate these guidelines, or at the sole discretion of the site administrator and staff.

Considering the real-time nature of this bulletin board, it is impossible for Extreme Astronomy to review all messages or confirm the validity of information posted. Please remember that Extreme Astronomy does not actively monitor the contents of all posted messages and is not responsible for any messages posted. Extreme Astronomy does not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and is not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of  Extreme Astronomy or any entity associated with the Extreme Astronomy. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. Extreme Astronomy has the ability to remove objectionable messages and will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if it is determined that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, so please realize that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately, in fact, we may not edit or delete posts that break our rules at all. We have many time constraints on us and cannot guarantee that we will be able to edit or delete posts that break the rules/user agreement. If you do not agree with this then do not view or register at Extreme Astronomy. Although this Discussion Forum does not and cannot review the messages posted and is not responsible for the content of any of these messages, we at Extreme Astronomy reserve the right to delete any message for any or no reason whatsoever. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Extreme Astronomy, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited (the makers of the bulletin board software), and their agents with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s) or other content provided by you. We at Extreme Astronomy also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or whatever information we know about you) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you.

Use of the site is at the discretion of the Administration of  Extreme Astronomy, and that any use may be terminated by the Administration at any time.

Extreme Astronomy is a provider of an "interactive computer service". Postings on Extreme Astronomy are "provided by another information content provider" and not Extreme Astronomy unless posted by the owner. Extreme Astronomy is not the "publisher or speaker" of any posts in the discussion forums unless posted by the owner.

The user agrees as a condition of registering at Extreme Astronomy to be truthful in regard to all information given during the registration process, to use the site as per the instructions, not to disclose his password to others for use, and that the site has a license (permission) for use of anything the user submits or posts to the site.

At Extreme Astronomy we take matters of privacy very seriously. This is an outline of the information that Extreme Astronomy gathers, how it’s used, and how you can opt out.

We invite you to contact us if you have questions about this policy. You may contact us via our contact form here.

Logging Activity

Whenever you request a page through your browser data such as your IP address, browser and version, OS, date and time and the site from which you came are stored in a log file and/or database. Any search terms that you enter into the the Extreme Astronomy Site Search are also logged. This information cannot be used to identify specific individuals, and is only used for site administration, research and development, and anonymous user analysis. This information is kept on a secure dedicated server.

Email

From time to time, the Administrators of this bulletin board may want to send you email notices. If you do not want to receive these notices, you may disable this option via your UserCP.

Your email address will not be disclosed to any third party.

Cookies

Cookies are a technology which can be used to provide you with tailored information from a website. A cookie is an element of data that a website can send to your browser, and which your browser may then store on your system. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie. Doing this will allow you to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to accept cookies or not.

Cookies on this site are used for storing login information, statistical site-traffic analysis, our ad management system, and occasionally by advertisers who use 3rd party ad serving solutions.

The information collected during the registration process for the Extreme Astronomy Community is used to contact members, customize content based upon user preferences, display member status, and display the date of a member’s last visit.

Information collected in this process can also be used to prevent banned users from re-registering under a different username. The email address will only be seen by moderators and administrators if the "Keep your email address viewable to other users when you post notes?" option is set to no. Cookies may be sent to your browser to enable automatic log-ins upon further visits, as well as for content customization.

Any data collected will be used by us and our agents.

Contact Us

If you have questions regarding our privacy policies, or require assistance in opting out of our email lists, please contact us via our contact form.