The FFCobra Bill of Rights 1.8 - rev. 1/2007

Here are some basic policies for the FFCobra forums. Please try and maintain these guidelines to ensure a smooth running forum without bantering and ill feelings. If you ever feel someone is not abiding by these rules, please contact us and we will review the topic and either ask the person to edit the statements or we may delete the comments that are out of line.  We may delete, modify, or close any topic we feel that is not following our guidelines or if the topic just rubs us the wrong way.  We don't like to ban people from our site, but if you post something that upsets the balance we may ban you without warning.

Vendor Relations and Experiences

POLICY: Please try and resolve product problems with vendors before "venting" on the site. Venting may sound harmless, but can create ill feelings to parties that are involved. Only the parties DIRECTLY involved in a vendor/customer interaction are welcome to post about the experience. Fellow members with useful suggestions based on solid facts, remedies, and solutions, rather than personal opinions and personal attitudes, may respond.

COMMENT: There is value in sharing experiences where the sharing brings a swift end to a real problem someone else is having. What is oh-so hateful and destroying in forums is when people with hate in their hearts and foul agenda's reply and it becomes useless gossip and innuendo, then it becomes childishness. I don't think it has to be too cumbersome to police. I think we are a mature group of people who want to keep our little serene (usually) post-haven a fun place to frequent.

Respect Your Fellow Members

POLICY: Do not belittle, disparage, ridicule, or make fun of a fellow member. This includes name-calling, questioning people’s integrity/knowledge in a disparaging way, or openly trashing someone’s reputation online.  Do not take things personal and don't cause trouble.

COMMENT: The Internet is a funny place. It’s easy for people to think that they’re a 7’ tall, 300 pounds Kick-boxer while online. Just try and post comments that you wouldn’t mind saying to someone in person. We will be having events in the future and you may one day have to face that person, so be careful what you say. You don’t want to be watching your back at Roadster events, do you?  If you like to post comments just to "stir things up" you are posting on the wrong site. We don't tolerate trouble makers or people who want to post radical comments. 

Treat New Members With Kid Gloves

POLICY: All new members will be treated with an equal amount of respect as long standing members. We will not forget that we were they once. Allow them to post questions and answer the question even if it has been asked and answered 100 times somewhere else or can be found on the FFR FAQ pages. If you feel so strongly about directing people to search old topics instead of answering the question, just kindly tell them the answer and say, "you can also find that information by performing a search or by looking at the FFR FAQ."

COMMENT: We love new members because they aspire to own a car like the one we’ve already built or are currently building. These people just want to hang out and pick our brains. If we could exchange beer here, they would even buy us a beer and sit and listen for hours about what we have to say. This is a good thing; let’s encourage questions and comments, no matter how ridiculous or insignificant it may sound.

Religion, Race and Politics

POLICY: This site is dedicated to Factory Five kit cars, not religion, race or politics. We don't mind off topic posts from time-to-time, but please refrain from discussing religious beliefs, political views or race. This is not the place.

COMMENT: It's way too easy to hurt someone's feelings when discussing life issues such as religion, political views, and/or the color of someone's skin or ethic background. The reason this site works is because we talk about cars and events, without discussing topics such as these. Let's refrain from these topics to avoid hurting one of our fellow friends. We are diverse culture and this forum should reflect that. We are all brothers of the Roadster and that's what should matter the most.

Using The Forum to Sell Products/Services (Commercial Posting)

POLICY: Supporting vendors pay for the considerable bandwidth charges on the Forum, making it FREE for the members.  In exchange, they get the privilege of using the Forum to market and promote their goods and services. Supporting Vendors (paid advertisers) are allowed to inform members of their products and services.

Only Supporting Vendors can post Group Purchases.

We do not allow non-supporting vendors or persons to post about their products, services, group purchases, charities, clubs, etc. Non-paying vendors are not allowed to host group purchases on our site.

Forum members are welcome to use the Classifieds to sell a parts purchased for their own personal use. Anything else is considered to be a commercial sale. No links or reference to eBay sales, please.  If the sale is appropriate for the Forum, post it on the Forum, rather than linking to it elsewhere.

We don't allow people to post anything related to charity, raffles, asking for donations, etc. without the written permission of the administrators.  If you post anything related to a raffle, charity, etc. you can be banned without notice.

COMMENT:  To be fair to all businesses, we require an ad to be purchased before trying to do business on the site.  It would not be fair to allow an individual or business the opportunity to sell products to our members for free, when we have vendors who are trying to make a living supporting this industry and is showing their support by purchasing a banner ad.  Our ads are far below the Internet average. We charge less that a penny for every ten ads that appear, or $1.30 per 1,000 (CPM). The industry average is over $16 per CPM.  So if a business is legitimate, it should be able to afford an ad.

Lately we have had a lot of people just selling parts on our site. These members don't participate in the forum discussions and add no valve to the site.  They need to use eBay or pay for a banner ad on our site. Our prices are much cheaper than eBay and we don't charge for each sale or each listing.  Don't abuse the free classifieds and ruin it for the participating members.

Just about every week, we get people asking us to allow them to post about their charity, raffle, events, etc.  It's hard to say what charity is real and which is not, so we don't allow any of these types of posts.   if you have a real charity that needs to be promoted, contact the administrators and ask for permission to promote your charity. In general, the answer will always be no.  There will be exceptions when the request comes from a long-time member who contributes on a regular basis.  But only if they can provide proof that the charity is real.

Screen Names, Signatures and Avatars

POLICY: Screen names, signatures and avatars need to be kid friendly.  Do not use your business name or website address for your screen name unless you are a Supporting Vendor.  Do not link to outside websites in your signature unless you are a supporting vendor or are posting a link to your build site.  Any link to a commercial business, charity, non-profits, etc is against the rules.

COMMENT:  We have many young people visiting our site and many members use our site while at work. We don't want to cause any problems for the users, so please consider this when choosing a screen name and avatar. Using a business name or your web site address in a screen name is another way of "selling" on the forum.  It's OK if you are a supporting vendor, otherwise it's against the forum rules.

Directing People to Other Web Sites

POLICY: Please do not try and direct people to commercial sites. This is commonly called "SPAM".  If you do this, you will be banned from the site without warning and won't be allowed back.  If you own a competing site or think it might be viewed as a competing site, do not post a link to your site or post a link in your signature without asking for permission.  If you do this without our permission, you will be banned from our site without warning.

Do not link to build sites with Wiki's, FFR Wiki's or FFR related forums. We consider these sites as competition and we therefore not allowed. This will get you instantly banned from the forum.

COMMENT: We hate spammers and will do all we can to delete your post and track you down. Please respect our site and stay away.  If you have a competing site, an Internet business, or an automotive related site we should not have to explain this rule any further.

Off Topic Posts

POLICY: We do not want off topic posts unless it is a benefit to the group.  Don't post anything that would offend someone. This site is not here to solve the problems of the world.  We are here to have fun and go away with a smile.  If you think your post might upset someone, then DO NOT POST it. 

COMMENT:  Too many people get upset when they read something and they disagree with it. This causes heated arguments over the Internet and it never solves anything except causing hard feelings and allows somebody to spend hours writing something so they can "make their point".

More About Off Topic Posts: Try to keep Off Topic posts that relate to Roadsters, sports cars, or light hearted topics. Sometimes you may post something about a fellow member. Such as new babies, deaths, personal hardships, personal accomplishments and supporting vendor promos.

COMMENT: Off topic posts tend to be the thing that brings down a well ran forum. Our site is successful because we don't get too personal. We keep it light and "on topic" 99% of the time. Off topic posts also tend to bring in people without Roadster replicas to give their 2 cents. And sometimes these people get too emotional and personal. Maybe if they had a car to build they would have less time to post negative comments? Anyway, if we keep it on topic most of the time, we won't have these issues.

Photo & Video Sharing

POLICY: Posting photos and videos is acceptable if it is related to helping someone build a Roadster or upgrade a car. Do not post off topic photos or videos, please link them. Many users are on dial up, so be mindful of using photos because it makes the pages load slow. No nudity. Please refrain from posting girls with cars, unless it's a Roadster. And then, please warn people in your post and link the photo.  Please do not post something that a mother would not want her 10 year old son to see.

COMMENT: This policy is in affect to keep the site loading fast and to not offend users. Our site is here to help others build Roadster replicas. All it takes in one girly picture to turn someone off and they leave the site. We don't need to run someone off just because of a photo. If you think you have a questionable photo to share, ask a moderator for direction.  Remember, there are many young kids watching our site and dreaming of owning a Roadster one day; so let's keep it clean.

How to Complain

POLICY: Complaints about the forum or a member of the forum.
Before posting a negative comment about our site or a member, please give us some respect and first try emailing the moderators or owners of FFCobra about your problem or concern. If you then feel you still need to vent, please include a possible solution to your concern. This includes posting general complaints about other members.

COMMENTS: Negative comments do nothing but fuel the fire for bad relationships. This site was created to help others build Factory Five cars. That’s it, nothing more. If we can help you build your dream car, then we have succeeded. We’re not here to entertain you, argue with you, debate world topics, or help you with other things going on in your life. We are a car site and more specifically, a site dedicated to Roadster replicas. Please try and stay the course.

Street Racing Topics

POLICY: Please do not post topics that are related to street racing, exhibitions of speed or reckless driving on the street  or "kill stories". This includes linking to street racing discussions, street racing videos, street racing stories, etc. FFCobra.com does not condone street racing.

COMMENTS: Street racing is stupid and can be deadly. We have many young people coming to our site and we don't want to encourage them to street race. Do not post anything related to street racing. If you do, the thread may be deleted or locked and you are subject to being immediately banned without a warning.

Relax and Have Fun

POLICY: This is a site dedicated to helping people build cars. It's not a place to cause trouble or stir up an argument.

COMMENTS: The down fall of many automotive related sites come from members who don't respect the rules set by the forum. We have some simple rules and we do enforce them.  Don't get mad if we put you in your place. Don't take it personal, we are just trying to keep the site check.  Take a deep breath and relax. Come back with a better attitude and enjoy the benefits of the site.

Spamming Our Members

POLICY: Anyone posting spam to our site will be banned. Please help control our sites integrity by using the "Report Topic" button and alerting the moderators.

COMMENTS: We ban spammers and their IP addresses.  This can cause trouble for other people logging on, so if you have a log-in problem because your IP has been added to the banned list, please contact the admin and we'll correct the situation.

Go back to the FFR FAQ