iLounge Forum Policy

Commercial forum members MAY NOT advertise in the iLounge forums, or through the iLounge Private Message system.

Commercial forum members include manufacturers, individuals selling items he or she made for more than the cost of parts and/or actual shipping charges, individuals performing services (like modifications or any other service) for which the price charged is more than the cost of parts and/or actual shipping charges, dealers, distributors, manufacturer's representatives, importers, magazine and e-zine writers and others.

Advertising is defined by any of the following:

1. Press releases and other announcements regarding any current or upcoming products, services, websites, mailing lists, or deals -- however informal they may be. Any such announcements or press releases should be sent to for consideration in posting in the news section of the main iLounge.com website.
2. Display of your company URL in your signature. You may have a URL listed in your 'Homepage' field in your member Profile only.
3. Any commercial forum member, "past, present, or future", must denote their position within their company in their "Custom User Text" or "Title" as found within forum User Profile configuration page. For example "Designer", "Manufacturer", "Distributor", "Reseller", etc. The title must be clear and accurate.
4. No commercial forum member may use his/her business name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number or URL as part of his/her user name.
5. A commercial forum member may not volunteer any information about a specific product that he is selling or making, either in response to a general request for information about a type of product or in any other discussion in the forums or through the Private Message system. For example, Commercial forum members may not suggest their own products in any way when an iLounge member asks for advice on a pair of headphones.
6. Any commercial forum member caught posting about their products under the guise/profile of a non-commercial member risks consequences up to and including permanent forum banishment for all profiles.
7. Commercial forum members may not post negative comments about products/services of competitors.
8. A commercial forum member may not review (or make any subjective assessments of) his or her services and/or products he or she manufacturers, represents, sells.
9. No iLounge forum member, commercial or non-commercial, may post topics or replies on the forums on behalf of commercial forum members who may be banned from the iLounge forums.
10. Any non-commercial forum member wishing to contact a commercial forum member directly with a specific customer support issue must contact him/her either by Private Message or eMail.

In summary, iLounge welcomes commercial forum members to responsibly represent their company in response to specific, pressing technical questions regarding their products or services. Commercial Members are encouraged to submit their details to the iPod Gear & Repair Business Directory - this directory will enable our members to quickly identify iLounge forum members that represent a commercial business on this forum (manufacturers, distributors, resellers and repairs). However, anything that would be better communicated on the commercial member's own company website is not welcome on iLounge forums.

If you wish to purchase advertising space, you may contact our marketing department for rates. If you wish to have iLounge.com review or cover your product or service, feel free to submit it to for evaluation.

The only exception of the above set of rules is, of course, our Classifieds forum, which is set up for the sale of products between two non-commercial iLounge forum members.

No aggressive, personal attacks on someone just because of a disagreement with their point of view will be tolerated. Flaming is a cheap shot, the easy way out, and an immature & unintelligent way of "getting back" at another poster by simply being mean-spirited. It is used in lieu of intelligent, logical discourse because the flamer is incapable of intelligence and logic, so they fall back on a personal attack. Again, it will not be tolerated in the iLounge forums.

Now that the wonderful world of iPods has officially been opened by Apple to owners of both Windows PCs as well as Macintoshes, we have a very "platform diverse" community in the iLounge forums. So, while intelligent, rational discussion of the pros and cons of each platform as they relate to iPod are welcome (and expected), blatant "fanboyism" for either platform will not be tolerated. Terms such as "Winblows", "Macintrash", "Windoze", and "Crapintosh" are not appreciated by owners and users of the slighted platform, and serve no purpose other than to inflame the discussion. So, if all you can think to say is "Macs suck" or "PCs are crap", then just keep your opinion to yourself - please.

No posts obviously designed to attract flames or otherwise incite other posters to react negatively and aggressively will be tolerated. We are all in the iLounge forums based on one common trait - our love of the iPod, and we do not need to try and bait or trap each other. Doing so is a waste of time, space, and bandwidth.

No profanity in the iLounge forums, please. Not everyone wants to read foul or off-color language, and those who do not should not have to be subjected to it. This includes attempts to circumvent the word censor or any other form of word ma5k1ng. Also, please do not post links to pornography or other adults-only content.

"Sock puppets" or "Smurfs", (one user registering multiple times with multiple usernames) are forbidden at iLounge. Doppelgangers serve only divisive or deceptive purposes, neither of which is welcome at iLounge. Accounts known to be sock puppets will be closed and identifed as belonging to the user who opened them, and the user may be temporarily banned. Accounts created using sites which permit the bypassing of the registration system, such as www.bugmenot.com, are not permitted - such accounts will be banned.

If you decide you do not like the Username you registered with, please do not create a new account in order to change it - if you contact any Admin and your alternative Username is available we will change it for you. This also means you will retain your existing post count.

Please do not post links to illegally copied software. iLounge does not advocate or condone the illegal copying of software and will not tolerate such links in its forums. Further, posting links to "Warez" sites or serial numbers sites is forbidden, as is posting to ask for links to any of the above.

Anyone asking for or providing links to pirated CD-keys or serial numbers will be immediately banned, without warning.

While the various "P2P" file sharing applications that exist are not illegal by themselves, many people use these tools to share copyrighted music, videos or movies. Although local laws may vary on this, iLounge is an international community, and we therefore consider any discussions on sharing of copyrighted material to be inappropriate for our discussion forums. This also includes discussion about any sites that provide links to such material, either directly or via any file sharing technique.

The posting of any messages or links relating to schemes offering free or cheap iPods (of all types), or ANY referral type schemes, is prohibited on iLounge forums. It is spam and we consider it abuse of the forums and of our resources.

This is also considered as advertising in the forums, and is not allowed under our Advertising Policy.

Members who post such schemes may be suspended from the forums and if they continue to post may be banned altogether.

Please do not start more than one topic (in the same OR different forums) with the same question or message. Even if your topic's subject spans multiple forums' "themes", please pick the most appropriate single forum, and start your topic there ONLY. Starting multiple topics with the same question or message is confusing, splits up the discussion / answers and makes the moderators' jobs much harder. Please resist all temptation to cross post. Besides, the Moderators will lock duplicate threads as soon as they see them anyway.

Posting just to raise your post count (aka post whoring) - will not be tolerated in any form. If you think you will get more respect having more posts, you are mistaken. If an Admin or Moderator deems you are abusing your account in this manner, your post count will be zeroed.

(Post whoring is when you post messages back to back that could have been easily in 1 post or when you have innocuous conversations back and forth with minimal post material or content or even minimal word content for that matter. Please use the Private Message system for such conversations.)

Likewise, forum flooding is prohibited, as is spamming the forums with posts linking to other sites/forums (which is considered advertising). Post "bumps" will be deleted.

Members are not permitted to use the iLounge forums to solicit donations for whatever cause from other members.

Any such requests will be removed without warning and continued attempts to use the forums for such activity may result in temporary suspension of the members account.

The use of the iLounge forums to obtain free advertising or to promote other websites, blogs or discussion forums is not acceptable.

Neither is the soliciting of our members for other website forums permitted. Recruiting our members to other forums is strictly forbidden. If you are simply here to promote your own forum, then please refrain from doing so.

We are proud of the fact we have built our membership up over the years purely by "word of mouth" and would not consider visiting other forums to poach their members. Please respect this and do not post requests to visit your forum and register. Any such requests or posts will be removed. This also includes making posts with the express intention of driving traffic to your own blog or web page.

You are permitted to have your website included in your profile as a Homepage link, as long as that website/homepage does not breach any forum policy.

Discussions on methods of deliberately damaging or destroying an iPod (or other product) or misrepresenting damage in order to claim replacement under warranty or insurance will not be tolerated.

Such behaviour could be considered fraud and is not endorsed by or appropriate for discussion on iLounge.

If you are starting a new topic, please give some thought to which forum your topic logically belongs before posting. In particular, if your topic is Windows-specific or Mac-Specific, please do not post it in one of the generic "iPod" forums at the top of the forums list - they are intended for iPod topics that cross both platforms. Please post your Mac-specific or Windows-specific topic in one of the "iPod Mac" or "iPod Windows" forums, respectively. And, before posting a new topic in one of the "General" forums, please be sure it would not be more appropriate in one of the "Tech Support", "Software", or other more specific forums.

Also, we like to discuss all kinds of things in iLounge, and we like to have fun. So, there are forums provided for topics not related directly to the iPod (like "Music Explorations" and the catchall forum "The Lounge"). Feel free to use these forums for discussing other topics.

When starting a new topic, please give a little thought to coming up with a meaningful and descriptive subject, especially if you are looking for help or an answer to a question. With a descriptive topic subject, you will increase the likelihood that interested parties will open your topic. And, in the case of a question, you will more likely get a timely, knowledgeable answer.

We like to have fun in the iLounge forums, but not at the expense of getting people's questions answered. So, staying on topic is somewhat relative - as long as the original poster's question is answered in a timely fashion, some straying off topic will be tolerated. But it will always be discouraged if it comes at the expense of helping each other and getting questions answered and problems solved.

Before Posting a Question or Problem
PLEASE read the iLounge FAQs to see if your question is listed and answered there before posting it. While the iLounge Administrators, Moderators, and members are all very happy to answer questions and provide help, it gets very tiring (and time consuming) answering the same questions over and over in the forums. So, please help them all out and use the FAQs - that is what they are there for.

The same goes for the iLounge Tips & Tricks page before posting a question, or a "new" tip, please review this page to see if your question is answered here or if your tip has already been published on this page.

The third thing we ask you to do before posting a question or problem is to please use the search feature in the forums to see if your question has been answered or your problem has been solved before. Again, this helps the Administrators and Moderators a great deal. Since they all strive to insure that no one's question in the forums goes unanswered, answering you own question if possible will save them time (and typing!). So doing a little work up front to try and answer your question yourself is a huge help and is much appreciated.

In addition to entering a meaningful, descriptive subject (please see the General Guidelines) when starting a new question or technical support topic, please provide specifics in the post itself. Information such as:

• Type and model of computer
• OS version
• Model of iPod
• iPod firmware version
• Any specific error messages or description of what is (or is not) happening

It helps the people who want to help you, but will also greatly increase the likelihood that you will get an accurate answer in a timely manner. In fact, you might have already noticed that many long time iLoungers include the first four items in their profile's signature so that this information is displayed below each of their posts. This lets everyone else always know where they "are coming from" in regards to their own posts. Share the Wealth! If you have been helped by another iLounger, share the wealth by reaching out and answering someone else's questions when you can! That's what the iLounge forums are for - helping each other get the most out of our iPods. Your cooperation and adherence to these guidelines and suggestions is greatly appreciated. Doing so will insure that the iLounge forums continue to be the best place on the Internet for iPod information sharing and problem solving. See you in the forums!

While a little personal back and forth between two iLoungers that is probably not of interest to the rest of the community is fine, if it continues, please take it offline to the Private Message feature in the forums, or to e-mail. Please use your own discretion.

The misuse of the forum Private Messaging system is forbidden and is a breach of the Terms of Use:

"Correspondence Received and Communication: iLounge reserves the right to use as it sees fit any and all information or correspondence sent to it or its current or future Services via email, letters, phone, or any electronic or other means of communication. You acknowledge that any communication with or transmission to iLounge may be intercepted or read by others and is not confidential. No fiduciary relationship exists between you and iLounge. You represent, warrant, and covenant that you shall not upload, post, distribute or transmit through iLounge any information that (i) restricts or inhibits any other user from using or enjoying iLounge, (ii) in iLounge' discretion is unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, offensive, pornographic, profane, or indecent, (iii) constitutes or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or violate the law, (iv) violates, plagiarizes, or infringes on the rights of third parties, (v) contains a computer virus or other harmful component, or (vi) constitutes or contains false or misleading indications of origin or statements of fact."

Any PM's which are deemed "unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, offensive, pornographic, profane, or indecent" and which are reported to any staff member will result in the sender being banned. Further action may be taken if deemed necessary.

We currently limit signatures to a maximum of 5 lines of text and a maximum of 2 images. The maximum, combined, size of all images is 300 pixels wide and 50 pixels high. The maximum, combined, file size of these two images is 10kB. This is more than adequate for most members, and in is place so the members who still rely on a dial-up connection do not have to load every image when they access the Lounge - the more kB of data they have to load, the less likely they are to read/participate.

"Avatars" (icon representing a user) are enabled for members with 1500 posts (or more) and 365 days (or more) membership of the forums. Maximum Avatar size is 80x80 and no larger than 4KB and animated avatars are not permitted .

The use of any user title or signature which implies an official capacity in the forums, such as Helper, Moderator, Administrator etc, is not allowed. Any avatar or signature graphic which appears to imitate the official iLounge version, or uses any element of the design, will be removed without notification. Advertising in signatures/avatars is not allowed. Please see the forum policy section for commercial members for more details.

We reserve the right to remove any signatures/avatars, that we deem inappropriate, without notice.

The forums are staffed by a number of volunteer members who have been given these roles for their dedication, good judgement and professionalism. While their individual jobs vary with rank, they are primarily responsible for keeping the forum running on a day to day basis.

Moderators are not normally assigned to specific forums. They moderate any and all discussion forums within iLounge. Moderators are responsible for assisting users wherever possible, maintaining orderly discussions in the forums, ensuring threads are posted in the proper forums, keeping conversations on track, and addressing any threads or posts that are inappropriate and/or in violation of the forum policies.

To facilitate the performance of these duties, Moderators have the ability to delete, move, edit, or otherwise reorder any posts or close threads within any discussion forum. In addition, Moderators have the ability to ban users for clear violations of forum policies (ie, spamming).

Forum Helpers are essentially Junior Moderators who assist the Moderator staff by performing monitoring of the forums. They have similar powers to Moderators in dealing with threads and posts, but without the ability to actually delete posts or ban users. Their primary responsibility is to keep the forums organized and keep conversations on track.

All decisions made by staff should be considered final, if your topic has been closed or removed there's probably a good reason for it. If you want more information about why a decision was made then feel free to PM one of the moderation team.

Appointment as a Moderator/Helper is by invitation only. Moderators are selected based on their level of activity within the forums, their professionalism, judgement, maturity, and communication skills. We do not accept requests to become a Moderator/Helper. Asking will probably hurt your chances of getting picked. Just be here a lot and be helpful and who knows, you may be asked!

The Classifieds forum is provided by iLounge as a free 'marketplace' to buy, sell or trade iPods or iPod related items.

It is not to be used for the sale of products by or to commercial entities, as defined by the commercial forum policy found here.

Permitted Items

• iPods
• iPod accessories, such as cables, cases, speakers, headphones, docks, etc.
• Original CDs or other original recorded music formats.

Prohibited Items

• Computer software of any kind.
• Computer equipment such as laptops, desktop computers, monitors, or other peripherals that are not iPod related
• Non-iPod handheld devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), other MP3 players/DAPs, cellular phones, or portable gaming systems, whether or not they also happen to play digital audio/video content.
• Gift certificates/prepaid cards (e.g. iTunes Music Store or Apple Store gift cards).
• Personally recorded media of any kind. This includes any kind of content distributed on a recordable CD/DVD, casette, diskette, or any other media format, including the content of an iPod itself. While we recognize that we cannot force a user to erase their hard drive before selling their iPod, existing content of an iPod should not be advertised as a selling point.
• Any item or lot of items with a selling price in excess of $750 US.
• Other items that are not directly related to the use or care of an iPod or iPod accessory

Please note that the list of items above includes items for sale as well as requests to buy, and requests for trades. If you are not allowed to sell it, you are not allowed to trade it or advertise it for trade. Any adverts for prohibited items will be removed without notice.

All members making use of this forum should exercise caution in any deals that they may decide to follow up. While 99.5% of transactions close without a problem and both parties are usually satisfied, there are those individuals who like to take advantage and use the internet as a way to scam people out of their hard earned money.

We have set up a Buyer & Seller Feedback area for positive or negative feedback on previous transactions. You are advised to check the feedback on members before commencing.

You are strongly advised to use the most secure method of payment for any item you are buying or selling. Some general advice can be found here.

If we discover that a member has been involved in any dishonest activity in the forums we will ban that person and if there is evidence of a crime we will co-operate fully with the victim and/or law enforcement agencies to assist in making sure that justice is done.

Remember, we cannot guarantee that an individual is who they say they are, nor that they have the item they are selling.

When posting items, please keep the title of your thread concise, but include sufficient details to describe what you are selling. Also please include the prefix "FS:" (For Sale), "WTB:" (Wanted To Buy) or "WTT:" (Wanted To Trade) as this lets someone browsing the list clearly see the status of an item.

Once your thread is no longer necessary (e.g. you have sold your item), please close it. There is an option to do this in the "Thread Tools" menu at the top of the thread. Only close your thread when you are sure that you no longer need it. Closed threads will automatically be moved into the Archived Classifieds forum, as will threads with no activity in 60 days or more.

At iLounge, we welcome constructive posts regarding non-iPod digital players. Many members are interested in learning about other players, reading comparisons and reviews, and just keeping an eye on what else is out there.

What we don't welcome is trolls. We will immediately remove any thread or post that we decide has been made for the purpose of angering others and starting a flame war. We may question the motives of someone who has joined the forums just to make competitive player posts.

We will also remove any posts that are attacks or negative remarks about a non-iPod post that are made simply because the topic is about another player. Simply put, if you don't like someone posting here about another player, too bad. Just ignore it and stick to the iPod threads.

The discussion of methods of circumventing international purchase restrictions for the iTunes Store or other online services is not permitted in the iLounge forums.

Apple's terms of sale for the iTunes Store clearly state that each country's store is for use only by residents of that particular country. Discussing methods of purchasing content from the iTunes Store outside of your own country is a violation of Apple's terms of service and in some cases could even be construed as fraud.

The same applies to any other discussions of similar online services and methods of circumventing purchasing and/or billing restrictions for those services.

If you have come here to post about free/cheap iPods/iPhones/Macs, "recommend" DVD converter software (or any software), offer cheap mobile phones or post ANY spam then STOP!

You will be banned. End of story.

Using our resources to get free advertising is not something we are willing to allow. We will continue to remove posts which are spam and we will continue to ban members who insist on abusing our forums in this manner.

So your spam will last a few minutes, maybe even an hour or two, but it will be removed and so will you.