Terms and rules

As with any community, Terms and rules are important to keep the community running smoothly. Please keep in mind our rules whenever posting to keep our community pleasant for members and guests alike. Note that the list below is not exhaustive, so use common sense for anything that is not specifically detailed here.

1. Please be courteous and respect your fellow members. Do not make personal attacks anywhere on our site. We do not tolerate rude, aggressive, vitriolic, and/or contemptuous behavior toward an individual or group. Comment on the content, not on the individual. Derogatory comments about others may be removed by any moderator and/or editor. Repeated or egregious personal attacks will lead to sanctions including blocks or even bans.


2. Spamming and trolling are not allowed. This includes using the forum's e-mail, conversations (AKA: private messaging or PM), and site Reactions to spam other members.


3. Commercial promotion of goods and services is strictly prohibited without a Business account and/or prior consent from the site administrators.


4. Start your new threads in the most relevant forum nodes.


5. No link dumping. Do not create empty posts with a single link and/or a couple of words and a link. For example, if you are going to link to a news article, add an image and/or provide a decent summary of it to give some context to the reader. Abusing this will get hyperlinking permissions removed from your account, all posting permissions removed, and/or spam banned from the site.


6. You are allowed to post embedded content in thread discussions, however, use moderation when it comes to loosely relevant images and videos. Do not flood official threads. Such actions may be considered spamming. Instead, we encourage you to create new threads (and use prefixes such as Videos, Video Reviews, Pictures, Reviews, Comparison Tests, Photos, etc.), or post your content on existing media-related threads.


7. When quoting comments, please only quote the relevant part and not the entire message. Wherever possible, avoid quoting large posts in full or posts immediately preceding your own.


8. When responding to multiple posts in a thread, do so in a single post, rather than posting two or more times in succession (use multi-quote instead).


9. Do not copy and paste large sections of text from other sources, claiming it as your own work, otherwise known as plagiarism.


10. Use self-moderation when posting content that contains more than one link. Excessive postings of remote articles that do not enhance ongoing conversations may be considered spamming and as such, you may get certain access permissions removed and/or your account permanently banned.


11. Encouraging respectful behaviour. Members come from all over the world to share experiences, opinions, and knowledge. Healthy discussion and disagreement are welcome, but respectful conduct is expected at all times. We may remove, relocate, or limit the visibility of certain sensitive content where necessary to balance the safety, interests, and wellbeing of the broader community. If you have a disagreement with another member, we encourage respectful resolution between the parties involved. However, harassment, threats, rule violations, or repeated disruptive conduct should be reported to staff through the appropriate reporting channels.


12. No Flaming. A "flame" is when you insult someone. Don’t use insults, swear or use any words that are deemed inappropriate, anywhere in the forum. If you flame someone, you are risking being banned. The staff can’t read every single post on the forum; however, in the event that an inappropriate post is overlooked, there is a strong chance that someone will report it. Any threads/posts of this type may be deleted and/or blocked from view, which may also lead to member sanctions, including temporary and permanent bans.


13. Following the previous rule, we reserve the right to remove offensive content without notice.


14. While debating and discussing is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks, name-callings, deceitfulness, or purposeless inflammatory posts.


15. No nudity, partial nudity, animal cruelty, bodily mutilation, or material that is sexually explicit, racist, or harassing.


16. Do not post violent content. Do not post content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people; likewise, do not post content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. We understand there are sometimes reasons to post violent content (e.g., educational, newsworthy, artistic, satire, documentary, etc.) so if you’re going to post something violent in nature that does not violate these terms, ensure you provide context to the viewer so the reason for posting is clear. If your content is borderline, please use an NSFW tag. Even mild violence can be difficult for someone to explain to others if they open it unexpectedly.


17. You agree not to post messages with content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party. Please add a reference and/or reference link at the bottom of your post whenever you quote or paraphrase materials owned by others.


18. All content must be posted in English as it is not possible for us to moderate the forums otherwise. In very specific cases, foreign languages may be used, provided an English translation is provided as well.


19. Do not "bump" threads nor create duplicate threads.


20. Avoid reviving very old inactive threads ("necroposting") unless your contribution adds meaningful new information, updates, technical insight, or relevant discussion. Where appropriate, create a new thread instead.


21. Please refrain from posting meaningless threads, nonsense posts, or one-word (or short) posts.


22. Multiple or repeated posting in order to increase your post count is not allowed. These posts will be deleted and the posters' privileges will be temporarily suspended.


23. Discussion of illegal activities such as software and music piracy and other intellectual property violations are not allowed.


24. Posts of a political and/or religious nature are only permitted within the In the news section of the site.


25. When posting images, please upload them as attachments. This is by far the best practice. If for some reason you are not able to upload your images, please consider using a free image hosting service. Linking directly to images hosted on remote websites is not good practice; remotely linked images can be changed or removed from the host site at any time, resulting in broken links.


26. Please do not discuss rule breaches or moderating decisions in public; use the Report system or contact a moderator directly via Conversation.


27. Respect the role and contribution of the administrators and moderators of this forum. The moderators have been selected by virtue of their conduct, experience, knowledge, and commitment to this forum. Forum moderation is undertaken as a collective and not by individual moderators and as such is sanctioned by the owners of this site. Do not question, attempt to discredit, or harass individual members of the moderation team.


28. Posts discussing or arguing about site policies or moderator actions are not allowed and will be deleted.


29. Creating more than one personal account is generally not allowed, except with specific requests and/or approval by the site owner(s) or site management. Otherwise, if duplicate accounts are discovered, such account duplicates may be banned.

A. General Guidelines

While these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently, we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.

Any member breaking these rules may find their messages being edited or removed. Additionally, they may be issued warnings and have restrictions placed on their account. Persistent or extreme offenders may also be subject to bans, either temporary or permanent, although this would be a last resort and one which we would hope to avoid whenever possible.

If you suspect a comment of breaking the rules, do not respond publicly, just report it. To report a message for any reason, click on the "Report" link which can be found at the bottom of all forum, conversation, and profile messages, adjacent to the date stamp. All reports are investigated by the moderating team, who are the only ones with access to the information. There is no need to be concerned about repercussions from other forum members as they will be unaware that the message has been reported, or by whom.

Finally, the staff reserves the right to ban anyone who willfully violates our site rules and, in addition to all the above rules and guidelines, the staff has the final say on what is appropriate content and what is not.

B. Posting of AI images

AI-generated and AI-enhanced images are permitted where they contribute meaningfully to discussion and are relevant to the subject matter of the thread.

Images using AI for minor enhancements, such as colour correction, sharpening, restoration, upscaling, or similar editing, are permitted when based on genuine photographs or existing media.

AI-assisted renderings, design concepts, or visualisations based on real-world vehicles, spy shots, concept cars, existing models, or credible automotive speculation may also be shared where intended to illustrate potential design direction or encourage discussion.

Where practical, members are encouraged to disclose when an image has been created or modified using AI, and whether the image is their own work or sourced from elsewhere.

Purely AI-generated imagery created solely from prompts, without a clear connection to real-world vehicles, automotive discussion, or the subject matter of the thread, should be limited to designated AI image threads or sections.

Content that does not comply with these guidelines may be removed at the discretion of the moderation team.

Additional Information

Enforcement
We have a variety of ways of enforcing our rules, including, but not limited to:

• Informal reminders or warnings
• Formal warnings
• Temporary or permanent suspension of accounts
• Removal of privileges or account restrictions
• Restricted access to specific forums or threads
• Removal of content

Do not scrape our Content
As mentioned in our Terms above, you may only use or reproduce the Content for your own personal and non-commercial use. The framing, scraping, data-mining, extraction, or collection of the Content in any form and by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited.

Changes
We may update these Terms and Rules from time to time. If we make a material change, at our sole discretion, we may provide additional notice, such as a site announcement, front-page notice, or member notification. By continuing to use our Services after updated Terms and Rules take effect, you agree to the revised version.