Introduction
The forum on www.imker-kiel.de offers all beekeepers the opportunity to freely and undisturbed exchange information on all topics related to bees and beekeeping. In order for this to happen on a lasting and constructive basis, rules are necessary. Please read the following rules carefully; they are binding for every user of this forum.
Legal Binding Nature
The Internet is not a lawless space; the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany are valid in this forum, and you are obligated to comply with them. Please note that violation can result in criminal and civil law consequences. Each user is responsible for the posts they publish. By registering, you confirm that you accept that every post in this forum reflects the opinion of its author and that the administrators, moderators, and operators of this forum are only responsible for their own posts. Please remember that you do not appear anonymously in this forum and that the operator can identify you through stored data (e.g., via IP address). In case of doubt, we are legally obligated to forward connection data, etc. to law enforcement authorities.
Participation
There is no right to participate in the forum community. Active participation in the forum cannot be claimed, demanded, or otherwise enforced in any way. The forum operator reserves the right to deny users active participation in the community temporarily or permanently, even without providing specific reasons.
Registration
Active participation in the forums is only possible after prior registration and provision of a valid email address and your full name. You agree that the data collected during registration will be stored in a database.
Account
Each user may only have one user account. An account may not be passed on or transferred. Sharing an account with third parties will result in the suspension of all accounts involved. If a user has been banned from participating in the community, re-registration under a new name is not permitted. If a user has been banned, they can contact the appropriate moderator or an administrator at any time via email and request clarification; discussion of the matter in the forum is not permitted. There is no right to an account in this forum.
Conduct and Netiquette
In the forum area, the netiquette customary for forums and newsgroups must be observed. Treat other forum participants the way you would like to be treated. Always remember that you are dealing with people and not virtual personalities. The tone of discussion in the forums must be friendly, polite, and factual. The opinion of others must be respected. Factual criticism is welcome, but not derogatory criticism or attacks on persons in a disparaging manner. Offensive language, profanity, sexist or racist terms, or otherwise objectionable expressions are not permitted here. Do not forget that CAPITAL LETTERS, unnecessary font sizes over 14, and posts formatted entirely in bold text in a forum, just as in an email, are interpreted as shouting and can accordingly be perceived as impolite.
It is forbidden for all forum users to ask others to leave the forum. Violation of this rule will be punished with at least a warning and in serious cases up to exclusion from the forum.
Spelling and Grammar
Since the beekeeping forum lives on information and scientific contributions, the appropriate expression and spelling should be used accordingly. Therefore, we ask all members to pay attention to their own spelling and to avoid orthographic and stylistic errors as much as possible. This also includes grammar, punctuation, as well as capitalization and lowercase letters. This serves, on the one hand, to maintain clarity and make reading the posts pleasant, and on the other hand, to maintain a certain level in the forum.
Irony and Sarcasm
Not every user immediately recognizes irony and sarcasm. Without gestures and facial expressions, a comment can lead to wrong conclusions. For this purpose, smilies (emoticons) ( 
) are available to give feeling to posts and to make it recognizable to others how it was meant.
Posts
The posts in our discussion forums are accessible to everyone. You should carefully check your posts before publishing them to ensure they do not contain information that is not intended for the public. You must expect that your posts will be indexed by search engines and will be accessible worldwide even without deliberately accessing our website. There is no right to deletion or correction of such entries against the provider of this forum. The operator of this forum reserves the right to move, edit, or delete posts at any time, even without providing reasons, or to have the moderators perform these actions. A topic may only be posted once. This means that multiple postings in various subforums are also prohibited, as is posting the same post multiple times in a subforum. It is forbidden to write (meaningless) posts in quick succession. If you have forgotten something in your post, there is an “Edit” function. There is no need to create a new post if the old one is only a few minutes old and/or no one has responded yet. After a time difference of approximately 1 day, a new post must be written if it contains important new information.
Links
Links to websites should be avoided if they violate the property rights of third parties or if these websites contain illegal content. Linking to and promoting non-youth-friendly and youth-endangering pornographic or racist content and offers, in particular image documents, is prohibited. The distribution of other youth-endangering, anti-democratic, or immoral content, such as glorification of violence, is also not tolerated.