1. You are responsible for any damages, deaths, actions, etc. from reading this forum. Use it at your own risk.
   
   
2. Please follow these rules or else penalities/punishments will occur:
   • 1st Offense: Yuku's Public/Private Inbox Message (PM) Warning.
   • 2nd Offense: Public Warning in his/her thread.
   • 3rd Offense: Temporary Ban -- User is not going to be notified. He/She/It must e-mail Ant/AntDude for reactivation. See the bottom of this Web page for the e-mail address.
   • 4th Offense: Permanent ban.
   
   
3. This forum is moderated for PG-rated contents and maturity. Failure to follow will result posts/account names being censored, edited, deleted, and/or user's risk of being banned. IP addresses are logged for each post. No flame wars! Please be mature when posting.
   
   
4. Don't advertise live ants (i.e., selling/buying/trading ants) publicly and privately except Uncle Milton's queenless red harvester ants. You can sell books, Ant Farms (without ants), etc. Also, don't ask where to buy ants even if it is legal in your country. There will be support for these traded/bought ants.
   
   
5. Your question(s) might already be answered in The Ant Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Also, there is a search engine for the forum. Try to use the FAQ and search engine before posting. If you ask a common question, then one of the forum members will most likely point you to the FAQ. Please do not make duplicate threads/posts since it is considered spamming. One thread in the proper forum (read the forum descriptions) is good enough. Please be patient since not everyone knows the answers and checks here often.
   
   
6. Do not post information you cannot back up. We're glad that you're here posting at the forum and we want you to continue. If you are posting baseless information or flat out making things up, you are not welcome here. This forum is dedicated to intelligent discussion of ants, and many people here who are new and eager to learn do not need or want information that is not accurate.
   
   
7. Post properly in English (do your best)! If you wish to post in foreign lanaguage, then you still need to post an English translation of it. Post a descriptive topic title (e.g., How do I get a queen ant?) so readers can find your posts easily and actually read them. Avoid spelling and grammar errors if you can. Be formal! Note that poll posts are not editable (by designed)) by their original posters and administrators. Also, please don't use all CAPS in your posts since it is considered shouting, rude, and annoying. Do properly capitalize the letters. Don't do this: i love ants. Do this: I love ants. Otherwise, they will probably be ignored. Again, please don't ask where to buy queen ants since it gets asked a lot -- read the FAQ!
   
   
8. When asking for an ant identification, please give as much details as possible. Examples: Colors, location, size, physical body characteristics, etc. Linking clear photographs from the Web will help a lot if they are available. Read this thread for more tips.
   
   
9. Do not talk about how to make ants fight or other ways to harm ants. You can talk about fight behaviors in the natural environment that is not caused by you, the poster.
   
   
10. To attach ant-related pictures in your posts (inlined), you have two ways of doing it:
    
    
    • Use your Yuku account, Kuene, ImageShack, and/or for free image hosts(s)/service(s) [be sure they let you do hotlink] for your uploaded images.
    • You will need a Web account (useful for home page/personal Web sites). Your ISP account should already have one. Avoid using GeoCities and Tripod services since they do not allow direct/hot linking for images (you will get broken images). You can use them if you want to link to a Web page with pictures, but not pictures directly.

    Before you post the images, please keep the file sizes and resolutions small. File sizes should be less than 100 KB (kilobytes). The image resolutions should be less than 640x480 pixels. JPEG/JPG images with compression are suitable for photographs. Use a paint/photograph/graphic program for the resizing, cropping, and optimization (e.g., Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, The GIMP (free), Paint.NET (free), and IrfanView (free)). If you have to show a huge image for details, then please put a warning in the post (e.g. huge image). Or better, just put the URL without image code tags (e.g., http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/BorgAnt60x60.gif). We still have people and ants with slow dial-up modem connections. Please use only GIF or JPG/JPG instead of other image file formats (e.g., BMP and PNG since not all Web browsers know those image formats).

    For free video hosts for short ant-related video clips, you can use Google Video, YouTube, and many others. You can use your Web host if you have one.

11. Please keep your personal icon (like Ant's icon; 10 pixels by 10 pixels) and photo (like Ant's Borg Ant picture; 60 pixels by 60 pixels) small for dial-up users. Also, don't put big and/or offensive images, sound clips, overdone fancy formattings, or anything annoying in your signatures and posts. Don't overuse too many emoticons, images, colors, etc. to annoy readers.
    
    
12. When referring to another threads in a thread, then please post the clickable URL(s)/link(s). Don't just say 'Look at "Catching an Argentine Queen Ant' thread in Reference Forum'. Post the URL/link (e.g., paste it and Yuku will make it clickable for you) so people don't have to find it. This is the Internet. We all work together to make the Internet awesome.
    
    
13. Before posting (new or editing), please double check it with the preview option. This is called proofreading.
    
    
14. To bring back archived threads/discussions to active status so users can continue to discuss in those threads, please send an e-mail (see the bottom of this Web page for addresses)/Yuku message to both forum administrator/your overlord and moderators/soldiers with the URL(s)/link(s). Then, they will either approve or decline your request(s). If approved, the thread(s) will be moved to a forum to get additional comments, discussions, edits, etc.
    
    
15. Please understand people that although we will normally do our best to follow the guidelines listed here some offenses can and may well result in immediate suspension of posting priviledges or banning entirely. Obvious examples would be spamming, excessive profanity, extreme disrespect for other forum members and moderators. Each instance will be dealt with on a case by case basis. Staff members have the rights to enforce the rules (e.g., delete posts, move posts, ban users, etc.). This list is subject to change at any time. This forum is strict. If you don't like it, then please leave.

Watch this introduction (Flash required) if you need visual aid for some of these items.

Forum Staff Members' E-mail Addresses (remove YUKU when e-mailing): Administrator/Overlord (Ant/AntDude). Moderators/Soldiers (Dr. Ant, and Mrmacophyl). Please do not e-mail/IM with ant questions. That is what the forum is for.

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