We are pleased to offer our private Forum to the Farmingdale Community, but we kindly request our users to maintain a mature, respectful and good natured attitude towards others and to follow the guidelines listed under our "Forum Rules" -- Our "Rules" are NOT comprehensive, but they are meant to give everyone a pretty good idea of what we are looking for, and what we want to avoid in our Forum: Our intention is to keep this message board positive and constructive, and we reserve the ultimate right to decide what should and/or shouldn't be allowed here -- some people may see it as a dictatorship, and if so, that's the way it is in our Forum! No one is forced to post here, and anyone who chooses to do so is required to accept our imposed limitations. (in case anyone is wondering, as far as we know, the First Amendment does NOT apply to private citizens taking action to "abridge speech" on a PRIVATE message board, even if such board happens to be "available" to the public!)

As everyone well knows, our Forum is available online 24/7. Because we do not have the time nor the desire to constantly monitor posts, we ask all our Registered Users to help us by rating off posts that they consider inappropriate, or posts that they feel cause petty bickering and personal attacks. Each individual registered user is the only one who can answer "WHY" they choose to rate any particular post. Only after a post receives a minimum number of negative ratings does it get removed from the board, so we believe that when a post gets removed it is only because ENOUGH people, whatever their reasons may be, feel that the post in question deserves to be taken down. -- Although we may not necessarily agree with all the ratings received by some posts, we feel that, so far, the system is working very well for us. Because our users have been diligent in using their personal judgment to rate post, their collective ratings have freed us from the burden of having to constantly keep a close watch on this board, thus enabling us to keep this Forum open. We are thankful for that, and we hope to be able to count on the continued support from our users! We also do not want to see what we consider bona fide topics being repeatedly detracted from by those who insist on questioning the negative ratings received by their posts: "Why" a post is rated out should not be up to discussion!

We have, with sincere goodwill, been offering this message board to our community since early 1999, and our Forum has had more than it's fair share of "growing pains". We have always tried to have the Forum set up as fairly as we deem possible, and most of our users tell us that they appreciate our efforts. We are very well aware of the fact that we will never be able to please everyone, and it is not our intention to try to do so: If anyone does not like the way we run this message board, they can certainly choose NOT to post here!

With the continued help from our users we will be able to keep offering this Forum to the Farmingdale Community. We sincerely thank everyone who has given us their support and cooperation by posting in a respectful manner and casting negative ratings to unsuitable posts.  We hope we can continue to count on each one of you to make this message board a positive and constructive tool for our community!

Fran and Darlene

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