Techtown site rules and posting guidelines

Techtown is a community of foodservice technicians and friends of foodservice technicians here to learn new skills, offer help when needed and share some valuable industry know-how. With that in mind, please follow these rules to make this a great experience for everyone.

Posting Guidelines

What You Should Do

All information and instructions posted on the site are to be used at your own risk. This includes information provided by others or by site contributors, regardless of post format. By following or using any of this information you give up the right to hold techtown liable for any damages.

• All the forums are categorized by topic. Please keep your posts to the correct forum. When in doubt, use the main equipment forums for technical questions and the breakroom for anything else. Please feel free to assist others in selecting the right forum. If you spot a post in the wrong forum, in the most friendly way possible, let the member know or alert a moderator and the post will be moved (if required).
• Techtown is an industry resource for technicians in the foodservice industry, but of course, we welcome social discussions and off-topic posts. Just make sure they are posted in the appropriate forum.
• When asking for help with parts, equipment or any other technical questions, please include as many details as possible. At the bare minimum, any post in the foodservice equipment forum requires the manufacturer, model number and any other relevant information. Posts without this information may be moved or we may request that you edit your post before it’s posted publicly.
• Before hitting that “new discussion” button, please make sure your question hasn’t already been asked. To keep things as tidy as your service van, please use the site search function. Everyone thanks you for that.
• If you do see a new question that has already been asked in the past, help your friend by responding with the link to the correct forum, along with the search terms you used to find it. That way your friend will learn something new. 
• Please offer all advice within the provided discussion boards. Providing support through email, social media or third party communication programs are frowned upon…we want everyone to share in the wealth of knowledge you can provide. We’d also like to ask that you not use remote desktop applications or untrusted mobile apps to receive tech support as they are often used to spread malware or enable online scams.
• Pictures may be posted as long as they are not explicit, offensive, or copyrighted.
• Linked and locked topics are archived to reduce page clutter. If you have a question about where a topic went, please send a private message to the community manager or a forum moderator. Do not start a new topic asking where a post or topic went. Do not post a duplicate of the deleted or moved topic. We will be happy to provide you with a link to the new location or a reason why it was locked and/or removed.

What You Really, Really Shouldn’t Do 

• No bad words. Keep it clean, folks.
• Please use full words. No “text” writing. We’re talking about abbreviations like u or ur. Techtown is available globally, so some of our non-English speaking members use translation software which is confused by abbreviations. Frankly, we’re kinda confused by them, too.
• There will be no racial, ethnic or gender based insults or any other personal discrimination for that matter. Linking to hate, anti-Semitic, racist, pornography, “warez”, or other illegal sites is not permitted. This will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate suspension.
• Don’t try to offend or insult your friends. We’re all in this together. If you wouldn’t say it to your mom, don’t post it. This includes starting fights or poking others with sticks.
• Posting pornography, (links to) illegal downloads or any other illegal transactions are not permitted.  
• Posting any copyrighted material on our website is strictly prohibited. If you’re not sure what counts as copyrighted material, you probably shouldn’t post it. Just original content here, please. If you knowingly do this, you could be banned from techtown.
• Posting links in order to generate affiliate revenue is not allowed on techtown. These links and the posts they are in are considered SPAM and we don’t mean the tasty treat from the blue can. If a user continues to create affiliate SPAM posts, we reserve the right to ban them and no one wants that. Just don’t do it.
• No commercials or advertisements. Please do not solicit donations or contributions to crowdfunding campaigns. This also applies to your signature, profile or other parts of techtown.      
• Any impersonation of a user from these forums, in any mode of communication, is strictly prohibited. Display names selected to impersonate a fellow member, co-worker or anyone else involved in techtown are not permitted. Display names may not include words with the purpose of making incorrect claims. Examples include moderator, official, or techtown.

• Certain member initiated actions on this site may trigger the earning of rewards points. Examples include posting to a forum, joining or creating a group or referring a new member. 
• The techtown rewards program is offered as a courtesy to our members. Any misuse of the program or attempts to earn points or claim rewards through fraud, fake accounts or other methods of earning not in line with the 
• Techtown rewards points have no cash value and can only be redeemed for items offered in the official techtown rewards “store”. Items in this store are limited, and members may only redeem one item per day. Certain items in the rewards store may be seasonal, and the site owner may limit redemptions of rewards at any time. 
• Techtown reserves the right to verify orders before shipping, and may cancel or modify rewards orders at its own discretion. 

• The changing nature of our community requires that techtown adapt and modify the program rules from time to time. Some changes may adversely affect the value of the points or awards already accumulated.
  

• Techtown may terminate any membership if fraud is suspected. techtown is not liable for points or rewards lost due to fraudulent or unauthorized use. This includes fraud caused by lost account credentials.
  

• Your continued participation in this rewards program constitutes consent to any such changes. Techtown reserves the right to cancel the program at any time. Accumulated rewards points are not member's property and may be revoked, canceled, limited or modified at any time, even though such action may affect the member's right to use previously accumulated points. 

• Be sure to check the rules on the website from time to time, as they are and will be the authoritative statement of the rules in effect at any time. 

Your Account

• Your user profile image (avatar) and user background image must be in good taste. This means no vulgar or violent images, pornography or profanity. Avatars or background images that are found to be inappropriate will be removed at the discretion of techtown. Repeated violations may result in the removal of your ability to select your own images.
• Links in your signature must be unobtrusive and cannot use formatting so that they interfere with the formatting and visibility of other posts.
• Member public display names should not include an email address. This rule is in place to protect you from bots who can pick up your email address and spam you. Company names or other trademarks can only be used by the trademark holder or someone who is authorized to represent the trademark holder. Members can be asked at any time to change their display names.
• In order to reduce spam on the site, certain features may be limited until your account has posted 10 times. We reserve the right to modify the available features for accounts until certain thresholds have been reached.
• Members may have only one account on this forum. The only exception is for members who are authorized to represent a brand and who also want to post using their personal account. 

A violation of any of these rules can lead to your user account being banned from techtown and deletion of your account. The consequences will be determined by techtown on a case by case basis. While we reserve the right to take any actions we consider necessary, we will always attempt to help educate members on proper site etiquette.

 You made it to the end! Nice work. So glad we got all that out of the way. Now let’s have some fun!