BUTCH-FEMME.COM CHAT GUIDELINES
The Butch-Femme.com Hot Tub Chat Room is designed for fun and enjoyment, and for occasional hosted discussions on a variety of topics. The Webmasters Rhon and Chris want to insure that our chat room guests have a positive and enjoyable community experience, and feel comfortable hanging out and playing in the chat room. Please feel free to direct other members to these CHAT Guidelines, but please do not take it upon yourself to tell our guests who is welcome on the site, or what topics of conversation are appropriate. The Webmasters reserve the right to adjust the guidelines as needed. Your use of the Butch-Femme.com chat room indicates that you have read and agreed to these guidelines.

Overview of the Hot Tub Chat Room
In all of cyberspace, Butch-Femme.com is a precious and rare gem because of the thoughtful and caring people who gather here. It is a real community in every sense if the word. If your contributions to the site help support and build community for Butches and Femmes, as most contributions do, you are right on target. As you make use of these resources, the Webmaster Daddy Rhon asks that a spirit of welcoming and acceptance always be honored in our discussions. Bringing Butch-Femme people together is what Butch-Femme.com is all about. If you keep that in mind, your input and your presence will always be welcomed here.
Online, all we have is our words. CHOOSE THE WORDS YOU WEILD WISELY. You own them.
Please keep in mind that we do not screen posts before they are posted to our chat room, an conversations in the Hot Tub chat room do not necessarily represent Rhon and Chris' own personal beliefs. (hardly!)

Who Belongs Here?
Butch-Femme.com is designed for mature, adult Butches who are into Femmes, & Femmes who are into Butches. The focus is & always has been on that whole ying/yang of the Butch-Femme dynamic. Butch-Femme.com is a public web site, of course, so we are accustomed to a variety of queers and transfolk wandering in. Tolerance is key. For the most part, respectful queer and trans allies who identify with other various descriptors can decide for themselves how they fit into Butch-Femme space in the chat room, as long as the strong spirit of this Butch-Femme space is always honored. For legal reasons, we also require that our members be at least 18 years of age.

Newbies
New folks, welcome aboard. If you are reading these guidelines, you are doing the right thing. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with Hot Tub chat room etiquette. You are welcome to ask any reasonable question and to share your thoughts, ideas, and light banter. Please be aware that you may encounter male-identified Butches, FTMs, bisexuals, etc. Tolerance is key.
If you're a regular user, please greet newcomers and help them feel at home. This community is here for all of us, and we want it to be comfortable, thought provoking, helpful, safe, and easy to use. If you don't have the patience to answer the same questions over and over that new guests may have, please allow someone else who enjoys helping to answer questions. DO NOT BE RUDE TO NEW MEMBERS IN THE CHAT ROOM. Supporting one another is a big part of what this community is about, and your cooperation is appreciated.

General Chat Guidelines

• Chat Monitors - Moderators in the chat room are often invisible and not on the room list. There may be multiple monitors at any time. Cooperate with our monitors because they can boot and ban you if you do not follow the rules. Please do not challenge or argue with moderators in the public rooms. If you have an issue, ask the monitor if you can speak with them in a private message. Do not expect monitors to settle interpersonal disputes.
  
• You are expected to welcome new folks and treat others with respect.
  
• Do not use the chat room to advertise other web sites.
  
• Do not flood (type the same thing over and over, causing the room to scroll) The program is set up to auto-ban for flooding.
  
• We are in the habit of greeting new people who come in, and welcoming back those who return.
  
• Do not assume you are anonymous. Your words, logins, email address, IP, host, membership info is being logged.
  
• Never impersonate other members or moderators.
  
• Racism and hate wil not be tolerated.
  
• Butches in the Hot Tub chat room are often referred to with male pronouns (he, him). This naming device does not necessarily indicate a Butch is FTM or TG. It is simply an easy way to distinguish between the Butches and the Femmes, not necessarily political.
  
• In the Hot Tub chat room, it is customary to ask someone in the main room if you can send them a private message beforehand.
  
• If someone is bothering you, put the person on ignore by clicking on their name in the room list and then clicking on the circle with the slash through it. That will make the offending person "disappear". If the whole room puts such a person on ignore, it is as if they are not even in the room.
  
• Please refrain from having cyber sex in the main rooms. You can create your own password protected private room for any purpose that does not violate our Guidelines or Terms of Service.
  
• Use lots of smiley faces :) winks ;) and grins to insure that your audience doesn't misinterpret your satire or sarcasm. Our Hot Tub Chat Room uses emoticons that will show up when you type certain key combinations. You can find the complete emoticons directory here.
  
• DON'T POST A MESSAGE IN ALL CAPS unless you have a good reason to shout!
  
• NEVER post large chunks that will cause the room to scroll, chain letters, virus warnings, advertisments, or links to other sites designed to compete with Butch-Femme.com.
  Do not post private correspondences to the chat room, or compromise anyone's privacy.
  
• If you find a particular discussion is not to your liking... remember that peace is always a click away.
  
• If you are critical of a idea, try to state your opinion on the issue and leave the person out of your argument.
  
• If someone disagrees with you, understand disagreement is not necessarily an insult.
  
• Please do not post grievances or chat-related concerns to the Butch-Femme.com Forum as a public topic. Bring your chat issues to the attention of the chat Moderator or Webmasters for resolution.
  
• Please try to be responsible to the community you have joined by treating our other guests with respect.

Etiquette
We have a pretty sweet little web site and a friendly chat room and we'd like to keep it that way. We ask that you do not harass, abuse, or threaten other members. Harassing another community member is never acceptable, even in the most lively and charged debates. A personal attack includes name-calling, cursing, mocking a user or a user's name or id or a user's partner, using threatening or insulting language, or violating another user's privacy. Exercise some common sense here. If you wouldn't have the nerve to say it in person as a guest in Rhon's living Rhon, don't post it in Rhon's chat room. If you can't draw the line, we'll draw it for you, but we'd rather not have to.

Tolerance
Your participation in the chat room requires that you be tolerant of others who may not think just like do. This is Butch-Femme space, but our Forum members run the gamut from lesbian-feminists to het-identified FTMs. We also have some bi Femmes, and a few bi Butches and fag Butches in our mix. We have people of all colors and from many different nations, and we do not want to give any bandwidth to racism or bigotry. Tolerance is key. While it is thought-provoking to challenge what Butch-Femme means to each of us, there should be no question concerning what this site is about. We are welcoming and generous, but if you are not a Butch-into-Femmes, or a Femme-into-Butches, please be very sensitive and respectful of our space.

Abuse
Please remember, you are a guest on a private server, and understand that speaking your mind in Rhon's chat room is not your "constitutional right". It is a privilege that can be revoked if you abuse the resource. You are entirely responsible and liable for all activities conducted by you. You are not anonymous on our server, and we have fairly sophisticated software on our server to protect our security. We work regularly with abuse.com and with Hotmail and Yahoo when people abuse our resources. Listed below are some, though not all, violations that may result in the Webmasters terminating your access to Butch-Femme.com and possibly contacting your ISP.

• Impersonating any other member or leader, or attempting to mask your identity through mutliple accounts or logins.
  
• Harassing, namecalling, threatening, embarrassing, dissing, cursing out, stalking, or causing distress or discomfort upon another member, a Moderator, or the Webmasters.
  
• Ignoring warnings from Moderators or Webmasters concerning your behavior.
  
• Making a nuisance of yourself in a way that impedes dialogue or community-building.
  
• Transmitting via Butch-Femme.com any information, data, text, files, links, software, chat, communication or other content considered to be unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, intentionally obscene, hateful or racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable.
  
• Posting large chunks of text to make the board scroll.
  
• Threatening to leave/unsubscribe in order to manipulate the course of dialogue. We'll be glad to help you along.
  
• Intentionally disrupting the normal flow of dialogue in Butch-Femme.com's chat room, or otherwise acting in a manner that negatively affects other participants and makes other members hesitant to post and share.
  
• Posting or transmitting any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or any other forms of solicitation, including for spamming our members to advertise related sites.
  
• Abusing the private messaging/instant messaging/email features.
  Disrespecting Rhon or Chris or one of our Moderators, or one of our guests, or posting insults about our web site.
  
• Intentionally or unintentionally violating any applicable local, state, federal, or international law.
  
• Violating our copyright terms.
  
• Repeatedly causing drama or repeatedly posting in a rude and obnoxious manner.
  
• Uploading, posting, emailing, or otherwise transmitting any material that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment.

Guidelines for Profiles
You are encouraged to share some things about yourself in your Butch-Femme.com chat profile and main profile so that other chatters can reference you in our Membership database. You can include your chat icon to further personalize your contributions in the Forum also. You can upload a small avatar icon in your profile that will show up next to all of your posts so that others can see what you look like. There is also an interactive "Hot Shots" type photo album that is tied in with your web site membership where you can share a dozen or so more photos of yourself and of each other.

Guidelines for Posting Pictures
Feel free to start a gallery. Butch-Femme.com is not a commercial site, (we have no banners, popups, or funding) so please use your common sense and don't clog up our server with dozens of pictures that aren't necessarily of interest to other Butches and Femmes, such as multiple pics of your transitioning, your pets, landscapes, vacations, etc. If you have more than a dozen photos to share, please post a few relevant pics on Butch-Femme.com's gallery, and then use the COMMENTS section in your personal B-F.com gallery to direct folks to a free gallery on Webshots.com where space is not limited. If you have held a large event associated with the web site, please do share all the pics in our gallery. Erotic poses are welcomed and appreciated, but please refrain from posting any hardcore nudity in your profile or in our gallery. Breasts, buns, and suggestive poses are acceptable but hardcore shots of genitalia (even silicon) or simulated sex acts are not. Again, we ask that you limit your gallery photos to no more than a dozen.

Contacting the Chat Moderator and/or Contacting the Webmasters
Please do not post grievances or chat-related concerns to the Forum as a public topic before bringing your issues to the Moderator or Webmaster for resolution. The Chat Moderator (usually Daddy Rhon) is the first person you should turn to if there is a conflict in the chat room that you cannot handle by being gracious. The Moderator can also help with most "how-to" questions and give advice about etiquette. The Moderator's responsibility is to maintain order by following and enforcing these guidelines. The Moderator may also send you a priavte message in chat without requiring your permission. Please show your respect to any volunteer Chat Moderator, who is doing us all a favor by making sure the the place is well-lit. You should contact the Webmasters if you want to escalate a problem, or have suggestions about how the Hto Tub chat room is run. Most technical questions and simple "lost password" issues can be handled by clicking on the "Helpdesk" button on the top upper most row of Quick Click buttons on every page. The Webmasters/Site Owners have the final say on any and all issues, and can and will kick and ban users.

Building Community
As a member of this very real community, you help set the standards. You can help us build community by giving back something positive of yourself. Encourage others, offer support, help new folks. We encourage you to shape this community with other members. In the real world, you might talk with your neighbors about issues that concern you in your building, street, school, or town. You might become involved in community activities, planning, or government. If someone on your street is noisy or offensive to others, you might get together with neighbors and collectively decide what to do. We hope our members will act responsibly in their virtual community, as they would in their own neighborhood. Rhon and Chris do not systematically analyze the chat room atmosphere, so please let us know if our attention is required.

Leaving the Chat Room and Saying Goodbye
Sometimes the Butch-Femme.com web site has filled a need for community and expression in people's lives, and then a time naturally comes when they are no longer satisfied with the connection. They have made friends, found a lover, already made up their mind about gender, whatever... It’s almost like a breakup when you get to that point, letting this site go when it has been such a habit. Some people just get to a point where they can no longer tolerate other's and their opinions. When it is time to move on, NEVER post to the chat threatening to leave if people don't start doing things your way. It is tacky to turn a public chat room into a place with people begging you to stay. If this communiity is meaningful to you, you will stay. If it is no longer meaningful to you, you need to leave or take a break. Peace is always a click away. Please exit with dignity and say your goodbyes with grace. Good manners dictate that you tip your hat as you close the door, not take a biggo dump. The party will go on without ya, so let us remember you fondly. If you leave on good terms, you will always be welcomed back as an old friend.

Lastly, Rhon and Chris both love the online community and it is our pleasure to bring Butches and Femmes together. We are glad to have you join our growing community, and as long as you have regard and respect for the sweet places that we call home, you will always be welcome to the resources on Butch-Femme.Com, or any other community projects that we have a hand in creating for the future... Enjoy!