Forum Rules – MacRumors.com Help Center

Jump to: Instantly Bannable Offenses | Advertising/Self-promotion | Things Not to Do | Minor Problems

The following rules govern use of the forums. You are also responsible for observing the Registration Agreement, which you agreed to when registering. There are additional Rules for Appropriate Debate, Marketplace Rules for the Marketplace forum and Guidelines for Software Developers. Members should observe both the letter and the spirit of these rules. Users are also responsible for following forum-specific rules posted at the tops of specific forums.

Each member is responsible for only his or her own posts. If another member breaks rules, you may ignore them or report the problem to the moderators, but you may not use it as an excuse to break rules yourself.

Volunteer moderators help us manage the forums and enforce the forum rules. The moderators cannot read every message, so they rely on members to report problem posts that they encounter. The point of moderation is not to limit discussion, promote or suppress points of view, or any other secret agenda. The goal of moderation is to keep the forums enjoyable and free from problems that detract from the experiences of our users.

For full details about reporting posts and what to do if your posts are moderated see

Instantly Bannable Offenses

These offenses can result in temporary forum suspensions or permanent bans. If you get a warning, heed it!

Insults. Direct personal insult of other forum members (e.g., "You are an idiot.") and other name-calling. Why? Because this isn't grade school. People should be able to discuss or even dispute other's posts without insulting people. You may dispute somebody's opinion but not attack/flame the person who stated it. There are a lot of other non-direct-personal insults that won't necessary get you banned instantly, but depending on the context/nature may lead to post editing, post deletion, warnings, or time-outs. They include telling people to shut up, describing a member as ignorant or obtuse or as an apologist, and being extremely or repeatedly rude or sarcastic. It's not your place to tell other users they are not welcome; if they follow the rules, they are welcome. Also, do not tell users when you decide to add them to your ignore list. Bottom line -- don't try to tick off others and don't make discussions unnecessarily personal. If somebody else insults you, report their post; their post does not give you a license to break the rules by returning their insults. Although we do not read Private Messages sent between forum members, the rules for appropriate and inappropriate content apply to them as well. Note: Avoid the word ignorant, but it's acceptable to claim that another user is uninformed about or unaware of a particular set of facts.
Harassment. Purposely intimidating a particular member, harassing them, sending them rude or unwanted private messages, etc. This includes personal attacks on moderators for doing their jobs.
Threats. Any threat or intimation of a threat.
Registration rules. Violation of the rules you agreed to when registering for the site: that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.
Multiple registration. You may register only one account. Reinstatement of banned or cancelled accounts can come only from an administrator.
Hoaxes. Purposely misleading other members to their detriment. Giving advice you know to be incorrect or harmful. Sensationalism.
Trolling. Do not post in order to anger other members or intentionally cause negative reactions. For a given post, this can be a subjective call, but a pattern of such posting or an especially egregious case will get you banned.
Hate speech and group slurs. Discrimination, abuse, threats or prejudice against a particular group, for example based on race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, in a way that a reasonable person would find offensive. This rule does not apply to political parties, members of political parties and movements, political memberships, affiliations, and allegiances, and those with particular political ideals or beliefs. Negative comments about political groups are acceptable when stated without trolling and in a way that fosters discussion, subject to the other forum rules.
Debates. If you engage in debates, read the MacRumors Rules for Appropriate Debate, which cover rules and policies for Respect, Debate, and Moderation, including requirements that users be willing to provide a basis for claims of fact and that they avoid stereotypes and negative generalizations that inhibit constructive debate, plus reminders that the general forum rules prohibit name-calling, personal insults, taunting, hate speech, group slurs, and other forms of trolling.
Politics. If you participate in the Political News forum, read the announcement that users can lose access to that forum for three violations of the MacRumors Rules for Appropriate Debate.

Advertising/soliciting/self-promotion

Your purpose in joining MacRumors or posting should not be to promote, advertise, or otherwise call attention to your site, blog, product, or business. See this page if you want to advertise at MacRumors.

Self-promotion is not fair to our paid advertisers. Forum posts should be free of ads and promotions that benefit the poster. Legitimate recommendations and requests for help are permitted, but in ambiguous circumstances users without a previous forum track record will not be given the benefit of the doubt.

Rules:

Advertising. Using the forums for advertising, site or product promotion, or for business deals and offers. You may not make posts to promote commercial, personal, or not-for-profit websites, products, or services. Threads will be deleted if their purpose is to advertise, announce, or promote products, services, or organizations, build traffic at other websites, carry out business activities, or for similar purposes that do not benefit our forum community.
Shilling. If you pretend to be a consumer who recommends your own product(s) or favors your own product(s) over others, without admitting your affiliation, you will be banned. Vendors who post in threads only to criticize a competitor's product while promoting their own will also be banned.
Soliciting. You may not use the forums to solicit donations, votes, or participants for surveys, contests, petitions, or product testing. Employment requests/offers are limited to the Marketplace forum and subject to the Marketplace Rules.
Self-promotion. Self-promotional links to your blog, video channel, product, business, etc. are limited to your forum signature and your Personal Details, even if you have a wonderful and useful site, blog, product, or business.

Memberships created solely for these purposes will be banned.

Exceptions:

Developers of software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS are afforded special privileges, including certain posting of product promotions. See Guidelines for Software Developers for details.
Users may embed YouTube videos in their forum posts, using the media tag as long as it suits the thread discussion and their purpose for posting is not self-promotion.
Established users may post links to answers, reviews, or videos that answer specific questions from other users, even if it's their own site, as long as they don't use the forums primarily for such posts. New users without a history of other forum participation should not post links since it will be considered to be potential advertising/promotion.
As a representative of a vendor business you may post about your company or products or services when the following 5 conditions apply:
1. You have made your vendor affiliation clear in the Website and About you fields in your Account Details page and setting "View your details on your profile page" to "All visitors" on your Privacy page.
2. You are posting about Apple-related hardware, software, accessories, or services.
3. You represent, work for, or own a manufacturing, wholesale, distribution, or retail business (including software vendors).
4. You are replying to forum posts to answer questions when your product/service is particularly relevant to the question. Example: Your company or product was mentioned by name or your product suits a specific requirement being discussed.
5. The purpose of the post is to help forum members, not merely to benefit your organization.

Vendors must not use these privileges to

repeatedly mention their products in general discussion threads, even those about their market area
start threads to discuss, promote or advertise their business, products, or services
"badmouth" competing companies or products
use the forums to carry out business operations, e.g., solicit feedback, provide customer service, announce special deals, promos, or new products

Things Not to Do

These habits can produce warnings and repeated violations can produce bans.

Inappropriate posting in a debate. The Rules for Appropriate Debate apply when users disagree with each other. We insist on a certain level of respect and civility toward other users, even when your viewpoints differ, and prohibit posts that attack posters personally or serve only to anger others (see "trolling" above).
Frivolous posts. Posts that contain no relevant or constructive commentary. This includes one- or two-word posts such as "cool", "LOL", "I agree", "+1", "this", "me too", "no way", other equivalent comments of any length, posts consisting only of smilies or overused memes, posts about being the first post in a thread, posts about your lack of interest in the thread (ignore the thread instead), and posts with irrelevant images or videos, especially those without text. If your post will add nothing to a discussion, don't post it.
Overposting. Making the same post many times, making multiple pointless posts in the same thread, making numerous posts with no real content, or posting for the purpose of gaining a higher post count.
Reposting. Please don't repost entire articles from other sites. To initiate a discussion about an article, post a link to the article, quote a bit of it if you like, and include your own comments or questions so people know why you think it's worthy of discussion.
Referral links and pyramid schemes. MacRumors does not condone multi-level marketing schemes (e.g. free iPods or Macs if you refer X number of people). Members who post referral links to these or other sites will have their posts/signatures edited and may be warned. New members who post solely for this purpose will be subject to bans under the Advertising rule.
Off-topic posts. Off-topic posts will be deleted/edited. If you keep doing it see "Repeated problems" below. If you want to comment on the editors' decision to post a particular news story, you must do so in the Site and Forum Feedback forum, not in the news story's discussion thread, so as not to interfere with the discussion of the news story. Posts on political, religious, and social issues are to be limited to the Political News forum, and made only by those eligible for that forum. See the Rules for the Political News forum.
Instructing other members to search. Instructing members to search themselves for an answer or responses such as LMGTFY ("Let me google that for you") are experienced as rude and condescending. We don't have an issue with people linking to Google search results, although we prefer that members also link to a specific page that addresses the question being posed. A few words explaining how you got your search results makes your response even more helpful.
Warez/Serials/Keys. Do not post software serial numbers or keys or refer people to specific websites, software, or techniques whose purpose is to break or bypass software licensing methods, distribute cracks, or obtain or use commercial software or media in violation of its license and/or for copyright violation. Do not ask for or give such help.
Shared accounts. Accounts are to be used by only one person, and not shared between family members, friends or any other people. Registration is free, so there is no reason not to create a unique account for each person. You are responsible for any posts made with your account, and any resulting disciplinary actions.
Profanity. The profanity filter is there for a reason. Do not circumvent it by using the language we intend to exclude or disguising those words. If a word is replaced by asterisks when you Preview or Submit a post, you know it's on the list.
Selling outside the Marketplace. All threads offering items for sale or trade or for free, or asking to buy or receive items must be posted in the Marketplace forum, which is accessible only to qualified members and subject to additional rules; see the Marketplace Rules for details. Members not eligible for the Marketplace forum may not start threads elsewhere for such purposes.
Don't discuss blocking ads on the site.
Don't post content produced by artificial intelligence ("generative AI"). Even if you use generative AI to research an issue, posts must be in your own words and represent your comments or opinions. Exception: You can post AI-generated content if you are giving examples in a discussion thread about the topic of generative AI.
Repeated problems. Any ongoing actions that make more work for the moderators and administrators or regularly annoy other members and require moderator action. We have hundreds of thousands of forum members to serve and can't spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with problems caused by any one member. If your membership is an ongoing detriment to our community then your membership may be terminated.

Minor Problems

Chattiness. Use the forums to discuss the topic of the thread, not as a substitute for Instant Messaging.
One thread. Do not post a thread more than once. Post a new thread in the proper forum. If the topic is relevant to more than one forum, pick the best fit or most specific forum and post it only once.
One post. Do not post multiple messages with the same content. One post in the most appropriate thread is sufficient.
Signature size. Signatures may not be over 4 lines in height. Signatures may not be more than 300 characters and spaces in length, not counting BB codes, and at most 600 characters including the tags. They should not have blank lines or lines consisting solely of punctuation (dashes, equal signs, etc.), or use forum features, such as "INDENT" and "QUOTE" tags, that produce unnecessary vertical space. We recommend using a single paragraph, without linebreaks.
Avatar and signature content. Avatars and signatures, as well as other profile fields, must comply with all forum rules, including those against profanity, explicit sexual content, insults against groups or individuals, referral links, and cannot be in other ways offensive. Although messages about social issues are permitted in signatures, members will be required to change avatars or signatures that are deemed too controversial or that are particularly annoying or distracting to other members. Signatures may include links to your own site or business as long as you do not make posts whose purpose is to call attention to your signature. If you don't want to see the signatures of other users, you can disable them in your Preferences.
Simulated signatures. Signatures must be set on your Forum Signature page and not simulated within posts, so that other members can choose whether or not to display them. You may not use automated software such as FoxyTunes Signatunes to insert content into your posts. You may use a salutation, i.e., put your name or user name at the bottom of your post.
Bumps. Posts that bring a thread to the top of the New Posts list but add no content to the thread (bumps) are not permitted. This applies not only to posts that say "bump" but to those with the intent to bump, e.g. posts saying "anyone?" or the equivalent. See why and how to avoid bumping.
Corrections. There is no need to point out another poster's spelling or grammatical errors unless you think it is causing confusion. Remember that not all members are native English speakers. Communication, not correctness, is our goal. Examples: Don't correct members who spell Mac in all caps or who call the iPod touch an iTouch. When other people (especially new members) fail to search and start new threads on old topics, don't scold them or make them feel unwelcome. The best way to be helpful is by posting a link to a relevant thread or specific instructions for problem solving. Set a good example yourself by searching first before starting a thread if you have a question that may already have been answered in the forums or you want to discuss a topic that may already have been discussed. The exception is articles appearing on our Front Page. These entries are created by our professional staff. If you notice a spelling or grammar error in these articles, please send an e-mail to tips@macrumors.com.
Sequential posts. We ask that you try to avoid making multiple posts in a row within a few minutes of each other, if you can avoid it, as a courtesy to other users. You can use the Multi-Quote feature (see explanation) to reply to multiple posts at once or you can edit your previous post to add new information.
MacRumors is an English-language site. All posts, signatures, profiles, messages, etc. should be written in English.
Common sense. In the end, use common sense. When you are about to post messages just to increase your post count, or post something you think is funny at someone else's expense, think to yourself "Is this annoying?" If the answer is yes, don't do it.
User names must begin with an alphanumeric characters so that the forum's mention (tagging) feature will work. (To mention a user in a post, put @ before their user name.)

See Also

Rules:

Moderation:

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