Website Use

By clicking the "I agree" checkbox on the registration and profile page, you agree to abide by the following policies.The following is prohibited on the HTOC website and forum:

1. Any material not pertaining to building, equipping, maintaining, operating and cruising aboard Helmsman Trawlers.
   
2. Advertising or any form of commercial solicitation.
   
3. Any material which libels, defames, abuses, or threatens others or is inflammatory.
   
4. Statements that are political, bigoted, hateful or racially offensive.
   
5. Messages that advocate illegal activity or discuss illegal activities with the intent to commit them.
   
6. Material that contains vulgar, obscene or indecent language or images.
   
7. Unauthorized copyrighted material.
   
8. Harvesting of subscriber e-mail addresses or other contact information for any purpose is not permitted. This does not prohibit a subscriber from contacting other subscribers privately by email or other means for non-commercial purposes. It does mean that assembling a list of email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, or other contact information for any other purpose except private non-commercial individual communication is explicitly forbidden and is grounds for terminating a subscription and being banned from subscribing.
   
9. Anonymous registrations and registering using false names are not permitted.

Privacy & Use Policy

1. Helmsman Owners must identify themselves as a current or former Helmsman owner. Ownership status will be verified by the administrator or a dealer using the hull number and other information provided. Once a subscriber is verified as an owner, they will have access to the owner's database as well as "Members Only" features of the website. Making fraudulent claims of ownership or attempting to circumvent the website security is grounds for being removed from the subscription list and banned from new subscription.
   
2. When posting a question, please provide specific details including your Helmsman model and hull number, homeport or geographical location, and any other pertinent information. More detail brings better answers.
   
3. When posting to any of the HTOC forums, please observe the following guidelines:
   
4. Use an appropriate subject line in email. The HTOC forum allows reading and posting via a website "bulletin board" and/or via email. If you post via the website, topics are automatically separated, and you can respond to a specific topic. If you post via email, please be careful to use an appropriate subject line. If you are responding to a post on the same topic, please just reply without changing the subject line. However, if you're starting a new subject or replying but changing the subject, please change the subject line in your email. That will keep the subjects appropriately separated in the archives and on the website. Snip your replies. When replying to another post, only include the bare minimum text of the last post (if any at all) to set the context of your reply. Every reply post requires some degree of snipping (i.e., trimming). We want to read what you want to say, not a second printing of the prior post. Besides, shorter replies take less time to post and download while aboard relying on slow and expensive access.
   
5. Be careful how you reply. The forums are set up so that your replies by default go back to the entire forum. However, if you're sending a reply that is only relevant to an individual, please don't send it to the entire forum. If you are responding to an individual, please reply directly to that individual, not to the entire forum.
   
6. Please be polite. Nothing will destroy the community atmosphere of the forum faster than personal attacks or arguments. Even if you disagree with someone's ideas, you must be polite and respectful in your response.
   
7. Everyone is welcome. Keep in mind that our forum by overwhelming support of the owners is open to all members and select Technical Associates.
   
8. Private e-mails in public posts. Do not post the contents of private e-mails you have received from others unless you have the permission of the original author.
   
9. No copyrighted work (e.g., a newspaper clipping or text from another website) may be posted without explicit permission of the copyright owner. The easiest way to deal with copyright material is to just provide a link to the original so other list readers can find it.

Site & Forum Administration

Please keep in mind that the administrators of this site and forum are volunteers. They are not paid to do this, so please be considerate of their time in any requests you make, or in complying with any requests the Administrator may make.

The HTOC website and forums are largely self-policing. The lists are not "moderated". Posted messages are not reviewed by a moderator before they are published. Therefore, we all depend on each other to follow these policies. However, if a subscriber consistently violates site policy, the administrators may, at their discretion, terminate a subscription and ban new subscriptions from that individual.