About Us

Community Guidelines for Using www.KickStandsUp.ning.com

We spend a lot of our waking hours here on www.KickStandsUp.ning.com. We love it and hope you do too. The purpose of this network is to introduce “biker-minded” people to each other, provide a place to connect and share personal experiences and memories, exchange ideas, tips, plan events, and, well, talk to us too. We created Kickstands Up (KSU) as an alternative to the larger social networks out there because we wanted a home for our friends where they could socialize without "getting lost in the crowd". To make this the best possible place ever, we ask that everyone follow a few simple guidelines. We'll do our part to ensure this remains a fun, constructive, and supportive place but we need your help here as well.

Profiles

Please only set-up one account for yourself here on KSU. A majority of the fun here on the site is meeting new people, making new friends and enjoying the content provided by other members. Profiles should represent real people (individuals or couples), not fictitious characters or products. If you are the President of a Club in your area, please create your profile as yourself – and you can set-up a group for your club and you can invite all the members to congregate there. Keep it REAL! With that thought in mind, please understand that not everyone using KSU will be the person they make themselves out to be. Please remember that other members may claim expertise or status (legal, medical, etc.) that they do not, in fact, possess, and use discretion in following their advice.

Spam

Please don't spam. Spam is annoying. What is spam? Spam is posting the same message repeatedly across the network. Spam is writing the same post or comment over and over again. Spam is sending the same email message to multiple members. Spam sucks. You get the picture. We take a hard line view on spam and, unfortunately, if you are reported or deemed by us to be a spammer, we'll have to delete your content and possibly even ban you here on KSU without notice.

Advertising and Promotion

One of our biggest gripes about the larger social networks out there is the overabundance of commercial advertising by members and member-to-member spam! If you've got something that is directly relevant to the “biker-minded” individuals here on KSU, by all means, tell folks about it! Promoting a charitable event or an upcoming bike night are both acceptable as long as the advertising is done in the proper manner, in the proper place on the site – your personal blog posts or the events calendar. Please do NOT use other member’s comment walls, send spam email messages, or create new forum discussions! That's the good news. The bad news is that there are types of advertisements and promotions - such as asking for donations or telling everyone about your newest products and services - that you may think are relevant to everyone, but, well, aren't. Bikers may be your ideal target audience, but promoting the sale of your personal/website/club products and services on KSU is not appropriate. KSU is a social network, not an electronic billboard. The KSU social network is for the personal use of members and may not be used in connection with any commercial activities except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by the management of KSU. Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the Community, including collecting usernames and/or email addresses of members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized linking to the Community will be subject to investigation. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other forms of solicitation posted through a member account are not acceptable. Unfortunately, we need to use our judgment here and we will delete content and ban members from KSU who are just here to spread the news about their products and services. If you ever have a question about whether or not you should post something, feel free to contact Biker Chic or Fast Eddie here on KSU.

Insults and Harassment

Respectfully disagreeing with someone - including us - in a constructive, well-reasoned manner is acceptable here on KSU. We can't make the network better if we don't have thoughtful, constructive feedback from you about our social network. That's why we're here. On the other hand, if you're here to find an outlet for your anger, frustration, or desire to call any other member (or even us for that matter) an names over and over again, this isn't the right place. Drop us a note to get whatever it is off your chest. We do read every email that comes in and will get the message loud and clear when you are unhappy. We take threatening, unconstructive, toxic, profane, or generally abusive people very seriously and will ban fast and furiously when we see them. Even if you have a right to be angry or frustrated, yelling at us or other members on the network isn't helpful and won't get you what you want. Just like in the real world.

Our Terms of Service

Please read our Terms of Service. Then please follow our Terms of Service. The Terms of Service are there for a reason and we read them regularly to determine if our members are complying with them. If something is not in compliance with our Terms of Service, we will unfortunately need to delete content and/or ban the account. Trust us, this brings us no joy and is the least favorite part of our job. We'll certainly try our best to give you a few hours of notice to make changes, but because we are running a rapidly growing service we can't make any guarantees. We may need to delete your content or ban your account without notice. The best plan is to follow our Terms of Service and try not to operate in too many gray areas. Namely, we might not shut you down today for not honoring your agreement to our Terms of Service, but we will at some point and then you'll be bummed.

If Your Content has Been Deleted or You've Been Banned by Us

If your content has been deleted or you've been banned from KSU and you think it is in error, by all means let us know by sending us a message. We'll always take another look at the specific case and respond at least once to your concerns. Unfortunately, we aren't able to publicly handle appeals or articulate reasons for deleting content or banning a member here on KSU. These topics have a tendency to devolve into the realm of unconstructive shouting matches that take a lot of time and don't end well. As a result, we'll remove discussions and blog posts on KSU asking for public comment on deleting content and banning members. We totally recognize that KSU won't be for everyone. If our Terms of Service or these few simple requests here on KSU aren't going to work for you, we totally understand. We hate having to ban people or delete content, so if you don't think that this is going to work for you upfront, it's much better for all of us to know it now. Thanks and we hope you enjoy the time you spend on www.KickstandsUp.ning.com! Lea (Biker Chic) and Eddie (Fast Eddie) www.KickstandsUp.ning.com