The purpose of this site is ENTERTAINMENT and STRESS RELIEF for the OMGSRSLY CHILDFREE. You are not childfree if:

• You have or may have biological offspring (egg and sperm donation included) - you are a breeder
• You are involved in raising a minor child (including adopting and fostering) - you are a parent
• You are partnered with someone with children (minors or not) - you are a step-parent
• You plan to do any of the above - you are unchilded or pre-childed
• You are unhappy or regret that you haven't done any of the above - you are childless
• You are not sure if you plan to do any of the above - you are a fencesitter

Only CHILDFREE people may post on this site. If you're not childfree, we don't care what your reason is for being here - fuck off! We are not here to explain ourselves to you, to build a bridge, or anything of that sort.

This site welcomes CHILDFREE PEOPLE of all races, cultures, nationalities, ages, sexual/gender orientations, and socio-economic status (if I left anything out, let me know). It also welcomes CHILDFREE people of all religions and political persuasions, although folks should be prepared to see a variety of strong opinions about these two things. We have the following "rules":

1. No trolls allowed. No trolling other forums "on behalf" of BratFree. Do not invite trolls to our board, either. Use caution (such as not embedding the URL) to reduce the chance of trolls following you back. Don't link to private Facebook pages.

2. Foul language is permitted.

3. No racist comments. This means no racial slurs, but also no unnecessary descriptions of an individual's race/color which have no relevance to the story.

4. Don't "Bingo" us. This is considered trolling. Google "Childfree Bingo" if you don't know what that means.

5. No threatening or plotting physical violence or any other illegal shit. This site and its members neither condone nor advocate violence.

6. Thread titles: use descriptions of what is the content of the thread (UNLESS IT INVOLVES ANIMAL CRUELTY - see # 10). Threads whose titles are a bunch of nondescript expletives and/or emoticons may be NUKED or EDITED or MOVED at the discretion of the moderators.

While you're at it, provide some original commentary, not just a link to the article (or a paste of the article--see #9).

7. Disagreeing with or swearing at the admin(s) is permitted. This is not LiveJournal.

8. Email admin@bratfree.com or use the Private Messaging system to contact the Administrator for any reason.

9. Provide a reference (URL) when quoting content from another source. Provide excerpts of off-site content instead of quoting the entire article, if possible..

10. Animal cruelty bothers many people. If you are starting a thread which contains animal cruelty, do not describe the cruelty in the title and instead put an animal cruelty warning in the title. If you are commenting to an existing thread which is not marked in this way, and your comment contains animal cruelty, mark your comment with an animal cruelty warning and make the text white. Examples are shown later in this thread.

11. Do not send other members private messages unless you have reason to believe they would be welcomed. This means that you should not carry arguments and insults to PM unless invited to do so, and that if you are a new member you should not initiate contact via PM with an established member unless invited to do so.

12. Don't even think of using bratfree in your user name or email. That is reserved for the site owner. It's a pure troll maneuver to use it and buys an instaban.

13. Board Wars suck. If you have an issue with other CF boards take up with their mods. We can't and won't fix it. Bitching about that board here does nothing but cause animosity in CF community and hands the breeders another biscuit.
a)If you leave here don't be chickenshit lamer and cry about us someplace else. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it. Not every board is for everyone. Find the one you like and Viva La Difference!

14. Do not use a URL shortner like bit.ly or similar. People need to be able to examine links to decide if they want to follow them.

15. While dating a breeder is not against the rules (provided the kids don't live with you and you're not in a step-parent role), for the love of dog, shut up about your partner's kids. Nobody wants to hear about them. Likewise we don't want to hear about your sibling's wonderful kids, your friend's amazing kids, and so on.


If you suddenly don't see your posts showing up anymore immediately after posting, you've probably been placed in moderation and your posts require approval before they are visible. That probably happened because you broke one of the rules and we were not amused.

Someone asked:

Is posting/linking to articles on other forums or blogs and making fun of them here considered trolling?

The short answer is "no".

The long answer is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

This rule is primarily intended as a disclaimer regarding any individual who thinks that going around to other websites and writing "Fuck you from BratFree" is a fucking clever and swell thing to do. BratFree can take no responsibility for the conduct of its members elsewhere on the internet; however, the owners of this site actively discourage this sort of thing.

There is a new rule here. It's Rule #10 at the top of this thread:

Quote
Rule #10
10. Due to lack of cooperation with people not giving animal-cruelty warnings in titles and with people posting descriptions of animal cruelty IN the titles, we are now going to arbitrarily delete, edit, or move to the Rest Room any stories that are mostly about animal cruelty and not about bad parenting. What this means is that THIS IS NO LONGER ALLOWED and the moderators have been encouraged to deal with it however they feel like at the moment. So, even if you've always followed the rules about this in the past, there will be no special exceptions. If you want to post this material, go to another forum, or start your own forum. None of us are being paid to run Bratfree no one is charged a fee to use this site, so if you don't like this new rule, go somewhere else.

Rule #6 has also been amended:

Quote
Rule #6
6. Thread titles: use descriptions of what is the content of the thread. Threads whose titles are a bunch of nondescript expletives and/or emoticons may be NUKED or EDITED or MOVED at the discretion of the moderators.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Rule #3 has been clarified. Previously it said "No racial slurs" but as there have been problems with other types of comments lately this has been expanded.

Quote
Don't
I was sitting in the coffee shop trying to relax when in walked this Martian toddler and his fat moo. The toadler started running between the tables and pulled my laptop off the table after tripping on the cord. He started crying.

That the toddler is Martian is an irrelevant detail.

Quote
Ok
I was sitting in the coffee shop trying to relax when in walked this Martian toddler and his fat moo. The toadler started running between the tables and pulled my laptop off the table after tripping on the cord. He started crying.

The moo turned around at the sound. "Why did you trip my son?"

I explained that I hadn't, he had tripped over my laptop cord because he was running around like a crazed beast, and furthermore if it was damaged I would be sending her the bill.

Her response? "Don't give me any of that shit. All you Earthlings have huge feet. It's your fault he tripped."

The detail is made relevant because of the moo's subsequent comment.

Rule 11 dealing with private messages has been added. The short version is that harassing people via PM won't be tolerated.

On new threads vs. old threads

At Bratfree, we do not object to 'necromancy,' the practice of adding new commentary to old threads, under some circumstances. Bumping an old favorite every once in a while so that we can savor it again isn't a problem. For big news items in the past few months, we prefer that new thoughts be added to the existing thread over a new thread being started. This is also true for discussions of articles from years ago which have been discussed in the past, such as the old favorite about Carol Sarler (see epic threads for the link to that particular discussion). If your post isn't a big news story or an old article, check the posts in the last week or so to ensure that it hasn't been recently posted. If you make a mistake, the moderators will merge threads, but don't consider this a reason to bypass your obligation to be aware of current content before posting.

Update:

If you come back after some time away, it usually isn't recommended that you respond to posts which haven't had a reply for more than a week (for the Living Room; with other portions of the site the discussion takes a slower pace), unless you have something very insightful to add. Feel free to read the old threads, but focus your response to the newer ones.

Rule #1 has been clarified. Do not encourage trolls to come to our site. Trolls may come as a result of a link that we make in a post, or they may come in response to you telling a CF person about Bratfree, or they may find us through a search engine, but they should not be coming here by your invitation. If you're having it out with a breeder somewhere else, do not invite that person here - keep it on the other board or your own space.

Tips for :newb


1) Make a post in the intro thread. Establish some credibility.

2) Don't even think about telling people here how to run this board. Read the forum first.
a. Jumping on a regular with a butthurt will get you flamed like a steak on grill on July fourth. :flaming
b. We don't give a shit how you think we should run our board. It's your job to learn the culture of the board. The board is not going to change for you. If you don't like the culture go somewhere else.

3) Never drop a bingo on a member here. See a. above.

4) No you can't have access to the island. Earn it. Establish some CF credibility. Post elsewhere. Me too, I agree, way to go posts don't count. WE don't care about high post counts. We care about high post quality.

5) Don't come here and start picking fights. We don't need to hear it and aren't going to tolerate it. The anonymity of the computer screen doesn't give you the right to be a jackass.

a. Being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole is not acceptable. We deal with asshole breeders everyday, it isn't going to happen here.

6) If you get flamed by multiple people then it's obvious YOU are the problem, not the board or its members. Re evaluate your posts or even if you belong here.
a. This is not a place for sensitive new age guys, MRA's , fluffy bunnies, kids, or fence sitters.
b. Most of the posters here have significant life experiences. There are veterans, emergency workers, executives, engineers and tech people, line workers in many fields. The members are high speed hard chargers who have been around the block. Honor that experience. Chances are they know something you do not.

7) Yes we are hard asses. We've earned it. Don't whine about it because we don't care. Stamping your feet and having an innernet butthurt will only get you flamed and on the moderators radar.
a. If you have a butthurt, print this fill it out and stuff it:

bump