Rules

Below you will find a few rules that I have set up that I would like to apply directly to the members of Black Granite Team. They are mostly common sense, easy to understand rules that are designed to make everyone's life a little easier. These may be added to as time goes by, so please review this page on occasion. If there are any changes, all members of Black Granite Team will be notified via e-mail. Acknowledgment of these e-mails to your Team Leader is appreciated, but not necessary. Please remember that if you have any questions regarding these, feel free to ask me ( that's why I am here! ). The goal here is to make Black Granite one of the best groups in GAB to deal with. Here they are:

I) ALL GAB RULES APPLY DIRECTLY TO THIS TEAM

Sounds Simple, huh? Well you would be suprised at how many GAB traders that I have encountered that do not follow this. Please review them below.

1) GAB Oath

I promise to deal honestly, fairly and respectfully with everyone. I promise to send my cards when mutually agreed. All cards will be in mint or near-mint condition as defined by Scrye® unless otherwise noted. I promise to protect my cards adequately (as defined in the FAQs) to prevent them from being damaged during shipping. I further promise to help search out all bad traders including the links to them and forward the names to G.A.B. If I have a web page, I will add a link from it to the G.A.B. Bad Trader list.”

It is G.A.B.'s policy to only accept trade references. If you bought the cards it does not count. The idea is that a reference must be able to tell the condition of the cards as well as how the person ships them. There will only be only one reference point given per trader even if you trade with them more than once, also the point will only count once even if the trader you are trading with has different email addresses.

2) GAB Code

Any member found guilty of using himself or herself as a reference will be expelled from G.A.B. immediately.

A G.A.B. member must:

1) Deal with other traders in an honest and respectful manner.

2) Send cards when promised.

3) Send cards in mint / near mint condition unless otherwise agreed.

4) Send cards with approved protection as defined in the FAQs.

5) NOT take advantage of other traders because of G.A.B. membership.

6) NOT demand that others send first without a valid reason.

Failure to comply with the G.A.B. rules will result in the member facing disciplinary action, which may result in their dismissal from G.A.B.

Disciplinary Action will occur as follows:

1st Infraction: Letter of warning from Team Leader specifying the alleged infraction. Member will be given an opportunity to refute the charges and/or make amends.

2nd Infraction: Member will be placed "On Probation" for a period of at least 3 months. A list of "Probationary Members" will be maintained and linked with the Search Engine. Member’s Team Page will be marked with a ¶ to indicate they are on probation. In addition, the member may be demoted one rank for a major infraction.

3rd Infraction: Immediate expulsion from G.A.B. along with a listing of Expelled Members to prevent reapplications. This list will also be linked to the Search Engine.

3) G.A.B. Standards and Guidelines

A G.A.B. member should:

1) Notify G.A.B. when they discover a bad trader.

2) Get permission before using someone as a reference. A trade should be completed to the satisfaction of all before it is used as a reference.

3) Notify trading partners when cards have arrived.

4) Reply to all reference requests in a timely and thorough manner.

5) Reply to trade requests promptly and civilly.

6) Because our online communication reflects on all of G.A.B., members should do their best to correspond using correct spelling, grammar and punctuation whenever possible.

4) GAB FAQ's

These can be found at: http://gabtraders.com/main/faq.htm

Please link to this site and review them.

II) OTHER BLACK GRANITE TEAM RULES

1) Submitting new references

It is part of my responsibility as your Team Leader to certify your trading references. To reduce the flow of e-mail (which will be essential as our team grows) please submit your references approximately once per week, but no more than once per week. This will help a lot to get your (and your fellow team members) profiles updated much quicker! )

When a Black Granite Team member (you) sends the Team Leader (me) a reference, it will be a complete email address that the Team Leader can send out as a Reference Check without crashing due to the fault of the Team Member. Said e-mail address will contain the following to be considered a valid email address:

trader's name or "handle"@ISP Service address
i.e. joesmith@aol.com.

There will be no spaces in any part of the email address AT ALL!! There must be the "@isp. service" address at the end of the email address. Any other email addresses that are sent here not following this process will be considered "INVALID" and will not be sent out ! The Team Member will not be notified of the illegal email address either. So it's YOUR RESPONSIBILITY as traders to give the correct email address, and not make your Team Leader guess at what you mean.

To add a new ref to your list, I primarily need this trader's email address. You can also submit her/his name, but this is optional. What I do NOT need is her/his postal address, GAB Team, or any details of the cards involved in the trade. All this information should NOT be forwarded to me ! Also note that giving away the postal address of your trading partner is possibly not what she/he agreed to !

So, for short, this is how to submit refs:

email_1@dot.com Peter Parker
email_2@dot.com John Miller
email_3@dot.com
...

It is NOT necessary to add any formatting to your listing, one space between email and name will do. Just stick to the rule 'one ref per line'.

2) Checking your references

When the Team Leader sends out a member's references to be checked most times your references will be answered back to him in a timely fashion from the people you have traded with. But there are times when someone won't answer back right away to a Reference Check for you. So the Team Leader will allow a minimum 40 days time, where he will e-mail your trading party at about every 10 days to keep checking up on your submitted references for you. After that time has passed it will be labeled as 'no response (after several attempts)' on your list. It will be your responsibility to e-mail your trading partner and have her/him get in touch with your Team Leader in order to tell me about the trade that occurred between the pair of you in order to get your reference points for your GAB ranking.

3) MIA Members

When a member's e-mail account is down or she/he has changed to another address without informing the Team Leader - in other words, my e-mails to a Team Member are bouncing back to me, this member will be put on MIA - status ( Missing In Action ) and moved to Stone Cold Section. After the MIA - date is shown on our Team Page, the member has two months time to get in touch with me, or she/he will be deleted from the Team.

4) Rank points for selling cards

When a member sold cards to someone, this person can count as a Reference according to the GAB rules ( because the member sent cards to someone and the recipient can tell how she/he shipped the cards ).

My personal opinion is this: GAB was founded as a TRADING organization and I therefore will only accept 50% of a member's refs to be from this category. This is simply because a professional or semi-professional card dealer ( seller, e.g. eBay member ) could very easily gain high rank in GAB without trading regularly.

However, it is your Section Leader's decision how to handle these References. So you should inquire about your Section's rules on this matter.

5) No spamming allowed !

No spamming of the Black Granite Team members list or members reference lists is allowed !

In other words: No member of Black Granite Team is allowed to collect the members' or any member's references' eMail adresses to add them to any form of mailing list - not even for private use !

Sending unsolicited eMails ( mass mailing ) is considered SPAMMING and therefore violates the widely accepted rules of 'good manners' on the net.

6) Rules for our mailing-lists !

I have set up various mailing-lists for internal use in our Team. Only Black Granite Team members can subscribe to these lists and post messages through them.

Every mailing-list has a specific topic. If you post a message, stick to the list topic ! Off-topic mailings are considered mis-use and will result in you being removed from ALL lists PERMANENTLY !

All mailings will automatically be forwarded to the Team Leader ( me ) and checked for proper use !

7) Confirmation required !

It is required that all Black Granite Team Members e-mail me to confirm that they have read and understood these rules.

Please e-mail me with confirmation at: blackgranite(at)germes.org or simply use the form below ( will only work if you're logged in ).