Welcome to Toytown Munich!

Toytown Munich is an online crowd of English speakers living in Munich. We are mostly Americans, Brits, Irish, and Canadians. There are also a few Aussies, New Zealanders, and South Africans, as well. Even a few "internationalised" Germans.

The purpose of the forum is to bring together English speakers to exchange stories about life in Munich, to share tips, to find answers, and to rant and rave about the joys and frustrations about living in this fantastic city. As well as being an online community, many members of the forum also regularly meet up in real life. The forum is used to coordinate such gatherings as curry nights, pub crawls, dinner parties, or anything else you please.

The rest of this page aims to detail everything you ever wanted to know about Toytown Munich but were too afraid to ask.

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Contents:

The name "Toytown" Munich
Usage guidelines
Editorial policy
Copyright
E-Mail protection
Policy Updates
Contact

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Where does the name "Toytown Munich" come from?

The name "Toytown Munich" comes from the observation that Munich is not a real town. Real towns have litter, crime, visible poverty, heroin addicts lurking at the railway station, vomit on the pavements, etc. Munich has none of this. Munich is not real. It's an ideological town where everything is perfect. It's a Toytown.

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Forum usage guidelines:

1.1 Only write in English. Posts written entirely in German (or any other language, including English dialects) will be deleted.

1.2 All fluent English speakers who live in Munich or elsewhere in Bavaria are welcome to join the forum. If your ability at English is weak, or you don't live in Munich or Bavaria (and have never lived in Munich or never plan to move to Munich) then sorry! This forum is not for you. The forum is not intended to be an English language practice school for Germans. If you are German and your English needs improvement, we suggest you take a look at The Wall Street Institute or Sprach Duo. Besides the language restriction thing... race, color, nationality, creed, and gender are all beams of light refracted through one great prism.

1.3 Use a helpful title in new threads. For example the title "A question..." is not helpful. The title, "Why don't German ladies shave their armpits?" is helpful. This makes the forum more useful and much easier to browse. Try to use the "title" field for your title, not the "description" field. Do not swear in thread titles. Swearing in post contents is acceptable provided it's not toooooo excessive.

1.4 Before starting a new thread use the Search Feature to check that the subject of your intended post is not already covered by an existing thread. Post to existing threads wherever possible. If not, post to the correct category.

1.5 Try to keep the threads "on-topic". If you find the thread wandering off in a direction completely un-related to the original topic then start a new thread. Off-topic posts are routinely moved to new and/or other existing topics they the moderation team.

1.6 Use the "quote" feature sparingly - if at all. Use your expert language skills to explain which post or comment you are replying to. It's much easier on the eye and pleasing to read.

1.7 Don't make one-line posts such as "Check out this great link: http://i-am-a-doofus.com/". If you want to refer readers to another webpage give them a couple of sentences of explanation about what the link is and why they should click it.

1.8 Do not post personal information about any other Toytown Member without prior express consent from that member. Personal information includes, but is not restricted to: e-mail addresses, real name, telephone number or address, photographs of that member.

1.9 Don't try to dominate the forum. Only post as frequently as others do. The limit is 4% of the total post count on any given day. Exceed 4% and your account is automatically restricted from posting for 12 hours.

1.10 Be generally nice to each other and try to avoid getting dragged into Flame Wars. Rants and raves targeting particular groups of people, such as Germans, Americans, Brits, Men, Women, etc., are allowed. Personal attacks against individual members of the forum (including moderators) are not allowed and liable for deletion.

1.11 Category specific guidelines:

1.11.1 Misc and Random -- anything goes (except personal attacks as 1.10 above). This includes swearing like a sailor to your heart's content and being as politically incorrect as your imagination will allow.

1.11.2 Classified Adverts -- this is a serious section of the forum. All posts should be strictly on topic and genuinely helpful to the discussion at hand.

1.11.3 Events and Meetups -- banter and joking around is good provided it remains vaguely on topic and good natured.

1.11.4 In the other categories the threads should remain on topic and be good natured. Jokes are good, of course, but should remain strictly within the bounds of the topic being discussed.

1.12 Having said all that, the most important thing is - don't take anything too seriously. Have fun!

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Editorial Policy

The Toytown Munich forum is currently moderated by 5 individuals. Their sole aim is to make the forum both a pleasant and a useful place to hang out. To this end the following policies are followed:

2.1 Post Edits. Generally the contents of any post are not edited. The only grounds for editing are as follows:

2.1.1 To fix broken links, broken images, and broken formatting code.
2.1.2 To remove personal information about other members which was posted without consent of that member.

2.2 Post Deletion. Certain posts are liable for deletion. These posts include:

2.2.1 Posts written entirely in a language other than English. The occasional sentence or two in another language is ok.
2.2.2 Clear cases of spam - eg. penis enlargement devices, etc..
2.2.3 Posts containing highly objectional material, i.e. pornography, extreme violence, extreme hate.

2.3 Topic title edits. The moderators retain the right to edit any topic title at any time. The main purpose of this is to make the title as helpful and as descriptive of the thread content as possible. If you chose a thread title which is accurate and helpfully descriptive of your post content then your title less likely to be changed. Swearing in titles will always be removed.

2.4 Thread merging, splitting, and moving. The moderators reserve the right to merge, split, or move any thread or sub-thread whenever they see fit. The purpose of this is to ensure that the threads are located within the correct category, that the threads stay on topic according to the first post in the thread, and to prevent multiple threads appearing all of which discuss exactly the same topic.

2.5 Topics in Misc and Random are removed after 10 days of inactivity. These are topics have no lasting interest and no relevance to Munich.

2.6 The moderators will attempt to inform individual members via PM if posts or threads by those members are moved or edited. This communication, however, can not always be guaranteed due to simple time constraints. If you have a problem or query regarding acts of moderation, you should contact your preferred moderator by PM first, not post to the public forum. Remember, moderators work for the good of the community as a whole. They never act with deliberate evil intent to persecute any one individual member.

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Copyright

3.1 The copyright of a post belongs to the forum member who posted it. However, by making a post to Toytown Munich you are granting Toytown Munich a non-exclusive, non-revokable license to use your post for purposes laid out in section 3.2.

3.2 Toytown Munich will not deliberately repost, or otherwise reuse any post content to any website outside of the domain: toytowngermany.com. We reserve the right to reuse your forum content in the Toytown Munich city guide section. If a post of yours is reused in this city guide then we reserve the right to edit your text as we see fit although we will do our best to preserve your original contribution. If substantial portions of text from your post are used in the city guide then you will be given credit for this by way of your forum username and a link to your Toytown Munich forum profile.

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E-Mail Protection

Toytown Munich takes the protection of your e-mail address against spam extremely seriously. Toytown Munich will never divulge your e-mail address to anyone. Also, Toytown Munich will not send you any e-mail to your registered address other than for the following reasons:

4.1 For membership sign up and validation.
4.2 To alert you to an incoming private message.
4.3 Forwarded e-mails from other Toytown munich members sent via the forum e-mail feature.
4.4 To alert you to replies to a topic for which you have requested response alerts.
4.5 Invites to Toytown Munich parties (in association with Munich Dining Club), these invites will be sent no more frequently than once a month although mostly likely they will be sent at a maximum of only once every 2 or 3 months. Each of these invites will also carry the option to unsubscribe from the invite list whilst remaining subscribed to the Toytown Munich forum.

Features 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 are options which may be switched off in your control panel.

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Policy Updates

5.1 Toytown Munich reserves the right to update these guidelines as required; it is your obligation as a registered member/user to review these guidelines from time to time.

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Contact

[img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/xtra/images/forum-contact.gif[/img]

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