Board Rules

dvds2000

dvds2000

Gone But Not Forgotten
Joined
May 1, 2003
Messages
2,448
Location
Sunderland
Hiya

As a result of recent discussions regarding certain area's of the site and how it is run, I have updated the terms and conditions for use of the site.

I would appreciate it if everyone could read them, there is a link at the top of the page or you can click here.

The new terms and conditions are effective from now. By posting anything from the date and time of this post you are agreeing to them.

If you do not agree to them please let me or one of the moderators know and we will arrange for your membership to be cancelled.

Most of the T&C are just common sense and won't affect 99.9% of the members on here, but as we haven't had any specifically for the site in the 5 years we have been going we thought it was time we got some.

A couple of them I think are worth pointing out (as I know most people won't bother to read them :) )

In order to protect Talkinghorses and its members from legal prosecution, and to maintain an environment that encourages debate and discussion, inappropriate material may not be posted, including (but not limited to):

Posting inflammatory comments (commonly referred to as "trolling")
Persistant xenophobia, racism or personal abuse directed at other forum member
Posting obscene or pornographic material, or links to other sites that contain or promote obscene or pornographic material
Posting information that may invade the personal privacy of any other person
Commercial advertising, or the promotion of your own site ("spamming")
The promotion of pyramid or referral schemes
Posting any material that breaks common law
Requesting or distributing information via e-mail that cannot be posted on the site

Additionally the following actions are not allowed:

Attempting to bypass the auto-censor
Posting irrelevant material (commonly referred to as "padding")
Posting links affiliated to other sites
Including images within your post that are not hosted on your own webspace without the explicit permission of the webspace owner
If you find any post that you believe may contain any inappropriate material, contact us by using the "REPORT" button attached to the post so that we may quickly take any necessary action.


Copyright

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright on that material. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).

In the case of any inclusion of actual quotations taken from the media, other websites or any publications must acknowledge the source of the quote accurately in the same post.

Warnings

Talkinghorses operates a system of formal warnings. All warnings are recorded in the moderators private area.

We will notify you of any warning made for breaking these terms and conditions by:

A public warning within the thread in which you broke the terms and conditions.
and/or
An e-mail to your registered account.
Depending on their severity any warnings you receive, you may be subject to a temporary or permanent ban. Following a temporary ban you should contact us to request the reinstatement of your account.

Signatures

To protect the integrity of what is a non-commercial/not-for-profit site, permanent links to commercial websites (ie businesses which are run for profit or that charge subscription fees) may no longer be promoted as signatures. There are no objections to members mentioning their own businesses on a one-off basis. It would be appreciated if signatures could be limited to the 'small' font size and to no more than two lines in total.

Complaints

If you disagree with any decision we make, contact us privately where we will consider your complaint. You may not publicly question any decision we have made on the forum.
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They are probably the major changes and the things I have highlighted are things what may affect some members.

If you have any comments to make on these new T&C's please ask below

Many thanks

Col
 
Yes, you're right Pee but if you were still moderating, you would realise just how difficult it has become in recent months to maintain a pleasant forum and just how many valued members have either left or post very infrequently. All down to the actions of a few overly-opinionated members who refuse point-blank to tone down their posts and insist on posting abuse or carrying on personal vendettas.
 
So my link to Brendan's website site and to Ron's site on my signature now need to be removed?

Could someone confirm please.
 
I know I'm hated by some on here (with no real justification), but I feel this forum has become seriously unfriendly.

That's why I very rarely post nowadays.
 
The rules seem fair enough to me, nothing to get too bothered about, but the following sentence puzzles me somewhat:

"If you are an American Citizen under the age of 13...you are NOT permitted to register."

What is it about pre-teen American children? I know they have a reputation for brattishness, but not uniquely so, surely?
 
I'm glad to see there is a new rule regarding duplicate accounts.
I've never quite understood why there is a need for ppl to have them.
 
It is a shame it has come to this, it really is.
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it's a natural progression of things really, if you check other forums (which are popular) you will find almost all have similar T&C's.

@ Kathy www.escorialracing.co.uk seems to be ok at first glance, Ill come back to you on these at a later point though

What is it about pre-teen American children? I know they have a reputation for brattishness, but not uniquely so, surely?
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It's something to do with the law in the US I think, inn fact a quick google shows this as the reason.

http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm
 
To be honest apart from this forum all the other forums I go on are family forums which have much tighter T&C's & I see nothing wrong with the above thats going to affect me :)
 
Including images within your post that are not hosted on your own webspace without the explicit permission of the webspace owner ]
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Does that mean, for example, that we can't include the Racing Post's splash page image in a post?
 
where at all possible I would prefer it if all images could be hosted somewhere else as leeching bandwidth cost the people paying for it money. If its something like a flash that can't be copied over then unless we get complaints from a site owner I don't see a problem with that. There are free image hosting sites people can use

http://www.photobucket.com/

http://www.imageshack.us/

theres a couple
 
The rules seem very sensible to me - a number of people were never going to post responsibly when treated as sensible adults, and the issue of copyright has bugged me for some time. Whenever we Google up an answer to a question, or merely bung it up as a fact in some topic, we need to accredit it to the source, for example, just put your information source in brackets after you post it up: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." (Wikipedia)

If you're not sourcing photos from a free site and you've nicked them off the RP, then after each photo you should put (RP), or the photographer's name in brackets, just as is done in paper publications. It gives credit where it's due, and protects this site from copyright infringement.
 
ok just to clarify something a few people have contacted me about

Warnings

Talkinghorses operates a system of formal warnings. All warnings are recorded in the moderators private area.

We will notify you of any warning made for breaking these terms and conditions by:

A public warning within the thread in which you broke the terms and conditions.
and/or
An e-mail to your registered account.
Depending on their severity any warnings you receive, you may be subject to a temporary or permanent ban. Following a temporary ban you should contact us to request the reinstatement of your account.
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Underneath your joining date on the left hand side of any posts you have made you will see Warn: (0%) followed by some coloured squares.

This is part of the warning system now in place. You can only see your own warning level, and nobody else can see anyone elses. You haven't been singled out, everyone has them but they are only visible to the person who they belong to and the moderators.

Every time you get a warning your percentage will rise and when it reaches 100% you will either get suspended from the forum or banned.

Hope that clears up any confusion

Col
 
I thought I had done something wrong as I was the only one I could see that had a warning bar :huh: very good idea though.
 
Regarding the sites that are no longer to be allowed as sigs, if it is your site you can still use it as your personal homepage in your profile, so if people want to see it by clicking on your user name they can.
 
Colin,

You are doing a great job maintaining this site. I see no problem with the T&Cs at all, and if it ensures the longevity of this site then they are essential.
 
Originally posted by dvds2000@Mar 17 2006, 12:04 AM
Regarding the sites that are no longer to be allowed as sigs, if it is your site you can still use it as your personal homepage in your profile, so if people want to see it by clicking on your user name they can.
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? time for the eggs to be boiled :ph34r:
 
Hi Jay, I often wonder where you hide nowadays. I will never forget the days of chatting to you (and a few others) on the Channel 4 gardening forum after the racehorse forum was closed down all those years ago and we had nowhere to go. Those were the days eh. Glad to see you are still around. B)
 
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