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| Isle of Wight Forum FAQ & Site Rules |
Isle of Wight Forum Rules
The frequently asked questions (FAQ) below are means as a guide and the rules and terms of use will be considered final in the event of any ambiguity between these and the FAQ.
Isle of Wight Forum is a privately owned and run website that we invite you to use provided that you agree to abide by our (pretty liberal) rules. Please think of using the forum kind of like visiting your mum's house - anything that you wouldn't do in front of your mum is not welcome here either.
Current rules:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and Help
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| Isle of Wight Forum Rules List |
Topic Content
- Maximum font size of 3 and this is limited to 3 lines in any one post.
- Must not be written entirely in capitals.
- Must not be completely bolded - maximum of 3 bolded lines (excluding quote).
- No swearing (or similar/masked words), no abuse, no racism or anything else in terms of use.
- Don't use threads for one-to-one correspondence (use email/PM!).
- Each post should add something of value to the thread, so don't just post "ha ha" for example.
- Respect the minimum character restriction for posts (related to above).
- Posts must be in English.
- Posts should not be written in text speech or code.
Cross Posting
- Topics should only be posted in one part of the forum.
- If you post the same topic in multiple parts of the forum, all instances of the topic may be removed at the discretion of the moderators and you may receive a ban.
"Bumping"
- Please do not post purely to bring a thread of yours back up the list of threads. This is called "bumping".
- Additional posts to a thread you've started or contributed to should add something new.
- Posts that give no further information will be removed.
Topic Title Rules
- Topic titles must not be written entirely in capitals.
- Topic titles may not contain non alpha-numeric characters, except - ! ? : . &
- Topic titles must be descriptive! Make sure the title explains the content and purpose of your thread.
Signature Rules
- Your signature must be added via your profile page and not manually to each post.
- Your signature may contain a maximum of two colours.
- Your signature must not be larger than the standard size (size 2).
- Your signature must not be written entirely in bold or capitals.
- Your signature must not contain lines of ..., ---, ___ or similar - just use the standard line provided.
- Your signature may contain a maximum of two commercial or four non-commercial links.
- Your signature must be no more than 4 vertical lines (including spaces) when viewed at 1024x768.
- Your signature must not contain any form of affiliate or tracking code.
- Your signature must not be in code.
Any user who doesn't comply with both the rules above and our terms of use may be banned from the forum.
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| Moderating Decisions & Appeals |
The moderating team will apply the forum rules and the Laws of England to posts on the forum. Once a moderating decision has been made, if the moderator has applied the rules, and there is no fault in their interpretation, then the decision is final. You may contact us to suggest a change in the rules for the future, we will not necessarily waive them immediately.
However, if you feel that a forum rule has been interpreted incorrectly or that a point of law has been misunderstood by a moderator, please contact us to pass on your concerns. You will need to supply us with the thread / post of concern, and your reasons why you disagree with the moderator's decision.
Please don't contact the moderators through PM to argue your case; they will inform you to use the contact us facility. If you fail to take their advice, and keep hassling them for an explanation, then we will regard it as harassment and consider banning you.
We will not tell you which moderator has issued a ban, removed a post, etc... If you persist in asking, we will again regard it as harassment.
If you threaten physical violence towards a moderator, or any other forum member, then we reserve the right to take any action we deem necessary, including a permanent ban and / or reporting the incident to the Police.
When you contact us, either the site owner or one of the administrators will look at the problem and reply to you.
Should you threaten or attempt to intimidate any of the administrators, then again we reserve the right to ban you and / or take the matter to the Police. Should you make libellous comments about administrators / moderators, we again reserve the right to remove your account or take the matter further.
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| Anonymity & Proxies |
Isle of Wight Forum reserves the right to deny access to the forum to anyone who logs in via a web proxy or any other means of disguising or anonymising their IP address.
Whilst we respect the privacy of users, IP addresses are logged on the forum to help us in cases of abuse.
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| Privacy |
Users on Isle of Wight Forum register with a username by which they wish to be known on the forum. It is generally considered to be good manners to refer to them by this username on public threads, even if you know their real name, unless the user states otherwise.
If you publish information about a user that they do not wish to be made public - for example name, phone number, images, places of work, email address, 'pen name' for authors, address - then we will remove the information and may ban you if you persist in publishing such information. This applies to, for example, group photographs or press photos that may include an image of someone who has expressed a desire for the image not to be shown. You can crop / pixelate the image if it is yours, but otherwise we may remove it. (This is the same approach that newspapers take to preserve privacy in photographs.)
We also do not permit the 'outing' of people on Isle of Wight Forum. When someone posts on the forum they have the right to expect that their privacy with regard to any identities they use on other websites will be respected.
We also ask you to not do the following without the permission of the person who sent the message to you:
- Post on public threads PMs that someone has sent to you.
- Post on public threads emails that someone has sent to you.
Posts on Isle of Wight Forum may also show up on search engines such as Google. Please bear this in mind when posting personal information about yourself.
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| Linking |
We retain the right to remove from a post any link to a site that we feel is not befitting of Isle of Wight Forum. This includes links to 'adult' sites, pornography, 'warez' sites and 'hate' sites. In addition, we do not permit links to the sites of political parties. In addition, we would prefer that users don't link to us from these sorts of sites.
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| Personal Safety Online |
Remember that information that you post is visible to anyone on the Internet and it is your responsibility to keep an eye on what you post.
People may not be who they seem online; be cautious about sharing email and MSN details with people you have only just encountered on the forum.
If you plan on meeting someone you've encountered on the forum in 'real life', arrange to meet initially in a public place, for a short time and let someone know where you are and with whom.
People wishing to use the forum to find child-care etc... do so at their own risk, and people should make themselves aware of the legal issues surrounding offering such services.
If you have any concerns about the activity of people on Isle of Wight Forum, please contact us, and we'll look in to your concerns.
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| What Kind of Content Is Acceptable? |
What is 'acceptable' on Isle of Wight Forum?
Isle of Wight Forum adopts a policy of being family friendly. This means that we do not allow postings of an adult nature, or links to sites that show 'adult' material.
We may sometimes remove material that is posted if we consider it to be insensitive - e.g. a joke about a public figure who has died earlier that day - or material that, if allowed to stay on the forum, could get us into legal difficulties.
The family friendly stance of the forum is also why we will pull some posts that are overtly sexual in nature or that link to sites or images that may be considered to have a sexual theme.
What do you consider to be offensive language?
You will find that certain words are replaced by a string of '*' characters. These are words that we've included in the forum's 'swear filter'. Other words and phrases may be offensive; for example, racist language or phrases deliberately designed to provoke users. Please don't try and 'hide' swearing by replacing certain letters with others. This is what we call 'masked swearing'. We reserve the right to edit or remove posts that we consider to contact offensive language.
Why are some posts edited to remove links to other web sites?
We will sometimes remove links from a post, if we do not wish the forum to be associated with the sites being linked to, or if we feel that the material linked to is inappropriate.
If you feel a link has been removed that shouldn't have been, contact us and let us know.
"Masked Swearing"
If you try and get a swear word on to the forum by disguising its spelling - e.g. sh1thead - we will regard this as swearing and may remove the word. In some cases we will remove the post altogether. If you persist in this behaviour you may receive a ban.
Someone's accused me of libelling them. What does that mean?
Libel is publishing a defamatory statement about someone that is likely to lead to their reputation being damaged in the eyes of their peers. If someone is defamed they can demand a public apology, insist on the removal of the libelous material, and sue you in court. They might also be in a position to take the forum to court.
To prevent this, we will act promptly to remove libellous or potentially libellous statements from the forum as soon as they are reported as such. We will also ask the poster to not repeat the libel, and if they do not comply we will take further action, which may be a permanent ban from using Isle of Wight Forum.
Our approach to libel is conservative, but we feel it's better to play safe and keep the forum running!
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| Promoting Other Websites |
We don't allow threads and posts to be set up purely to advertise or promote a website, whether that site is commercial or not. However, you may promote a website:
- As a link in your signature.
- As a link from your profile (your homepage)
- In a post that is answering another Forum user's question.
If you do wish to promote a website on Isle of Wight Forum, see the FAQ entry on advertising.
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| Advertising On Isle of Wight Forum |
Isle of Wight Forum offers a variety of advertising options. You can find full details in our advertising section.
We don't mind a little subtle advertising in posts and signatures. For example, if someone is asking for recommendations then feel free to post in response. But don't post an advert that is nothing at all to do with the requested information or the post will be removed.
Please read the forum rules on signatures for guidelines about advertising within signatures.
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| Using The Classified Ads Forums |
We strongly advise against posting your telephone number or address on the forums. This is for your own security and privacy. Isle of Wight Forum has a private message system that people can contact you via. You post contact details at your own risk.
From time to time we remove notices that are older than 6 weeks from the last post date.
We do not tolerate posters bumping their threads. Posts which are put in purely to bump a thread will be deleted. Should further bumping posts be added the thread itself will be deleted. This is in order to prevent newer threads being forced down the forum.
Things that you may not sell on Isle of Wight Forum:
- Football tickets (because their resale is illegal)
- Alcohol / tobacco
- Weapons of any kind
- Anything that is illegal for you to sell under English law
Please remember that we only provide a place where buyers can find potential buyers and we are not party to the sale of goods or services. Any disagreements should be dealt with between buyer and seller in private, and not on the forum.
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| Using The Jobs Forums |
We do not regard 'pyramid' schemes, multi-level marketing programs or affiliate type programs as jobs and such posts may be removed. To list something as an available job on Isle of Wight Forum, the listing should include the following :
- The rate of pay
- The hours available
- The location of the job
- A brief description of the work involved
- Whether any investment is required by the job seeker
If an advertised job doesn't include these details, we may remove the topic.
If you are seeking work, please remember that your post can be seen all over the Internet. This means that it may not be wise to post address and telephone numbers. Potential employers may contact you via private message or email.
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| Disclaimer |
The list of rules set out above is not necessarily comprehensive and should be seen a something of a work in progress. As new situations arise that require us to make a ruling we may add further rules or clarification to this page.
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