Hobby & Craft Forums

[Nickie]

The rules below have been created to allow all members to enjoy their time here on hobbyandcraftforums.co.uk (HCF), whether browsing or contributing. They are here to ensure that the forum is and remains a friendly place for UK crafters and business owners to discuss their ideas, ask questions and help other members so please take a few minutes to read through the rules, which we have tried to keep clear and concise.

In order to retain our friendly forum atmosphere, we will not tolerate:

* Abuse to members or HCF mods/admin/owners
* Foul or offensive language, discrimination of any kind and personal abuse
* Spamming the forums either via posting on the forum or via private messaging.
* Naming and shaming of businesses
* Negative advice or opinion which is not helpful or constructive
* Abuse of the PM system
* Offensive usernames
* URL's in usernames
* Breach of copyright
* Disrespect and rudeness
* Blatant self promotion of your business where not permitted
* Links to illegal, unethical or immoral sites or information
* Material or links to material that can be deemed offensive or inappropriate
* Inflammatory posting
* Multiple accounts per person


Breaching of the above may result in a permanent or temporary ban.

Restrictions:

Below is a short summary of restrictions currently in place:

* You need 15 posts to have a signature
* You need 15 posts to post links

General Rules when using Hobby and Craft Forums:

Be courteous and respectful at all times, especially when other people’s opinions and advice differs from your own. If you have something difficult to say, or there is something that you strongly disagree with, be direct and civil, but be constructive at the same time.

Threads, and posts within them, will be edited, locked, moved or deleted at the discretion of the moderation team. We are happy to review a decision if you feel that we have made an error – please contact us if you feel a review is needed.

HCF is a privately-owned forum and all decisions will be taken in the best interest of the forum, the owners and the members, depending on the nature of the issue. HCF will take action to stay legal and compliant at all times, and also to ensure it works in the interests of its members as a whole.

Please use the feedback forum to highlight any technical issues, rather than sending PM’s to moderators, unless it is important or of a sensitive nature. This should include the details of your issue so that we can look into it. If you have something sensitive to discuss, please contact us directly.

We regularly check the feedback forum and anything technical or sensitive may require a little longer to resolve, so please bear with us.

If you believe that a post is breaching forum rules and guidelines, please report it using the Report Post icon (). The moderation team will then receive an email alert. This means we can go straight to the offending post and deal with it swiftly. No one will know you have reported it, and it will help to maintain the quality of information you’ve come to expect at HCF.

Use of the Private Messaging system is a privilege, not a right. Please do not abuse this right by messaging our users advertising your services, products and yours or other sites.

HCF is not an article repository. Whilst we welcome links to articles relevant to the discussion in threads, please do not copy and paste entire articles into a thread or post. Instead, feel free to use a snippet of the article (where allowed) and link to the article in question, giving credit where due.

Posting Rules

When posting your advice, questions, thoughts or opinions, please remember not to abuse threads and posts by adding your own links back to your website except if it is directly relevant and helpful to the thread author. If it isn’t, the link may be removed at the discretion of the moderation team.

Threads started by new members seeking a website review can often look like an attempt to purely get their website seen, get their link in a post, self-promotion and so on. If we think this is the case we will edit, lock or delete as appropriate. Please take note of the rules set out in the Website Review forum.

You are required to have 15 posts before you can post a link in a thread. Any posts in any thread that appear to be one liners, pre-cursors to spam, self-promotion of your business or off-topic, in order to achieve this post count will be removed, and your account may be banned. Trying to circumvent link detection by 'fragmenting' your URL will result in it being removed.

Bumping posts to keep them at the top or posting to get post count up will result in posts being deleted if the post content is not deemed a genuine natural response. Having a conversation with yourself in a thread is deemed topic bumping too!

Private Forums

Our private forums are not spiderable by the search engines, and only open to regular members of the forum.

* Private Hobby and Craft Forum - To discuss sensitive personal/business issues
* Private Website Review Forum - Got a website that's still being developed? Have your website reviewed whilst it's still under wraps!

Access to the above forums is given as a privilege to members who meet the requirements above. However, should a member abuse this privilege, it will be removed.

Signatures

We welcome the use of your signature to promote your business. Once you have made 15 posts, you will be able to create a signature. Signatures are limited to a maximum of five lines.

In the interests of avoiding unsightly signatures, please refrain from increasing the font size in your signature.

We will edit signatures that do not meet the rules above. Please note, that for clarity, we will consider anything that you sign off your post with as your signature - not just the signature facility within phpBB.

Self Promotion of Your Business


Self promotion of your business is allowed where appropriate. However, if your post appears to be of a spammy nature, or seems to be a direct advertisement, this will be removed. If you are a new member, an initial advertisement may be viewed with suspicion by our other members - so why not introduce yourself and get stuck in to the forum first, before advertising your wares!

Special Offers and Promotions Forum - Please feel free to post information on what your company is currently offering. In order to maintain some sense of order, and uniqueness for our 7000+ members, all threads posted must meet the following rules: Special Offers and Promotions Forum Rules

Images and Files

Please do not post or link to images, files or pages which might be deemed inappropriate. HCF is a family friendly forum - if you’d not show your grandmother, then don’t post it!

The Moderation Team

HCF Business Forums is moderated by a group of volunteers. As such, please treat them with the respect and politeness that they deserve, and remember, they are members too. If you disagree with an action that a moderator has taken, then please let us know.

Disclaimer

Hobby and Craft Forums is owned and managed by a non trading individual.

Views expressed on the forums, including those via private messaging, are those of the user who has submitted them, and not those of HCF.

The moderation team at HCF, reserve the right to remove content as deemed fit and remove or restrict access to members at their discretion.

The private messaging system on HCF is just that - a private messaging system. No one has access to read, edit or delete your messages.

Content

By posting content on HCF, you are agreeing to indemnify any and all members of the HCF moderation team from all claims, costs and expenses (including legal expenses) arising out of any content published by you.

By submitting, posting and publishing content on HCF, you are transferring all rights of ownership of that post to us and are granting HCF a perpetual royalty free non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, translate, make available, distribute and sub-license the content in whole or in part and in form.

Hobby and Craft Forums exists to create a friendly atmosphere for all businesses, big and small. On notification that content published by one of our users is deemed offensive, libellous or defamatory, we will investigate and remove the content where necessary, and where there is a clear legal reason for us to do so. We will however protect our members’ right to freedom of speech where there is sufficient reason to believe that the content published, is that of a true and honest opinion of the author. You can report a post by using the Report Post icon (), or by contacting us directly.



These rules are still a work in progress, and subject to change.