Australian Media Center Community Forums - Code Of Conduct
Your use of the Australian Media Center Forums constitutes acceptance and agreement to our Forum Code of Conduct, these rules set the posting standards applicable to all members. If you violate the Code of Conduct, we reserve the right to terminate your account without prior notice. We prefer to advise users of inappropriate behavior, however, flagrant and repeated violations will result in an immediate ban. Our failure to enforce this policy, for whatever reason, shall not be construed as a waiver of our right to do so at any time.
We created this Code of Conduct to provide a basic understanding of what is, and is not allowed throughout all areas of this website and forums. The following guidelines are for the establishment and enforcement of our code.
* Ensure a friendly atmosphere to forum members and our visitors.
* Ensure the privacy of our members and that of others
* Comply with existing laws
* Encourage responsible use of our forums and discourage activities which disrupt our community and reduce the value of our services to our members and our visitors.
* Encourage freedom of expression and the exchange of information in a mature and responsible manner.
* Avoid turning our forums into an advertising billboard whereby important and sought after content cannot be easily located due to members involved in commercial ventures seeking only to post in order to place advertisements and referrals without making any attempt to provide tangible support or to advance the needs of our community.
A Note On Freedom Of Expression
Whilst we are committed to the principles of free speech and the absence of censorship, certain activities or discussions may be damaging to the reputation of the Australian Media Center Community and/or its members and cannot be permitted under the guise of free speech. The resources of Australian Media Center Community are limited, and abuse of these resources by any member may have a negative affect on the entire community and what we stand for. As a member of our community, you must participate responsibly and with appropriate respect to other members, their opinions and beliefs. If you have any questions regarding our code, please contact the administrator via email at
admin@xpmediacentre.com.au
The following activities constitute violations of our Code of Conduct.
1. Forum Security
The following actions are strictly prohibited:
* Accessing, or attempting to access, the accounts of other users
* Exploiting, or attempting to exploit, bugs, vulnerabilities, or loopholes; whether they are disclosed or undisclosed
* Penetrating, or attempting to penetrate, security measures of Australian Media Center Community's software or hardware, or electronic communications system
Any intrusion will subject your forum account to immediate termination, regardless of whether or not the intrusion results in the corruption, loss, or theft of data
2. Spamming
There are specific areas of the forum designated as an advertising areas, as a result, you may not spam or engage in commercial advertising in any other area of the forums. Spam includes, but is not limited to the following:
* Excessive off-topic threads
* Posting nonsensical messages
* "Flooding" the forum with similar meaning messages
* Post-Count farming
* Unsolicited advertising via private message or email
* Messages without content
* Repeated posting with constant referrals to other website(s) with no purpose other than the promotion of that website.
* Fraudulent activity (Pyramid schemes, chain letters, etc.)
2.1 Advertising
a) Commercial entities and personal sellers are advised that we have
only two (2) options available to advertise products or services for sale on this website:
Banner Advertising
Community Marketplace
b) Commercial entities who have not purchased advertising but who attempt to advertise their products, prices or services within post content will have their post edited, the commercial content removed and be asked to avoid the activity, a second breach will result in the poster's account being suspended for thirty (30) days and continued disregard of this rule will result in termination of the user's account. New members who are subject to disciplinary action may have their account suspended permanently.
c) Regardless of whether the product being sold is commercial or personal, advertising is defined as direct or indirect reference(s) to products or services within the body of a post or by private message/email by the owner of, or any person associated with the product or service, and where such reference is in the form of unsolicited information or in response to a question about a product or service or by reference to a vendor's commercial website through the use of hyperlink(s). Members have free and unrestricted access to the Marketplace to sell personal technology related items, however no reference or link to such adverts within forum posts is allowed. Commercial entities are permitted to place a single advert and renew it as necessary, however, multiple adverts are not permitted, nor are links to such adverts from forum posts.
d) Established members who are clearly not associated with a commercial product are free to point to, refer to, recommend or warn against a product's use on the basis that they are or have been (and if required by site management can demonstrate same) a legitimate consumer of said product, or are able to point to valid reference material in support of their assertions. Any member who attempts to appear un-associated with a commercial product but who unnecessarily refers to, promotes or posts unsolicited links to a commercial product/website within their first 25 posts may be deemed by management as being associated with that product and involved in commercial advertising. In these circumstances, and at the discretion of management, post content may be removed and applicable disciplinary action applied as detailed in 2.1 (b).
3. Piracy, Copyright Material, Cracks and Product Keys
"Copyright Material" is any material protected by legally recognised copyright; "Piracy" is the illegal copying of software or any material subject to copyright; "Cracks" are programs that disable copy-protection technology; a "Key" is a combination of numbers and letters that is required for software installation.
You may not request, distribute, encourage, discuss, link to, or post in support of activities involving pirated software, cracks or product keys or the supply, exchange or distribution of any copyright material including TV recordings.. Doing so may result in the termination of your account without notice. In addition, the following are grounds for moderator action on your post and/or account:
* Seeking help to create cracks.
* Seeking missing files that are supplied with installation CD(s)
* Admitting to being in possession of pirated software.
* Admitting to being involved in the distribution of pirated software, cracks and product keys.
* Requesting or discussing the trade, sale, exchange or supply of any copyrighted material including (but not limited) to TV recordings, DVDs, movies, music, software etc.
* Promote the identification of torrents sources, torrent content or torrent exchange.
* Provide or request login details for restricted websites.
Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of our forum administration.
4. Forgery or impersonation
Attempting to impersonate any person, including staff, using forged headers, instant messenger names, similar usernames in an effort to deceive or mislead is prohibited.
5. Profanities
You may not use profanity or bypass the software-based censor. In addition to words included in the censor list, sexual remarks may be considered profane when used in certain contexts.
Note: To clarify what is considered to be bypassing the software-based censor: Anything done to avoid the defaults provided by the censor is considered to be a bypass of the censor. For example, if the word "angle" was in the censor (it isn't), then all of the following are considered a bypass of the censor and thus in violation of this code:
A****
ang1e, angl3
anglë, añgle
a n g l e
Angle
a<!-- a -->ngle
The list of words automatically censored by our filter is available upon request.
6. Harassment
We do not tolerate personal attacks whether public or private on any individual or group (the definition of a personal attack will be determined on a case by case basis by forum moderators in consultation with the administrator). You may not use written terms or audio/visual materials which refer to ethnic/national origin, ideological or religious beliefs, gender, or sexual preference in a derogatory, demeaning or provocative context.
7. Pornography/Sexually Offensive Materials
You may not post or link to pornography or what would normally be considered sexually offensive materials.
8. Illegal Use
You may not use our forums for illegal purposes, or in support of illegal activities, as determined by the laws of Australia in the state of New South Wales. Such activities will guarantee an immediate ban. We reserve the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrongdoing.
9. Non-Disclosure Agreements
We will delete posts containing materials in breach of an active Non-Disclosure Agreement. We reserve the right to cooperate with any company who are conducting an investigation into a breach of a current and enforceable NDA.
10. Privacy
* You may not post any form of real life information of any user (except yourself) unless the user has first given permission by express written consent to the forum administrator. Examples of real life information include name, address, and phone numbers.
* You may not distribute any form of electronic information, email address, private/email Messages, IP addresses, and Instant Messenger messages ("Chatlogs") with intent to harass or be demeaning in any way as determined by a forum management, regardless of consent.
* You may not disclose a user's unpublicised email address unless the user has first given permission by express written consent to the forum administrator or has previously releasing said information themselves.
* You may not at any time post any form of real life information if you are 13 years old or under!
* You may not at any time use private messaging or email for unsolicited contact with community members for the purpose of advertising or selling goods or services!
11. Signatures
Signatures, whether facilitated by the forum software or by the user, may not exceed the following restrictions:
* The maximum font size allowed in signature lines is 2.
* The maximum number of lines in a signature is 2 - (unless used to display MCE hardware specs).
* No images allowed in signatures (* see hyperlinks below).
* Signature text should comply with our regular posting rules. No all-caps, no alternating caps, etc.
* Signature text or content that is too long, obtrusive or serves no purpose will be removed. This includes overly creative use of punctuation, color, font size etc.
* Signatures with just your username will be removed since usernames are on the top of every post.
* Signatures must also follow the same content rules that we have for posting. This means they must not contain include: profanity, pornography, racism, baiting and/or flaming.
Hyperlinks in signatures are allowed but must comply with the following:
* Links (and associated images) are permitted to Xbox Live profiles, server uptime & project stats (e.g. SETI)
* Links to external commercial sites or internal
Marketplace pages are not permitted for any reason.
* Linked sites may only be personal pages or blogs.
* Links to other forums or sites considered to be in competition with this website (thereby reducing our ability to attract advertising revenue) are not permitted.
* No affiliate links are permitted.
If your signature contravenes any of these rules, it will be removed without notice. For any questions or feedback about specific signature content not covered here, please PM a Staff Member.
12. Official Language
English is the official language of our forums because it is the common language between our moderators and users. Because we cannot moderate conversations or other texts which may be posted in a non-English language, you may not hold a conversation, nor post in any place on this website in a language other than English.
13. General Proprietary Rights
This website is owned by xpmediacentre.com.au and contains material which may be derived in whole or in part from xpmediacentre.com.au and other sources. This site and its contents are protected by international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. You may not modify, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute in any way any material from this website, including and without limitation, code or software, without xpmediacentre.com.au's express written permission.
All submissions made to the xpmediacentre.com.au forums, using the site's software or otherwise, (collectively know as "Posts" and "Threads") are not confidential and will become and remain the property of xpmediacentre.com.au. You agree that xpmediacentre.com.au shall be entitled to use, display, publish, reproduce, modify, transmit, sublicense, translate, create derivative works from, and distribute submissions in any medium and through any method of distribution, transmission or display for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to you or anyone else.
14. Email Addresses
* You may not harvest email addresses from our forums for any purpose.
* You are required to keep your forum account's email address up-to-date. If a warning sent to the email address on record bounces, your account will be suspended and you will have to contact forum administration to have your account restored
15. Moderation & Bans
* You may not evade a ban. Doing so will drastically lengthen your ban. If you have a problem with a ban or feel it was inappropriate, please contact an administrator and wait for a response.
* You may not publicly complain about or demand a reason for another user's ban, the deletion of a message, or the deletion/closure of a thread. Any discussion about warnings, bans, message deletion, thread deletion and thread closure should be done over private email/message between the person concerned and the moderators.
* You may not re-edit a message that has been edited by a moderator
16. Miscellaneous
* Do not post negative posts and discussions that are repeated over and over and over with no other purpose than to disrupt conversation. If you feel the need to say something, say it once and then move on. Do not disrupt multiple threads in order to get your view out.
* You may not bait or harass other users. Baiting & harassment is defined as posting with a clear intent to belittle, provoke anger or cause irritation resulting in another user users violating this code. Within the same context, you may not bait, insult, flame, harass, provoke or otherwise abuse a staff member.
* You may not abuse your ability to post in HTML in HTML-enabled forums.
* You may not post graphically-disturbing images as inline images (such that the images are displayed when users view your post). You may not link to images which are graphically disturbing.
* You may not post in a manner that is harmful to the Australian Media Center Community or any of it's members. If you do, the post will be deleted and you will be permanently banned.
* You may not register multiple accounts for any reason and specifically with the intent to violate any part of this Code of conduct.
Other Questionable Actions and Content
This Code of Conduct cannot cover every circumstance. We reserve the right to act appropriately if a user's actions, including the content of a user's posts, are deemed counter productive to the peaceful enjoyment or security of our forum community.
A Note About Your Privacy
We respect your privacy and we undertake to safeguard the privacy of your personal data. We realise that the growth of the Internet and online services raises questions concerning the nature, use and confidentiality of information collected about consumers. xpmediacentre.com.au assures you of our commitment to safeguarding your privacy during your Internet activities on this site. For more information about about how we treat any information we collect, please
click here
Changes To his Code Of Conduct
Given the dynamic nature of discussion forums and the multitude of unforeseen situations which may arise, management reserves the right to make any changes deemed necessary to this to code of conduct without notice.
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Australian Media Center Community Management
