Forum and blog rules
Welcome to our new discussion forums. Our
forums have recently changed, so before you start using them please
take a few minutes to get to know our new rules.
By using our forums and blogs, you agree to follow our rules and
the terms of use for the website. If
you’re an IOSH member you must comply with the Code of Conduct.
Got a question? Don’t forget to check out our forum FAQs, which are full of useful information
about our forums.
The following rules form part of our terms of use for the website.
Before you start – some important information you should
know
- Postings made by forum users are personal opinions and not
those of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).
IOSH isn’t responsible for the content or accuracy of any of the
information contained in forum postings. Please carefully consider
any advice you receive.
- All postings made on the IOSH discussion forums (including
private messages) are property of IOSH. Please refer to our
terms of use for more information. We
reserve the right to remove entirely at our discretion any
contribution you post.
- Our forums are linked to our membership database, so we can
recognise IOSH members. If you’re an IOSH member, please remember
breaches of our forum rules could lead to the locking of your forum
account and in the case of a breach of our Code of Conduct, even
disciplinary action.
- If you don’t follow our rules, and are given up to three formal
warnings by our moderating team, you’ll be banned from using our
forums. Severe breaches may result in an instant ban.
- Our moderators’ interpretation of the rules is final. If they
believe you’ve broken them, they’ll contact you by email. Find out more about the moderators.
- If you’re not sure whether your message is appropriate, please
ask the
Web team before posting it.
- If we update our forum rules, we may post a news item on our
website to update you. It’s up to you to make sure you’ve read any
changes to our rules.
- The forum and blog rules must be complied with in spirit as
well as to the letter.
- If you don’t agree to abide by our rules, you must not use our
forums and blogs.
General rules
1. The forums are for professional discussion and debate of
workplace health and safety and environmental issues. Make sure
that your posting is appropriate and relevant. If your topic or
posting deviates from these topics, or strays significantly from
the original question, it may be locked or hidden. This is at the
moderators’ discretion. Your posting must be accurate (where it
states facts), truthful and be genuinely held (where is states
opinions).
2. You mustn’t antagonise other users or post any information
that could be considered defamatory, obscene, abusive, offensive,
inflammatory, unlawful or creates a risk to a person’s safety or
health.
3. You mustn’t indulge in bullying, aggressive,
discriminatory or nuisance behaviour. Please be
respectful towards other guests, IOSH members, moderators and IOSH
staff. Please remember, our forums are used by guests who might not
have a background in occupational safety and health. Inappropriate
postings made towards guests aren’t tolerated. If you’re an IOSH
member, bear in mind the Code of Conduct,
in particular:
"Members shall not behave in a way which may
be considered inappropriate to other members or staff of the
Institution." (Paragraph 10)
4. The forums shouldn’t be used to post, exchange or download
material protected by copyright law, unless you have permission
from the copyright owner. You must fully reference any extracts
from copyrighted material. If you breach copyright laws you must
indemnify (pay) IOSH for any loss we suffer as a result. We reserve
the right to remove any unreferenced copyrighted material. You may
be held liable for the content you post. For more information on
copyright law, please visit the UK Intellectual Property Office
website.
5. Discussion of potential or actual legal
proceedings is prohibited on the public discussion forums. Public
inquiries may be discussed, including where IOSH is a party to the
Inquiry, on the Members’ Forum. Information that has been
intentionally released, for example to alert others to a particular
hazard or fact, can also be discussed in the IOSH Members’
Forum.
6. You mustn’t use the forums for:
- commercial purposes (including the advertising of jobs, goods
and services)
- posting spam, surveys, contests or chain letters
- promoting causes or campaigns.
7. All spam postings are removed from our forums. If you post spam,
your access to our forums will be removed without notice.
8. If you’re offering employment opportunities, you should make
direct contact with the person who’s seeking work by sending them a
private message. If you’re seeking work, your topic will be locked
to ensure responses are sent directly to you by private message. If
you’re a course provider or product/service supplier, you can give
basic contact details in response to a request for information
about specific courses or products.
9. You mustn’t use the forums to make
complaints against any individual or organisation. We’re not trying
to stifle debate but to protect IOSH from being accused of
encouraging unwarranted attacks on others. Discussion about
comments made by public figures on health and safety topics may be
allowed at the discretion of the moderators. Find out more about our complaints
procedure.
10. If you want to discuss internal IOSH business matters, eg
membership and policy issues, you should raise them in the IOSH
Members’ Forum. All IOSH members have access to this forum.
Discussion about health and safety issues should be posted on the
OSH
discussion forum.
11. Make sure that you use the right forum for
your question or comment. If you post an appropriate message on an
inappropriate forum, we may move the message to the relevant forum
and let you know by email.
12. We can’t edit your postings. If you’d like
us to remove your posting(s), please email the Web team. You may be charged an
administration fee for this service.
13. Forum users should not attempt to
edit/change their postings. Attempts to do so will result in your
access to the forums being removed.
14. Remember that our forums are used worldwide. When you
respond to a question, take into account legislation, cultural
differences and language (eg English may not be the first language
of other forum users). Humour often doesn’t translate across
cultural boundaries and its use may not be appropriate.
15. Children of 16 years and under are not allowed to post
messages on our forums and blogs. If you’re under 16 and need
advice or have a particular question for our forum users, why not
ask your parent, guardian or teacher to post the question on your
behalf? You’ll still be able to read the responses without having
to register for the forums.
16. Forum users are allowed one forum account only. If you
attempt to use multiple logins to disrupt the forums or annoy other
users, we’ll remove your access to our forums without notice. We
regularly check the information forum users provide when
registering with MyIOSH. If we believe the information you’ve
provided is incorrect, we’ll temporarily lock your account and
contact you.
17. Your forum account will be locked if your screen name:
- contains a website or email address
- contains the name of a company or an organisation
- contains contact information (eg a phone number or
postcode)
- appears to impersonate someone else
- contains swear words or is otherwise objectionable
- is deemed inappropriate by IOSH.
Blogs
18. The above rules should be followed when
contributing to our blogs. Blogs are moderated by IOSH staff in the
same way as the forums.
Private messaging
19. Private messages are subject to the same conditions as forum
postings, eg private messages should not be defamatory, obscene,
abusive or unlawful. Visit our forum FAQs
page to find out more about private messaging.
20. Forum users should report any unsuitable
messages by emailing the Web team. Please don’t use the forums to
complain about private messages (see
9).
21. If you send any unsuitable private
messages we reserve the right to temporarily lock your account
while we investigate. In extreme circumstances (eg harassment),
this may involve logging into your account to check your messages.
If you’re an IOSH member you must comply with the Code of Conduct.
Avatars
The avatar upload feature will be added shortly. In the
meantime, here are the avatar rules:
22. Forum users are able to upload their own avatars. Avatars
may not:
- be animated
- contain text
- contain logos
- be used for advertising or promotion.
23. The creation and use of avatars is subject to the same
conditions as forum postings and all of our Forum
rules. Avatars shouldn’t, for example, be defamatory, obscene,
abusive or unlawful. Avatars which are unsuitable, as determined by
IOSH staff and Moderating team at their sole discretion, will be
removed without notice.
24. Before you upload an image to use as your avatar, you’ll
need to check that the image doesn’t breach copyright laws.
Remember, you remain solely liable for any material (including
avatars) you publish, display or transmit on the IOSH website.
Read more about liability.
25. Forum users should report any unsuitable avatars by emailing
the Web team. Please don’t use the
forums to complain about avatars.
26. Your avatar will be removed without notice if it resembles,
or is believed to be impersonating, moderator or IOSH staff
avatars.
27. If you don’t follow our Avatar rules, and are given up to
three formal warnings by our moderating team, you’ll be banned from
using our forums. Severe breaches may result in an instant ban. If
you’re an IOSH member, a serious breach may be referred to our
Professional Committee and could lead to disciplinary action.
Your forum profile page
28. Every forum user (guest and IOSH member)
has a profile page, which is viewable to other logged in users and
searchable within the forums. Your profile page shows:
- your forum screen name
- the forums you belong to
- when you last visited
- number of postings you’ve made.
There’s also the facility for logged in users to send you private
messages. All users have the option to add further details to their
profile page, eg real name, time zone, avatars. Visit our forum FAQs page to find out more about forum
profile pages.
Search engines and email addresses
29. Our public forums are accessible to
everyone and are ‘crawled’ by search engines, such as Google and
Yahoo, on a daily basis. This means anything you post on one of our
public forums could be indexed by a search engine and returned in
search engine results. IOSH accepts no responsibility if your
posting is returned in search engine results. Member-only forums
aren’t crawled by search engines.
30. Your email address is not visible to other
forum users. To contact another user outside of the forums, you
should use our private messaging service. If you disclose your
email address in a forum posting or private message, you do so at
your own risk. We don’t accept responsibility if something goes
wrong.
31. IOSH staff and moderators are able to view
your email address. We won’t publish or provide your email address
to anyone, unless legally requested, eg by the police. If we need
to contact you about the discussion forums (eg administration or
moderation purposes), we’ll send an email to your main MyIOSH email
address.
IP addresses
32. Moderators and IOSH staff are able to see your Internet
Protocol (IP) address when you post a message on our forums. This
is the address used to connect your computer to the Internet. This
information is for use by IOSH only and is only used to prevent
misuse of the discussion forums. We won’t disclose your IP address
to anyone, unless it’s legally requested, eg by the police, or
under a Data Protection Act (DPA) request.
Report a concern
33. Use the “report a concern” feature to
raise any issues or concerns you have about a topic or post. All
concerns are automatically sent to the Web team. They’re then
discussed by the moderating team. You mustn’t post complaints on
the discussion forums (see 9). Please
allow up to five working days for a response.
The moderating team
34. Our public discussion forums and the IOSH
Members’ Forum are moderated by a team of approved Chartered
members – all unpaid volunteers. It’s their job to make sure our
rules are followed by everyone who uses the forums. The moderating
team can’t edit forum postings on the website. At least two
moderators take part in making a decision that involves
interpreting the rules. They’re supported in their work by IOSH
staff. Visit our forum FAQs page to find
out more about the moderating team.
35. All other member-only forums are moderated
by committee members and IOSH staff. They follow the same rules as
the moderating team.
36. If the moderators perceive that your
message has broken our rules, they’ll remove it. Where possible,
we’ll let you know that your message is unacceptable and why. If
you’ve been formally warned in this way more than twice, on the
third occasion, your access to the forums will be removed.
37. The moderating team’s interpretation of
the forum rules is final. If you’re unhappy with their decision,
please refer to our complaints
procedure.
Complaints procedure and reporting of defamatory comments
38. We’re committed to providing a high quality, accessible and
responsive service to our members and the public. However, if you
believe that things have gone wrong, please send your complaints or
comments to the Web team.
If our response isn’t to your satisfaction, it may be referred to
the Director of Communications, whose decision is final. You
mustn’t post complaints on the discussion forums (see 9). Please allow up to five working days
for a response.
39. A defamatory statement is one which tends to lower a person
in the estimation of right-thinking members of society
generally. A defamatory statement must identify or refer to
the person and be published by the offender to a third
party. This includes a posting on the IOSH website. If
you believe that content placed on our forums or blogs is
defamatory of you or of anyone else, you must tell the Web team as soon as
possible.
Liability
40. You remain solely liable for any material you publish,
display or transmit on the IOSH website. You agree to indemnify
(pay) IOSH and its officers and employees against any claim,
liability, cost, damage, other expenses or loss we may incur
(including without limitation legal fees) as a result of any
material you publish, display or transmit on the IOSH website or
any violation by you of your obligations under these forum and blog
rules. IOSH expressly excludes liability for any loss or damage
resulting from the use of the website by any person in
contravention of these forum and blog rules. We reserve the
right, at our sole discretion, to promptly remove, or to disable
access to, any material which we think is potentially defamatory of
any person, unlawful or in violation of the any third party rights
or any other part of these rules.