Warnings & Penalties
What are Warnings and Penalty Points?
The vast majority of users will never encounter these instances. Unfortunately there will always be a minority who abuse the forum and its hospitality.
Users who fall foul of the forum's Terms & Conditions of Use (and sundry posting guidelines and perceived issues of 'Netiquette') may find themselves receiving a Warning (warnings carry points that are generally incremental and remain on the users account for a fixed period - not unlike penalty points on a UK driver's licence).
A user who is found to be in breach the T&C can, ordinarily, expect to receive an 'Advisory Notice' on the first occasion with no penalty points attached. However, on any further contravention the user could expect to receive a 'Warning' with penalty points.
Persistent breaches of the T&C would, in all likelihood, bring a review of the user's access to the forum and may result in permanent limitation of access or exclusion.
Users who display a clear disregard toward the T&C, or persistent problematic behaviour, may find themselves penalised on an ad hoc, non-incremental basis including immediate suspension of their forum access (temporary or permanent). This would include users who 'sail close to the wind', attempt to 'play the game', push boundaries, or otherwise demean, harass or harangue users (with or without a 'smile'), etc.
Similarly, users who are the subject of numerous reports of content that, while not strictly in breach of T&C, is borderline may eventually find their account sanctioned.
Users who are a persistent cause for concern, or place themselves in the middle of problematic situations on a regular basis, can expect to be dealt with accordingly, which may be outside of normal practice (i.e. receive more severe warnings, etc., without notice).
Users who have content removed from a thread can expect to have their posting access to that thread disabled, permanently.
Accumulated Warning Points and Automatic Account Suspensions;
Warning points remain on a user's account for a minimum of four weeks, and are accumulative.
An accumulation of warning points (three active penalty points, plus any additional points) may result in the user's account being temporarily suspended for a specified length of time.
When a user receives any penalty only they are informed. This is private information and not visible to other users.
There is, however, leeway in the system which allows for some discretion on the part of the Forum Admin Team, although consistency and fair handedness is aimed for at all times.
Community Moderators do not issue warning points nor impose penalty suspension.
Additional Penalties & Restrictions
Additional penalties and /or restrictions may be imposed including (but not limited to);
- removal of posting rights to threads
- removal of access to individual or group areas of the forum
- removal of editing privileges of user profile, avatar and profile picture access
- removal of signature privilege
- restrictions of PM capacity, or removal of PM function
- disabling of picture attachment access, etc., as necessary.