Cider Workshop Google Group - Principles and Rules
Forum Rules.
Please abide by the following reasonable rules if you intend to post on the group.
* Spam / Advertising:
Advertising of any commercial product or service on these forums is not permitted. If you feel it is of value or on-topic please contact the admin team. Members selling their own equipment on this may be advertised on the forum (please check with the admins before posting adverts). All responses must be off the forum/list.
Chain letters and pyramid schemes are similarly prohibited. If in doubt, please contact the admin team.
* Flaming:
Any material which constitutes defamation, harassment, or abuse is strictly prohibited. Use common sense while posting. Remember, your post is at all time yours. Be careful to avoid posting things that will end you up in court - the Cider Workshop cannot take responsibility for you posts. The Cider Workshop moderators will, however, attempt to watch out for and control anything that is obviously libelous... if you have an issue with someone, please deal with it directly and not on the group forum!
* Signatures:
To avoid annoyance, signatures must not be more than three lines of text. If images are used in a signature, please keep them small. We only have so much space! It also helps greatly to know who people are and where they are. Please include this information at least!
* Offensive Content:
Material that is sexually or otherwise obscene, racist, or otherwise overly discriminatory is not permitted on this forum. This includes user pictures (where permitted). Use common sense. We want to show this web site to our mums.
* Cross-posting:
Posting a thread in more than one forum can be annoying but is allowed, so long as you reference the originating thread or forum (starting with something like ‘this is a cross post from…’ is also courteous to others.
* Copyright and ownership:
Comments and forum messages are owned by the poster. As such:
i. You are responsible for the content of your own posts (remember, you own it!)
ii. You are responsible for referencing others material in your posts/blog. Please give credit where credit is due!
iii. Should a web resource be introduced as a knowledge bank, permission must always be sought where possible.
iv. If you fail to reference an author/work, we may ask you to rewrite it with references inserted. Cider people are creative people – we value our contributions.
v. Please do not reproduce letters, personal correspondence or circulars without the authors permission. This includes anything published by 3CCPA, SWECA, WCPA, NACM or other body.
* Don't be a pain in the backside:
No, really…
Any penalties for the above rules are at the moderation team's discretion, relating to the nature and scale of the incident.
The forum will have several moderators, who will jointly decide on action/penalties. The forum operates a ‘3 strikes’ policy (strike 1 is a private warning; strike 2 is a public warning; strike 3 and your out). This strike list will be maintained by the forum administrator. For severe incidents, immediate removal may follow (with a public explanation to the rest of the members).
Forum Principles
The Cider Workshop is run on a basis of respect and responsibility. Therefore:
*Un moderated discussions
Members of the forum are deemed to be sufficiently old and ugly to manage themselves without the need to excessive moderation – please act responsibly and with respect for other members. Unfortunately, because of one persons behaviour towards the group, it has become necessary to set new members to 'Moderated'. This is watched by the team, and genuine new members need not worry about us holding posts back at all.
*Moderators
The title is a bit deceptive – these are the people are within the community who will mediate and apply the rules where required. They are not forum police.
*Threads
Threads will not be deleted or edited by moderators unless offensive. However, moderators may publicly request that a thread be left to die (if it’s so off topic or if it’s becoming offensive). In regards to libel, the Cider Workshop moderators will err on this side of caution when considering whether something needs deleting.
*Topics
Please try to keep to topic – we don’t mind near-misses. Common sense rules.
i. On topic means anything to do with cider or perry (or derivative of these).
ii. On topic may also mean other groups, clubs or campaigning groups.
iii. Please don’t berate anything unless you have first hand experience of said thing, and please be careful not to say anything that might end you up in court (see posting below).
*The Pre-nuptial agreement for The Cider Workshop
In the even of a disagreement or falling out of the administration of both this group and associated web portal, the following procedure will apply. Should 40% of the facilitators ( moderators etc.) feel that a member of the team should stand down, that person will do so. In any case, more than one person will have the ability to eject anybody else from the group. However, any such decision should be reached following mediation and as a result of a fair poll of the other facilitators.
This is in place for the groups’ protection and is so that the group can operate in a safe and free environment where you can be sure that policies are not the whim of a single person.
Note – these forum rules were updated: July 2015