Guidelines

Introduction

The Westfield Sports Car Club (WSCC) is a car owners club and as such makes available for the use of its members, which is also viewable by the public, an online forum where information on many topics, the focus being the Westfield sports car, can be discussed. It is intended as source of information exchange about the Westfield sports car and also allows for non-car related chat and a wide range of other Club and Member matters.

 

Part of the appeal to members and non-members is the huge range of shared knowledge available, the openness and friendliness and the relative freedoms allowed to share views and discuss many topics; however, there needs to be an emphasis on car and club related discussions and in order to help members and non-members alike, these guidelines have been produce in order to determine if your post is in keeping with this ethos.

 

Posters are reminded that this is an open forum and as such should be mindful that other members or members of the public may not share your view or sense of humour and may treat your posts as offensive or inappropriate. Posters are also reminded that the WSCC has limited technical or legal capacity (rightly and necessarily so) to control who has access to the forums and as such, should be mindful that anyone, including children and vulnerable persons, may be viewing your posts.

 

The following guidelines will apply equally to posts, images and files and images that are uploaded and/or shared or otherwise made available for members or the general public to see. These guidelines should be read in conjunction with the WSCC Constitution.

 

More Information and Contact

If any of the above or the following is unclear, please email committee@wscc.co.uk.

 

General Moderation Rules and Forum Guidelines

Should any post on the WSCC boardroom require moderation, for any reason, the first action taken will nominally be to hide the post from public view pending investigation. Deletion of the offending post shall be carried out only at the end of the moderation process if it is deemed as such before the moderation report is closed. Alternatively, at the end of the process, the offending post may be edited and unhidden, a suitable comment added by the moderation team and then locked.

 

All moderation shall be initiated and tracked backstage via a post report. Post reports may be initiated by ANY member using the “Report Post” button found on all posts; this will automatically send a message to the moderating team, nominally made up of the incumbent committee and other such nominated moderators or administrators. This allows for all moderation to be audited and to allow discussion between moderators.

 

Members and non-members alike are advised that using the “Report Post” button is the ONLY method to be used to report content not conforming to these guidelines or deemed inappropriate, offensive or constitutes significant thread drift.

 

Where it is very obvious a post is spam or is extreme in its nature, moderators and/or committee members reserve the right to hide and/or delete such posts immediately and unilaterally without the need to follow the reporting and review process. A reply post or the creation of a new post to raise awareness of a potentially offending post or a post currently undergoing moderation will be considered in of itself an inappropriate post and will also be hidden and/or deleted immediately.

 

The following shall be deemed appropriate for immediate moderation without the need for consultation with other moderators or delay and will apply to links, text, images or howsoever constructed:

 

• Pornographic or adult postings
• Offensive language or imagery
• Copyright material or other Intellectual Property not belonging to the poster
• Technical “advice” that may initially be deemed as inappropriate, wrong and/or dangerous
• Any post deemed to be potentially defamatory, offensive or libellous for any legal, religious, race or political reason
• Bullying / targeting
• Obvious spam
• Sales or promotional posts (where the poster is not a Sponsor, Advertiser or Trader member)
• Posts that discuss or link to a post that is being moderated

 

Any and all other items for consideration for moderation may be reported by any member. Where this member is also a moderator, they shall be considered not to hold the role of moderator for any further decision-making purpose.

 

Where possible, the decision to moderate a member reported posting shall be made by no less than two moderators.

 

In all cases, the member being moderated shall have a PM sent to them explaining the reasons for the moderation and the likely course of action that will follow. Where necessary a post may also be put in place to explain to the membership the reasons why the moderation has occurred.

 

Adverts and Member products or components

Adverts may be posted under the following conditions:

 

• Personal adverts may be posted by fully paid up WSCC Members in any member advert section of the site
• Adverts on behalf of other identifiable club members may also be made by a club member in these sections
• Adverts on behalf of non-members must be made into the External Adverts section of the site

 

Any adverts that do not abide by the above rules will be removed or moved to the External Adverts section of the website. Members may NOT post adverts on behalf of companies or commercial bodies. Companies and commercial bodies may post adverts so long as they themselves are a Sponsor, Advertiser or Trader Member.

 

If a member produces their own component(s) for fitment to their own Westfield and subsequently wishes to offer further examples of the component(s) for sale publicly to other members in the forums, that member must contact the Committee using the email: committee@wscc.co.uk prior to doing so to obtain the Committee's permission. The Committee will consider all such cases on an individual basis and either:

 

• Allow a very small number of components to be sold publicly in the forums
• Allow the component to be publicly mentioned but only sold via the PM system
• Decide that the member is operating a "cottage industry", at which point the member must either become a Trader or cease using the forum to mention or sell their component(s)

 

The Committee shall have the final say in all such cases, will lock or hide any threads or posts if it feels necessary to do so, and will insert a disclaimer in any such allowed advert to legally protect the club and its members.

 

Sponsor, Advertiser and Trader members may post commercial adverts in the relevant advert section of the site. Where a special offer is made to club members only, this should be apparent in the advert along with any associated terms and conditions. Sponsor, Advertiser and Trader members may respond to posts with offers of products and services RELEVANT to the posters query or problem.

 

Bulk-buys and Special Offers

Bulk buys, that from time to time may be initiated by a member or shall be offered by commercial entities, shall be constructed in such a way as to ensure that the contractual relationship is directly with each purchasing member and specifically NOT with the WSCC. In practice, this means most bulk buy companies should consider trade membership to advertise and offer their bulk buy or members discount schemes.

 

Any bulk-buy or special offer MUST be approved by the committee.

 

On Topic Sections

A number of forum sections that have specific function such 'Start Line', 'Tech Talk' and 'FAQ' are deemed as on topic and therefore will be necessarily pruned to keep posts on topic and to prevent thread drift. Off Topic posts in these areas may be subject to moving or pruning by moderators and such, pruned posts may be split and moved to a more relevant area and in such a case, a link to the new post will be posted in the original post. This can be done unilaterally be moderator.

 

Member Avatars

The contents of Member’s Avatars must abide by all of the above guidelines and must not be constructed in a way that:

 

• Circumvents the above guidelines
• Utilises copyright material
• Is or is construed as pornographic or profane
• Is offensive or potentially offensive
• Suggests association with any organisation that is spurious or otherwise non-existent

 

In addition, avatars may not include any advertising for any entity be it commercial or otherwise (unless the member is a WSCC Sponsor or Trader).

 

The Committee and/or Moderation Team shall have the final say on what is permissible, and any questions should be directed to them before altering or creating an avatar which might be affected by these rules. Any avatar perceived as not complying with the rules should be reported by using the report button located on the post containing the avatar in question.

 

Private Information, including Private Messages

You may not publish or post other people's private information, including Private Messages, (PM’s) without their express authorisation and permission. We also prohibit threatening to expose private information or encouraging others to do so, this applies to attempts to share such data both on the Club’s Forum and to other platforms. Where it is found such posts have been made, they will be subject to immediate moderation, and the poster warned accordingly.

 

Signatures

The contents of Member’s Signatures must abide by all of the above guidelines and must not be constructed in a way that:

 

• Circumvents the above guidelines
• Utilises copyright material
• Is or is construed as pornographic or profane
• Is offensive or potentially offensive
• Suggests association with any organisation that is spurious or otherwise non-existent

 

Member signatures may include one line of non-commercial text, one non-commercial image no larger than 175px high x 600px wide, and a maximum of one link, the text of said link being only either the URL itself or the linked name of the website (for example "www.wscc.co.uk" or "Westfield Sports Car Club"). Linked websites should be 100% in relation to the ethos of the Club. Link text font size must not exceed 12 point.

 

The signatures of Club officers including Moderators, Committee Members, Administrators, Area Organisers, etc. are to be of the predetermined universal professional club format only and may have two links as long as both links pertain to club business. Link text font size must not exceed 12 point.

 

The Committee and/or Moderation Team shall have the final say on what is permissible, and any questions should be directed to them before altering or creating a signature which might be affected by these rules.

 

Disciplinary Action

As written in the Club Constitution, any member found to be on multiple occasions or consistently in breach of these guidelines shall be deemed worthy of disciplinary action.

 

Content Reuse

The Club owns all forum content and reserves the exclusive right to retain, use, re-use and re-publish in part, or whole, material including text and photos, submitted to and hosted by the forum, for the benefit of its members in perpetuity. Such uses may include reposts, links to posts and publication of same in the Club's official magazine.  Material posted to forum areas which are available exclusively to club members (such as in Tech Talk or FAQs) may not be disseminated, copied or shared by members outside the club, to other websites or to social media platforms.

 

February 2023