Forum Policy and Agreement

You agree, through your use of this Kariong Community Website Forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, discriminatory against any social or racial group, or in violation of ANY law.

This is not the place for the airing of personal vendettas with neighbours, the naming of neighbours you may have an ongoing disagreement with or the identification of those neighbours by inference.

Legal actions can be taken against you by anyone named or referred to in this way.

You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material.

Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, personal business dealings, commercial promotions, and solicitations are also inappropriate to this Kariong Community Website Forum.

Note that it is impossible for the Kariong Community Website to confirm the validity of posts on this forum. Please remember that the messages are not monitored before they are posted and the Kariong Community Website is not responsible for the content of the messages.

This site does not encourage restaurant reviews because of the danger of people abusing the facility to either promote or rubbish a restaurant for commercial reasons. Please do not offer or ask for opinions on any local services. If you have a complaint with a business please take it up with the owner, but please do not post about it here or it will be removed. 

The site does not warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information presented. The messages express the views of the author, not necessarily the views of the Kariong Community Website Forum.

As stated above, this site doesn't allow recommendations for local trade’s folk to be posted in the forum. This is to prevent people using the local discussion facility for promoting their own businesses. Neither do we allow people to criticise local firms; this is to prevent posts being used to achieve commercial gain and to protect against defamation. Instead, we suggest people take up any issues with the companies involved directly and outside of the public discussion area.

However, every now and then someone posts asking if anyone knows a good plumber/decorator/electrician etc. In those cases, we suggest that people use the personal message system to pass on recommendations rather than reply in the public forum. (The personal message system becomes active after forum members have posted five times).

But a word of warning. There is no guarantee that what is recommended is genuine and the Kariong Community Website can take no responsibility for false recommendations.

There will always be a danger that people will use the opportunity to recommend themselves, a business colleague or a family member, rather than recommend someone who has done a good job for them.

The onus, should you be looking for recommendations, is on the person enquiring to make the usual checks to find out whether the person making the recommendation is a satisfied customer and not someone pushing their services.

Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to message the editor through the forum's internal message system as soon as possible.

The Kariong Community Website has the right to remove objectionable content, within a reasonable time frame, if it is thought that removal is necessary. This is a manual process however, so please realise that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately. This policy goes for member profile information as well.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless this forum, and any related websites to this forum. The Kariong Community Forum also reserves the right to reveal your identity (or any information we have about you) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any information posted by you.

You have the ability, as you register, to choose your username. We advise that you keep the name appropriate. With this user account you are about to register, you agree to never give your password out to another member, for your protection and for validity reasons. You also agree to NEVER use another member's account to post messages or browse this forum.

After you register and log into the Kariong Community Website forum, you can fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present clean and accurate information. Any information we deem inaccurate or vulgar will be removed.

Please note that with each post, your IP address is recorded, in the event that you need to be banned from this Kariong Community Website Forum or your ISP contacted. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

At times we might notify the forum membership about updated information about the site. If you don't want to receive these updates, please let us know and we will make sure you are not included in the update.

The forum will not tolerate spamming, trolling, and flaming. All three are explained below.

• Spamming is repeatedly posting the same link, or message on multiple boards, or trying to get people to go to another site to buy something.
• Trolling is going onto a board for the sole purpose of starting trouble or instigating an argument.
• Flaming is going onto a board and insulting people because of their beliefs, sexual preference, gender, ethnicity or any number of things.

When posting links on the Kariong Community Website Forum, members may link to any other site that provides information that helps answer another member's question or is just of general interest to members of that particular forum; the Kariong Community Website forum support this type of exchange.

The only type of linking that is not allowed is when members invite people to leave the Kariong Community Website Forum in order to continue the discussion on another forum. The aim of this forum is to have a healthy debate on local issues and it makes no sense to transfer that discussion elsewhere.

Thank you for agreeing to these terms and joining the Kariong Community Website Forum.

The site's editorial team reserves the right to amend this forum agreement at any time and will always post to the forum when doing so to ensure that all existing forum members are aware of any changes.