A forum is a place to share and help each other out – it’s not fun when it’s flooded with crude comments, bad language, and unsolicited advertising.
At Nature & Garden, registered members don’t see any advertising on forum pages when they’re logged in.
Guidelines and terms of use for the Nature & Garden forum
Basic rules and moderation
- You acknowledge having read these guidelines in full.
- Participating in forum activities means you commit to respecting all the present and future guidelines.
- You accept that forum Administrators and Moderators have the right to modify, move, and delete any message, topic, comment or note posted on the forum. They may do this at any time, even without giving any notice nor need to justify their actions.
- The forum and website Administrators have the right to modify these guidelines at any time.
- Moderators and Administrators have access to “private messages”. They’re only private in that other users who aren’t moderators or administrators cannot access these conversations. They are monitored. No information is collected, but misuse will be monitored.
Spam and unsolicited advertising
- Using this forum as a platform for advertising (including questionnaires) is strictly prohibited.
- This applies to all forum activity: topics, responses, posts, messages, comments, and even your personal signature.
- Administrators and moderators are the sole deciders as to what constitutes unsolicited advertising.
- Accounts and content may be blocked and/or removed accordingly.
A few examples of disallowed content:
- recommending a supplier or specific brands
- linking to a store website
- mentioning and linking to blogs and other websites, even if related to gardening
- market studies, polls, and “student research projects”
Such content will be removed and users will be banned.
Nature & Garden forum: a welcoming community
Language helps us communicate
- Try to use complete sentences and words.
- Avoid abbreviations and text-messaging shortcuts.
- DON’T LOCK YOUR CAPS ON THE KEYBOARD, either 😜
- English is the language for this forum, it ensures that a great many readers can understand you.
On writing questions and answers
- Choose titles that are clear and straight to the point. The more they explicitly and accurately describe your question, the higher the chance of getting exactly the answer you need.
People are more likely to respond to “dime-sized black spots on the topside and underside of my strawberry tree leaves” than they would be to “problem with my plant”.
- Questions and answers related to plants should take place in the open forum. The ‘private message’ feature is reserved to exchanging private information and for assistance from the moderators.
A community where being nice is the good thing to do
- Remember to be polite – and write those magic words! Please, thank you, hello… These are people you’re talking to, not robots. Start off with a “Good morning” and add in a “Thanks”, you’ll see that other members will happily help out in your gardening endeavors.
- The Nature & Garden forum is to be a friendly place to share. Mind your manners.
- Any abusive, insulting, vulgar and otherwise sad contributions will be removed. This applies to any contribution that damages the reputation of people or negates their dignity.
Exile, a drastic but effective solution
Site Administrators and Moderators have the right to temporarily or permanently block members whose contributions contradict these forum guidelines, and remove their publications in part or in full.
Image credits (edits Gaspard Lorthiois) Pixabay: Lockie
