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| − | OCAU Forum Rules
| + | Rules are at [Forum rules] |
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| − | This is a comprehensive list of all OCAU forum rules, including the overarching rules and policies and rules for the specific subforums.
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| − | All members should be familiar with these rules!
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| − | == Site Rules ==
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| − | '''The OCAU Forums are a privately-owned system with access provided to the public under limited conditions. We reserve the right to revoke your access, without warning or notice, for any reason that we may or may not disclose.'''
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| − | * Messages should be posted in the appropriate forum.
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| − | * Offensive, illegal, abusive or deliberately inflammatory messages are not to be posted.
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| − | * Adult content of any kind is not to be posted.
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| − | * Pyramid schemes, affiliate programs or any links containing affiliate identifiers are not to be posted.
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| − | * Posting the same message in multiple forums is not allowed.
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| − | * One forum account per user. If your account is banned, you as a person are banned. Multiple accounts believed to be "false" accounts for another will be banned.
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| − | * Posting personal information about people such as real names, telephone numbers, street/postal addresses and email addresses is not allowed without permission from that person.
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| − | * Note that the "Private Messaging" system is called "private" to distinguish it from normal public forum posting. Your Private Messages can be viewed by certain OCAU Admins and in certain circumstances (such as investigating a trading complaint) they will be examined to confirm details etc.
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| − | * Commercial posts or advertisements should only be posted in the Trading Post - vendors may respond to messages in "What/Where Should I Buy?" if they can provide the service or product required. Note that "spamming", excessively promoting your business or promoting your business in a manner that we deem unethical will result in the cancellation of your forum account.
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| − | In the Shop & Swap Forums:
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| − | If someone posts a 'for sale' thread, no one should jump in and offer a similar item at a cheaper price. They are instead encouraged to start a new thread with their cheaper price and it is up to the reader to keep abreast of new threads. However, of course, other readers are free to discuss/debate pricing within the thread. OCAU has no part in price negotiation in the forums, nor are we responsible for ensuring delivery, quality or even existence of goods advertised, bought or sold in the forums. Buyer beware!
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| − | * No Discussion of Sunlit/Compugate:
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| − | ** Until further notice, discussions or comments relating to Sunlit, Compugate or the persons Paul Johnson or David Wu (Sunlit directors) are not permitted. The forum software will attempt to automatically blank out the words Sunlit or Compugate if they are used - making variations of these words to bypass this automatic filter is not permitted and may get you banned forever. We do not read every post, but people can report posts to us. If we receive notice that you are discussing Sunlit, Compugate, Paul Johnson or David Wu you will be banned from making further posts on the OCAU forums!
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| − | * Be reminded that, by becoming a Member of the Overclockers Australia Forum system, you agreed not use the Overclockers Australia Forums to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy or otherwise violative of any law. You agreed not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyrighted on that material is owned by you. You agreed not to link remote images or files unless you have the permission of the file owner and host. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agreed to indemnify and hold anyone else, including Overclockers Australia and the Forum Operators, harmless with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).
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| − | * Further, by becoming a Member you indicated your agreement that the contents of all messages are the responsibility of the individual message posters and therefore agreed not to hold Overclockers Australia, the Forum Operators or any other entity associated with the Forums responsible or in any way liable for damages of any kind with respect to the content of any message on the Overclockers Australia Forums and to the extent permitted by law you have waived all rights to make any claims against Overclockers Australia, the Forum Operators or any other entity associated with the Forums. You agreed that if you have a complaint about a message contained within the Forums your first and only action will be to notify an Administrator so that we may remove the message if necessary.
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| − | '''If you do not agree to these terms, do not become a member! We wish you much happiness in one of the many other forum systems on the Internet.'''
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| − | == Defamation and Free Speech ==
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| − | We recently faced a serious problem in which some people claimed that they may have been defamed by comments which were posted by some other people on the OCAU forums. Despite the fact that we made it very clear in the site documentation that OCAU are not responsible for comments made by other people and indeed there is a section of the Broadcasting Services Act which seems specifically designed to protect Internet Content Hosts in our situation, they were threatening to sue us and forced us to obtain legal advice. This is a serious concern (and expense) for the operators of this website - and one reason why the OCAU forums have been down for so long.
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| − | The forums were one of the driving forces behind OCAU and we want to bring them back to their former glory. However, we won't do this unless people recognise and adhere to a few basic standards when posting comments on the OCAU forums.
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| − | We have never and will not be censoring the forums or monitoring every post that appears. To check all messages is impossible for the people that run OCAU given the sheer volume of messages that appear almost constantly. Further, as we are not lawyers, we cannot reasonably be expected to know which messages are legally appropriate and which are not. In the majority of cases, there will be no way for us to tell if a message is comprised of entirely factual statements. Deleting all messages that are negative in any way would be a severe infringement upon the free expression of our contributors. Therefore, OCAU will in no way take any responsibility for comments you make on these forums.
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| − | You are personally responsible for what you say on these forums. If you post a comment that might be defamatory, expect that someone will sue you personally for defamation! Think: Do you want to lose everything you own/ your parent's house over a comment you made on these forums?
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| − | If you post a message about someone and they think that it may be defamatory, we will happily and fully comply with any court order requiring us to hand over everything we know about you and that post. If we didn't, we would likely be found in contempt of court which carries severe penalties including imprisonment - so don't think for a second we won't hand over any and all info we have. Remember, you are not anonymous on these forums! We log your IP address and connection time and if a court requires us to reveal that information, it can be used to link you to your ISP (they know who you really are).
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| − | So what is defamation and what about free speech?
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| − | These forums are hosted in Australia and there is no "right of freedom of speech" in Australia (except in relation to political speech: ie. comments about politicians and political parties). So forget everything you've seen on American legal dramas on TV - it just doesn't apply in Australia.
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| − | Basically, you can be sued for defamation if you write a post that could lead a reasonable person to have a lower opinion of the reputation or honour of the person whom you are talking about in that post. Eg: Do NOT say that [Mr X/Company Y] is a liar, a thief, a cheat, a criminal, a scumbag, they ripped me off, they suck, they are dodgy, etc - anything you say must be based on facts you can prove in court.
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| − | You are allowed to post messages which contain statements which you can prove in court are true. Therefore, we suggest that if you have critical or negative comments to make about a person, a product or a supplier, you limit your comments to a strict factual description of what happened. Eg: I ordered [insert product] from [insert name of person/store]. It [arrived broken/ never arrived/ wasn't what I ordered]. I have contacted them but received [no response/ unsatisfactory service]. Based upon this experience, I will not order from them in the future. Bear in mind that as per point 5 this is not legal advice - if you are considering posting a critical comment you should seek legal advice first. We take no responsibility for you relying on this statement. It is provided merely to alert you to the issue of defamation when criticising vendors. Use it at your own risk!
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| − | If you are concerned that a message that you are considering posting to the OCAU forums may be defamatory in any way, you MUST seek your own legal advice before posting it on the forums. Don't ask us whether it would be defamatory or not - we are not lawyers!
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| − | Think twice before you post a message. A defamatory message starts doing damage the instant it is posted.
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| − | If you are in any doubt, don't post! Instead, take some time to chill out and think about what you want to say - you can communicate that you are disappointed with what someone has done to you without being defamatory. Ask a friend, ask your parents - ask a lawyer! Posting forum messages when you are angry or upset is never a good idea.
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| − | If someone complains to us about a post that you have made that they consider defamatory, we will delete it as soon as we can - this is for YOUR protection.
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| − | If you have a complaint or are concerned about a message you think may be defamatory, click the link "Report this post to an Administrator" link under the message.
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| − | The Broadcasting Services Act provides a statutory defence for Internet Content Hosts against suits for subsidiary publication of defamatory materials. Therefore, if a person has a problem with the content of a post, their only remedy is to contact OCAU to ask that the post be removed. If they want to know the identity of the person who made the potentially defamatory post, they should apply to a NSW court for an order for OCAU to hand over whatever information OCAU has which could potentially be used to identify the person. They will have to pay all costs associated with that court order. Once OCAU receives such a court order, we will happily comply with it and then the person with the complaint is free to attempt to directly sue the person who actually made the post for defamation, at their own cost. OCAU will play no further part in the matter.
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| − | == Subforum Rules ==
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| − | == Newbie Lounge ==
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| − | === The Pub ===
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| − | === Trading Post ===
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| − | === Current Events and Serious Discussion ===
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| − | === Politics and Policy ===
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