These guidelines are designed to protect our entire community, not just readers from being exposed to harmful or offensive content but also users from exposing themselves to potential legal action.

Remember, we may host the platform, but the community belongs to you its members – so if you take one thing away from the following article, please let it be this: you are legally responsible for what you post. Please ensure you always consider that before commenting.

Please note, we may update this page from time-to-time. You can download our full terms and conditions here.

Anonymity
We appreciate that the ability to post anonymously is a key requirement of the majority of users, and at the present time we support that. However, just because you have created a Disqus account with a non-work email address and a witty nom-de-plume (username) do not forget this is the digital age, and we all leave an online footprint. So, if you submit something that results in legal action, the resulting legal process will still find you.

Be kind
We welcome informed debate, inciteful comment and friendly banter. But we will not tolerate swear words, bullying behaviour or posts that are discriminatory to a protected characteristic such as age, disability, gender, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sex

Copyright
You must not upload or post content that may be subject to copyright.

Disqus
This is the industry standard User Generated Content platform that we use, you will need to create an account to post – guest posts (with no account) are not accepted.

How to… complain
Firstly, please do not complain simply because you disagree with a comment. But if you believe a comment contravenes the letter or spirit of our house rules or terms and conditions then you can complain by one of two ways:

• Clicking on the flag icon next to a user’s allows you to anonymously highlight a comment you believe a comment is ‘inappropriate'. Depending on how many users flag a comment, this may result in it being automatically moderated
• For a serious contravention of the rules please email us at printweek.newsdesk@markallengroup.com with a link to the article and a screen grab of the individual comment or copy and paste the text like below. Please note, Printweek will not share your details

“Dear editor, I believe the following comment breaks the Printweek forum rules:
www.printweek.com/News/article/AZ-of-using-the-Printweek-forums
Printweek User • 37 minutes ago
I think the Printweek editor is a complete idiot”

Impersonation
As previously mentioned, we love a creative nom-de-plume as much as the next person – but we draw the line at usernames that pretend to be a specific person or contravene our rules in another way.

Moderation
To enable a free-flowing discussion, we do not pre-moderate posts. In most instances we post-moderate user generated comments if we receive a complaint about them. However, at the editor’s discretion, certain contentious articles may be pre-moderated although this is the exception rather than the rule.

Law and liability
While we appreciate that your comments may not have the same journalistic rigour as our own articles, they and you are subject to the same laws and you must not make or encourage comments which are:

• Bullying in nature
• Defamatory
• Discriminatory (see Be kind)
• Insulting, threatening or abusive
• Libellous
• Likely to cause distress to an individual

If you are under any doubt about whether your post may contravene any of the above, do not submit it. Our legal team is employed to support Printweek staff only, you will need to employ your own lawyers if sued.

Newbies
We appreciate that with great power comes great responsibility, and the excitement of posting your first comment to the Printweek community could generate a sudden rush of blood to the head. So, with this in mind we are trialling a ‘cooling off’ period, where posts from new users are held for moderation in the first 24-hours after setting up a Disqus account.

Outcomes
If we uphold a complaint about a comment, it will be deleted. No negotiation, we’re busy people. With that in mind, if a user repeatedly posts comments that contravene our house rules or terms and conditions then we may:

• Issue a 'Time Out' which will prevent the user from posting comments for a defined period ranging from 1 day to two weeks
• Ban the user
• Ban the user's IP address, so that no one that shares that IP address (for example at the user’s company) can post
• Please note, the editor’s decision is final, and we will not enter into a discussion on why a user was or was not banned

Privacy
Please do not share your or anyone else’s personal details, such as phone numbers, emails or addresses on the forum.

Relevance
Posts may be deleted if they are not relevant to the article hosting them, unless, of course, they are both hilariously witty and inoffensive.

Spam
Printweek is the industry’s premier marketing platform with unrivalled reach. We have a wide range of advertising solutions to suit all budgets. However, posting a shameless plug for your business for free on the forums is not one of the solutions we currently offer.

Trolls
Bullying behaviour and online trolling will not be tolerated.

Ups and downs
The up and down arrows underneath a comment allow community users to like or dislike posts. However, if you believe a post contravenes our rules the either flag it or email printweek.community@markallengroup.com (see How to… complain).

Words matter
Remember, the Printweek website is regularly visited by 100,000 unique users a month, and, anonymous or not, your words can reflect negatively as well as positively on your industry and how it is perceived. Please consider that before you post.

If you have any suggestions as to how we can improve our House Rules, please email printweek.newsdesk@markallengroup.com