Submissions
You agree, through your use of this Long Ditton Residents Association website, that you will not submit any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person’s privacy, or otherwise 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 on going 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, and solicitations are also inappropriate to this website.
Note that it is impossible for the Long Ditton Residents Association Forum to confirm the validity of submissions. Please remember that Long Ditton Residents Association website is not responsible for the accuracy of the submissions.
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 Long Ditton Residents Association.
Anyone who feels that an item is objectionable or offensive is encouraged to notify the website administrator immediately. The Long Ditton Residents Association Forum 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 submissions immediately.
You remain solely responsible for the content of your submissions, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless this website. The Long Ditton Residents Association 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 submitted by you.
Taste and Decency
The Long Ditton Residents Association website will not display any material that could be considered offensive in terms of taste, decency or public feeling, nor will it display material likely to encourage or incite crime or lead to disorder.
The availability of such content elsewhere is not a reason for it to be included on the Long Ditton Residents Association website. What is commonplace on television, cinema, video, computer programs or the Internet does not make it appropriate to be included on this site.
Parents, guardians and teachers should feel comfortable with young people using the Long Ditton Residents Association website as a trusted source of information.
Language
Swearwords, inappropriate sexual references and abusive names relating to disabilities can cause great offence, as does the casual use of names held holy by people of various faiths. Similarly, deep offence can be caused by profane references or disrespect directed at deities, scriptures, holy days and rituals which are at the heart of various religions. Such language will be edited from any contributions or, in extreme circumstances, the post removed.
Stereotyping
Jokes based upon race, religion, age, disability or sex will not be tolerated. They may hurt groups of people who are the targets of such jokes. Again, any material, likely to cause offence, will be edited from contributions.
Defamation
The Long Ditton Residents Association website editorial team will remove any posts which are defamatory.
In a court of law a judge will usually rule that something has been defamatory if it …
* Reduces a person in the eyes of right-thinking people
* Causes a person to be shunned or avoided
* Exposes the person to hatred, ridicule or contempt
* Injures them in their office, profession or trade.
The Long Ditton Residents Association website does not allow so-called “name and shame” campaigns. The site will also take special precautions to avoid what is known as the “jigsaw effect”, where individuals are identified by location or circumstance.
Edits will rarely be made to contributions where a correspondent is questioning the services provided by the government, local authorities or a public service like South West Trains.
The government and local authorities were elected on a mandate and a site like this is an excellent tool for examining their record in delivering what they promised.
Similarly, posts about the service provided by South West Trains, which has a customer charter and is duty-bound to deliver, will rarely be edited. A site like this can be a useful vehicle for debate on the delivery of that service.
On the other hand, edits will usually be made to contributions criticising an individual or a local business. If a precedent were to be set allowing that to happen then anyone could go online and criticise such services. This could open the floodgates to all sorts of abuse.
The only exception could be where a local business has invited a discussion about their services and users respond. Even then the tone of those responses will be carefully monitored to ensure they comply with the website agreement and these guidelines.
Unfortunately this means that innocent, and often humorous, observations also have to be edited for consistency reasons.
Race
Section 70 of the Race Relations Act, 1976, makes it an offence to publish or distribute written matter which is “threatening, abusive, or insulting in a case where hatred is likely to be stirred up against any racial group”. Such material will be removed from any contributions.
Politics
The Long Ditton Residents Association website will not allow itself to be a platform for party political propaganda, either in the lead up to a political election or on any issue.
The Long Ditton Residents Association website exists to enable discussion on local issues. Any posts making the case for or against any national or international political issues will be monitored closely to ensure they do not turn into political campaigning. If they do they will be terminated or removed.
Elections
The Representation of the People Act has clear rules for what can be said and not said during the pending period for an election. The pending period is the time between when an election is announced and the close of polls.
It is not lawful for anything to be published about the constituency by any candidate during the pending period without either
a) All candidates taking part or
b) Written consent being obtained from those who don’t want to take part. A candidate is anyone who has declared an intention to stand in a specified constituency or electoral area.
Clearly, the Long Ditton Residents Association website is unable to vouch for the validity of a contribution, nor can it be certain to be able to establish the political status of contributors, particularly with people free to hide their e-mail addresses and use an alias.
So, during election times, be they local, national or European, all posts, which suggest high-pressure political campaigning, will be removed or closed.
To protect the Long Ditton Residents Association website ‘s independence and integrity, action will be taken to ensure that the site does not become associated with campaigning that is politically contentious.
Downloading
You are free to download the content for your own personal non-commercial use but you are not permitted to copy, adapt or change this content in any way for any other website or any other form of publication without obtaining permission.
