Horsetalk's discussion forums are intended to be places where horse enthusiasts can exchange ideas and views, and offer advice where appropriate. It is not to be used as a vehicle for advertising, for personal attacks, profanities, or unreasonable criticism. By using Horsetalk forums, you agree to the rules and policies of the site. These can be amended at any time at the site administrator's discretion. You are likewise bound by any modifications or updates to these rules.
The right to speak your mind
The rules of the forum allow you to voice reasonable opinions provided they do not breach any rules of the forum, which include a ban on personal attacks, profanities, and unreasonable criticism of any person or body. Topics may be deleted by the site administrators without notice or explanation. There are many hundreds of forum users and Horsetalk will not enter into discussion on the merits of any deleted posts.
Registration Policy
Each individual may only have only one registered username for Horsetalk forums. Use of trademark names is not permitted, and users must maintain a valid email address. Users will be joined to our mailing list which we use to keep in touch on forum matters. Users may be suspended without notice if their email address is found to be invalid. It is your responsibility to maintain a valid user address in your profile. User names must not be objectionable. They must not bear any relationship to the name of any business or commercial enterprise or website.
NOTE FOR XTRA USERS: when signing up, or requesting a new password, you will need to check ALL your email folders, including your spam folders, as forum messages may be filtered by Xtra.
General House Keeping
Before you post a new topic, search for a thread that may already have been started on your intended topic.
Rules of Forum Use
You will not post any material which is false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, profane, hateful, intimidating, rude, of a sexual nature, or which is invasive of a person's privacy. You will ensure that no post knowingly breaches any law.
Users indemnify Horsetalk and its owners against any action which may arise through posts by that user alleged to be defamatory.
Further guidelines on posting on Horsetalk's forums are here.
Disagreements
You are using a forum with many hundreds of regular users. There is a reasonable chance that someone will disagree with you and post their views. A robust discussion can be a good source of information. Do not let such discussions descend into an on-line brawl. At all times, address the issue, not the person. There is nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree, and moving on to the next topic!
Discussion of Professionals and Individuals
Horsetalk is not a place for posting questionable information about individuals. Reasonable discussion about well-known sportspeople's public performances is perfectly acceptable, but stick to the issues.
Copyrighted Material
You will not post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is your own.
Private messages and multiple postings
Do not place personal messages for people on our public forums. Do not place posts more than once.
No Advertising
Advertisers pay to have advertisements on Horsetalk. It is grossly unfair to those who pay for their advertising on this site to see people using the forum for free advertisements. This is considered a serious abuse of the forums. It does not matter whether you are a home craftsperson making rope halters, or the biggest cover manufacturer in the world. No free plugs ... no exceptions. Horsetalk advertising is very reasonable ... check out this page. Do NOT try to circumvent these rules with thinly disguised variations, such as "Is anyone else going to John Doe's showing clinic in Wanganui next week?", or "Isn't this stallion just stunning?". If you are selling something privately, use the Classifieds, if you have an event coming up, use the events calendar, if you are advertising a product or service, check out the advertising rates and contact us if you are interested. Horsetalk reserves the right to refuse advertising from any forum user, or their business, that has breached the forum rules on advertising.
Please do not post commercial URLs on the board where the link may be seen as advertising. If you have a URL to pass onto someone, send them a personal message. We reserve the right to edit or delete any post containing a link which could be deemed as advertising, or a link that is so long it upsets the layout of the board.
Paid announcements
We can post paid announcements on the forum on your behalf. These are generally limited to upcoming events, clinics and other one-off events. These cost $25+gst per announcement and are posted for one month before the event. The announcement can be posted in additional forums for $10+gst/month per forum. These can be linked to a picture on the web (please supply the URL). Choose 'forum announcement'
on this form.
Objectionable material
We encourage users to contact us by email about any post you feel is objectionable in any way. The forum administrators have the ability to remove such messages if they agree with your assessment.
Administrator/Moderator Directives
You are obligated to follow the instructions of a forum moderator or the site administrator when addressing the rules on the forums whether you agree with the decisions or not. The site administrator's decision is final in all matters.
Bad behaviour
If you break forum rules, you may receive an emailed warning. Repeated breaches of the rules may result in the suspension of your user account.
Horsetalk reserves the right to pass on whatever information we know about you in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you. By using the forum, you agree to this condition.
Users should keep their log-on details confidential, protecting it as they would any pin number.
If you have any constructive suggestions on the way Horsetalk forums could be improved, please email us.
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