Rules of the Great War Forum

The Great War Forum is owned and operated by The Great War Forum Limited, a company registered in the United Kingdom which is a not for profit company operated entirely by volunteers.

Our Purpose

The Great War Forum exists to discuss matters relating to the Great War 1914-19, to share information and aid research. It is not open for the discussion of other subjects.

Applicability of the Rules .

By using the Great War Forum you agree to abide by these rules.

The rules apply to the titles and body of your posts, to your signature, profile and to private messages and emails sent from the forum. Failure to adhere to the rules may result in your posts being modified, moved or deleted.

Failure to respect the rules may lead to any or all of, a warning from a Moderator or the GWF Team, or to your account being restricted, suspended or to permanent exclusion.

Should any of these actions become necessary, the member will where possible be advised by personal message or by email.

Posts that are irrelevant to the discussion may be deleted without explanation.

On occasion, discussion drifts to related areas and this is permissible provided that the focus remains on the Great War. Off-topic posts are subject to immediate deletion.

Discussions and posts on modern-day conflicts, politics or religion are prohibited throughout the forum.

Members may not comment, or seek comment on the accuracy of description or honesty of any item offered for sale whether on line or in other places (including, but not limited to, Auctions and Ebay).

Membership

Membership of the Great War Forum is open to individuals who wish to discuss matters relating to the Great War subject to a registration process and compliance with these rules. The owners and administrators of the Great War Forum reserve the right to refuse registrations and terminate memberships.

Members are free to propose any user name that is not already in use, but the administrators may reject any name that they consider inappropriate. User names with an obvious commercial connection are forbidden.

The GWF operates a strict one registration per member policy. Multiple registrations are not permitted.

Forum Moderators

The Forum is managed by Moderators appointed by the Directors of The Great War Forum Limited. Moderators have an absolute right to delete, move, edit or otherwise change any post added to this forum, as necessary, in order to maintain flow, ensure adherence to these rules and maintain the positive spirit of the discussion.

Comments in forums regarding Moderator decisions are liable to deletion without explanation or reply at the discretion of Moderators whose decisions are final.

Respect for your fellow members

Discussion will be conducted in a civil manner at all times.

Members may not use language which is profane, aggressive or in any way abusive, racist or sexist. Threats or any form of harassment against another member are forbidden as are any statements that could be construed as defamatory of an individual, group or business.

The forum owners will cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies in the event of an action.

Members must respect the right of others to express their opinion.

Members may not post irrelevant text, images or other media designed to disrupt discussion.

Members legal responsibilities

Members are responsible for what they write in the Forum, regardless of whether it is a post in a forum, on their signature or profile or as a Personal Message. Members specifically agree by using the forum to indemnify and hold harmless the administrators, moderators and owners of this Forum against any form of action.

The Forum owners and moderators do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any post or message and are not responsible for the contents. All members have accepted these terms on registering to join the Forum and explicitly agree to these terms by their continued use of the Forum.

Copyright

The Moderators have a responsibility to ensure that we do not breach any Terms & Conditions laid down by copyright owners.

Members may NOT use the GWF as a platform to ask parties who are subscribers to various subscription sites to download material on their behalf or to post it on the GWF.

Members posting images or content from sources other than those of which they are the copyright owners are required to make reasonable efforts to respect copyright. Guidance on what is permissible is best summed up in this way:

Copyright.  

The UK's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 typically protects works for 70 years from creation or 70 years after the death of the author (whichever is later). Consequently some material produced during the Great War might still be under Copyright. For example if an author or photographer of a Great War period work died less than 70 years ago, the work is likely to be protected by Copyright.  

Fair Dealing.

The 1988 Act provides exemptions under "Acts Permitted in Relation to Copyright Works"  that allows Copyright material to be reproduced. These exemptions largely allow GWF members to post Copyright material under certain strict criteria of "Fair Dealing". For the purposes of posting Copyright material on GWF the following criteria must be met ;

Non commercial

For research or private study or criticism or review

Not more than is required and not more than 5% of any work by page count, word count or image count

The source is acknowledged.

Members should acknowledge sources when quoting or using material from external sources otherwise these items may be removed without notice.

To protect the GWF posts  that do not respect these rules  may be edited or removed at any time, as may content that is asserted to be posted in breach of copyright.

The owners of this Forum retain copyright in the overall compilation of the Forum and have an implicit licence to use your message as part of the Forum by virtue of that implicit licence. Specifically, the design of this Forum including but not limited to domains, URL's, titles, logos and other images, category descriptions, html skins and other features is the property of the owners of the Great War Forum.

Advertising

Our policy is to keep the Forum as free of advertising as possible and we will remove overt promotion of companies and major businesses trying to use the GWF as a free marketing medium.

The following sets out some do's and don’ts that we ask you to follow when using the Great War Forum (GWF).

What can members do:-

1. Established members of the Forum with a post count of 50 or more can advertise free of charge in the GWF Classifieds section subject these rules and the detailed rules in the section itself. Time limits will be applied to different sections in the Classifieds area and will be stated in the rules at the head of such sections.

2. We are keen to know of new publications relating to the Great War, especially those written by members. As well as using the GWF Classifieds section any author who meets the post count criteria above, can also announce their publication by starting one thread, either in the Book Reviews sub forum or in an alternate appropriate sub forum on the main discussion board. Only ONE image of the cover plus one other image may be posted.

We ask that authors, where applicable, acknowledge the assistance of individual pals and the GWF itself. Including our URL https://www.greatwarforum.org would be appreciated.

3. Members can include a link to a personally maintained Great War related website in their signature and/or profile. This may relate to small personally operated commercial activities. However, links should be kept short (there used to be an 8 word limit) and links which are deemed by the Moderating team to be overly long or inappropriate may be edited or removed. Links to other commercial enterprises will be deleted.

What can’t members do:-

1. Have a user name that advertises a commercial enterprise

2. Advertise in any part of the GWF (including your signature) items that you are selling using eBay, Amazon Marketplace or similar sites. This means that links to items you are selling via eBay or similar sites are not allowed. This precludes links to eBay shops, Amazon storefronts etc.

3. Advertise by proxy e.g. make unnecessary or repetitive mentions of a commercial service.

4. Use your GWF membership solely as a vehicle for selling items or services even where these are related to the Great War and even if you intend to make a donation to the GWF following any sales. These topics will be deleted by the Moderating team.

5. Include in your posts (other than as a signature see above), links to commercial enterprises run by you or in which you have a commercial interest. Any such links will be deleted. It is permitted for another member to include a single link to your enterprise in their posts, but see above re proxy advertising.

6. Events and Tours run by major commercial enterprises cannot be advertised on the Forum.

What if I am unsure:-

If in any doubt then please raise a query by email to the gwfteam AT greatwarforum DOT org. Please be patient, the administrators will reply as soon as possible.

The Moderators are responsible for interpreting and applying these rules and may edit or remove anything that they consider inappropriate.

A member who has made 50 posts or more, running their own Great War related event/battlefield tour can make a single short post in Battlefield Touring or another appropriate section. A more detailed post can be made in the Classifieds section.

Cookies
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Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improve the user experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.

The cookies used on this website have been categorised based on the categories found in the ICC UK Cookie guide. This can be found at:-
https://www.international-chamber.co.uk/terms-a-conditions#cookieHelpTooltip

Based on this guide the cookies set by this site have been categorised as either:-

Category 1 – Strictly necessary cookies; or
Category 2 – Performance cookies; or
Category 3 – Functionality cookies

By using our website you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device.

There are no targeting or advertising cookies set by this site.

Breaches of these Rules

If you see a post or posts that breach these rules, members must not become part of the problem by themselves posting replies that are in breach of the rules.

Members should use the REPORT button to draw to the attention of the moderators any content that they consider to be in breach of the rules.

Moderators will deal with reports as soon as is practicable. They will not normally acknowledge or reply to a report but will consider the report and act on their judgement of the matter reported. Moderation is not always immediately available – in such circumstances please exercise patience.

Changes to these rules
The owners and operators of the Great War Forum reserve the right to modify these rules at any time and without notice or announcement. Members continued use of the Forum is an explicit acceptance of the current version of the rules in force at the time of posting to the Forum.