Last updated 6 July, 2006

Welcome to the h2g2 House Rules. The House Rules exist so that everyone can get the best out of contributing to h2g2. They aim to protect anyone who reads or contributes to the Guide, and to help everyone to have a fun and safe time. Think of them as h2g2's own brand of netiquette¹ - common courtesy, in other words.

The BBC reserves the right to change these House Rules at any time by posting changes online. You are responsible for regularly reviewing information posted online to obtain notice of such changes. Your continued use of this site after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of these House Rules as modified by the posted changes.

If any content breaks the rules as outlined below, it may be removed or edited by the Moderators. For more information on moderation, read the entry on Moderation on h2g2.

Rules for Contributing to h2g2

Please keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant. The aim of h2g2 is to provide a place in which Conversations are constructive and mature, and Guide Entries are interesting and entertaining. To this aim, here are the House Rules for contributing to h2g2.

• Please, no flaming or trolling. On h2g2, flaming means posting something that's angry and mean-spirited - the online equivalent of flying off the handle. It's not a pretty sight, and we recommend constructive discussion as a far more satisfying pastime. Trolls say deliberately provocative things just to stir up trouble - it's not polite, so please don't do it. h2g2 is an incredibly friendly place, so please help to keep it that way.

• Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable. For the purposes of Moderation, sexually-oriented material includes both graphic descriptions of sexual practices and contributions that are designed to offend on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation.

  You'll also notice 'profane' in the list here. Hardcore swearing has never been permitted on h2g2 and now we have a 'Profanity Filter' to prevent common swear words from being posted. Some swearing - such as quotes from poems or plays in entries intended for the Edited Guide, for example - may be editorially acceptable, but in everyday communication it is not. Limited use of the (Bleep!) smiley may be permissible, however.

  You can find more information about defamation in the entry on h2g2 and Defamation.

• Please be patient. People of all ages and abilities hang out on h2g2, so please remember this when posting. Remember - everyone was a newbie once.

• No spamming or flooding. On h2g2, spamming is the posting of the same (or very similar) messages to lots of forums. Flooding is when the same (or very similar) message is posted over and over again to the same conversation. It's especially antisocial if it's off-topic for those forums. So please don't deliberately send the same message, or very similar messages, to loads of different Conversation Forums, or post the same message to one Conversation multiple times. We'll simply remove your Postings, and possibly close your account.

• No advertising. Advertising is not allowed anywhere on bbc.co.uk. We've never allowed Researchers to advertise on h2g2, but being a part of the BBC makes it even more important that the editorial independence of the Guide is not threatened by people filling the Guide with adverts. Writing entries that review or criticise commercial products are obviously fine, as long as they're balanced, but adverts aren't - that includes a direct link to a page of a commercial website such as an online DVD or bookshop; an auction site or similar ventures.

• Postings or entries containing languages other than English may be removed. Because we have to ensure we understand a Posting or Guide Entry in case of problems, languages other than English may have to be removed. It's also polite when posting to a Conversation to stick to the same language as the other Postings in that Conversation; posting something in a different language halfway through is not very constructive.

  Please note that this also applies to Nicknames.

  Particularly heavy text speak or unintelligible postings may also be removed if it's felt they are disrupting the natural flow of conversation. Using text speak might be appropriate on a mobile device, but h2g2 aims to encourage quality writing, so please make the effort to ensure your postings can actually be understood.

• Please don't impersonate others. Everyone has a unique User ID number, so you can't get away with impersonating other Researchers anyway, but it's rude and unacceptable to even try. Adopting an inappropriate Nickname (one that is vulgar, likely to cause offence, etc.) is also not allowed, and if you do pick a Nickname that isn't acceptable, we will simply change it back to the default. Please note that we do not allow URLs to be included in Nicknames.

• Be careful with including email addresses, instant messaging numbers and the like in contributions, and please do not include anyone else's personal details. You may include your own personal email address or instant messaging number in your contributions (providing it is acceptable, ie not vulgar or offensive), but please be aware that you are potentially opening yourself up to a lot of email, and possibly spam email too, and you should be absolutely sure that you want people to be able to contact you like this. We recommend you set up a new email account specifically for people to contact you on, if you wish to publicise a contact point. It's OK to include general contact details for companies, for example, but you must only include publicly available details, such as the address of a restaurant, the telephone number if it is in the telephone directory, or the email address for a company's customer support. It is not acceptable to publicise anyone else's private contact details other than your own, and we will remove any such postal addresses or telephone numbers from contributions. Due to the public nature of this website, we strongly recommend that you do not post the personal details of children or minors; you should always consider whether or not the information you are posting is suitable for a public forum or if it might inadvertently put the child(ren) at risk in some way.

• Only include suitable URLs in your contributions. Links to unsuitable websites will be removed, so if you are considering contributing something that contains a URL, please make sure that it adds value and interest to what you're writing. Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, or sites which may offend our users. We may also have to fail links to sites which are in languages other than English, for the reasons described above, just as we have to fail links to pages within websites that are designed simply to sell products. Please note that we do not allow links to external websites to be included in Nicknames.

• Please don't abuse the complaints system. The complaints button² exists to enable visitors to let us know about content which breaks these rules. We take complaints very seriously, and we've set a system in place which will enable us to deal with them as a priority. Please do not use the complaints system to alert us to multiple Postings, spelling mistakes and so on: anyone who abuses the complaints system repeatedly may have their account suspended.

• Please don't post for suspended Researchers. Anyone who posts communications from Researchers whose accounts have been suspended may also have their own account suspended. If the BBC suspects for any reason that an account has been opened and/or is being primarily operated by or on behalf of a banned Researcher, the holder of the suspect account may be asked to prove their identity to the BBC's satisfaction.

• No spitting. The lawyers wanted to know what rules we needed, and we said 'The usual ones, plus "No spitting" please.' So there you go: no spitting. Many thanks.

Harassment

The BBC welcomes feedback, both positive and negative, about our programmes and services but please make sure your comments are in line with the above House Rules. Repeatedly posting personal or offensive comments about individual members of the public or people who work for the BBC may be considered harassment. We reserve the right to remove such messages and take action against those responsible.

Elections

In addition to the existing House Rules, Special House Rules apply during an Election in the UK:

• You must declare if you are a candidate
• Please discuss the issues and refrain from personal abuse
• No sloganeering
• No campaigning or lobbying
• No polling

For more information, please consult The 2005 Election Guidelines document in the BBC Producer's Guidelines.

Copyright on h2g2

It's important to note that you still own the copyright to everything you contribute to h2g2. This means you are perfectly free to take what you have written and re-publish it somewhere else.

All you do in contributing to h2g2 is to grant us the right to publish. In other words, anything you create on h2g2 is done under the condition that you grant us a non-exclusive licence to distribute and edit the material in any way that we want, and in any media. (See the Terms and Conditions for the full terms of our rights.) As we may wish to distribute the Guide in various formats over time, we need to be sure that we have the right to publish everything that's on h2g2.

About the Law

Here are a couple of points which relate to the law. If anything you post is illegal (defamatory, for example), condones illegal activities (such as recommending drug taking) or infringes the copyright of a third party (content that you haven't written, in other words), then it has to be removed.

• You may not post any defamatory or illegal material of any nature anywhere on the site. This includes text, graphics, video, programs or audio (currently on h2g2 you can only post text - though we do upload some artwork on behalf of the community). Posting a message with the intention of committing an illegal act is strictly prohibited. You can find more information about defamation in the entry on h2g2 and Defamation.

• You agree to only post materials to which you have the copyright or other permission to distribute electronically. You may not violate, plagiarise, or infringe on the rights of third parties including copyright, trademark, trade secret, privacy, personal, publicity, or proprietary rights. You can find more information about what this means in the entry on h2g2 and Intellectual Property Law.

About your Privacy

• bbc.co.uk will not publish or provide your email address to anyone, unless it is in the interests of public safety to do so. Our registration process requires you to supply us with your email details, but we will only use this information to validate your access to h2g2 or other BBC Discussion Message Boards. Some BBC websites may wish to send you information via your email address, but they will ask your permission first. The BBC complies with the 1998 Data Protection Act.

If you're Under Age 16

• Please get your parents' or guardians' permission before taking part in h2g2 or any other BBC Discussion Message Board.

• Never reveal any personal information about yourself (for example, your telephone number, home address or email address) without getting your parents' or guardians' permission first.

Transgressions

If you fail to abide by these House Rules and/or the Terms and Conditions, then the Transgressions Procedure will be followed in most cases. Please note that the BBC reserves the right to terminate accounts immediately at its discretion (in the event of such things as criminal behaviour or personal abuse of BBC staff, for example), or to vary the following process as is appropriate (typically by being more lenient). The BBC may also implement a period of individual pre-moderation³ - or, in the case of severe flooding or spamming, may temporarily suspend an account - instead of or in addition to the Transgressions Procedure, at our discretion.

In each case the warning or suspension notice will be sent to the email address in your h2g2 preferences, explaining the nature of the transgression and the process for transgressions. If this email address bounces, then the warning or suspension notice may be posted to your Personal Space from 'The h2g2 Editors'.

While suspended, returning to h2g2 by creating another account will constitute a further offence and will extend the suspension to the next period, or will result in your account being closed permanently. Similarly, asking other h2g2 Researchers to post on your behalf while suspended will constitute a further offence on your behalf, and may additionally constitute an offence on behalf of those Researchers.

For information on the process that is applied when closing accounts, please read the Transgressions Procedure.

Don't forget to read the Terms and Conditions.

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¹ 'Internet etiquette' - or how to be polite when online.
² Often referred to as the 'Yikes' button.
³ If a Researcher is set to individual pre-moderation, then anything they contribute to h2g2 appears only after it has been approved by a Moderator.