Forum Policy
AH message boards, email, and other interactive features offer opportunities for meaningful interaction where users can share knowledge, experiences, and other helpful information. Since most of the interactions are public, the experience is best when people follow certain guidelines.
If there is anything you do not understand please contact us. The policy sets down certain guidelines and rules to be followed if using the Discussion Group Facility on the AH website.
The Discussion Group Facility is available to all registered members of the AH website only.
This Discussion Forum Policy
The Discussion Group Facility is available to use as a place to seek advice, contribute to particular topics, share ideas and report information.
Contributors to Discussions are asked to respect other contributors and their rights.
Important: By accessing and using the Discussion Forums available on the Learning Platform you will automatically be taken to have read, understood and accepted the Discussion Forum Policy. If you do not agree to be bound by this Discussion Forum Policy please cease to access the Discussion Forums. If you fail to observe any of the provisions of this Policy, we reserve the right, at our discretion and without notice, to remove or edit any messages and/or to exclude you (either temporarily or permanently) from the Discussion Forums, depending on the nature and severity of your breach.
The Discussion Policy will be regularly reviewed therefore changes to the document may occur. We therefore suggest you revisit the Discussion Policy periodically.
Rules for Using the Discussion Forums
General Behaviour
Discussion Group users must not contribute to any forum or knowingly receive via a forum, any message that is unlawful, illegal, fraudulent, offensive, threatening, abusive, harassing, indecent, obscene, defamatory, invasive of another’s privacy or discriminatory whether racially, sexually, religiously, ethically or otherwise, or which may incite or instruct any person or organisation to undertake such activities.
Use of Language
Forum Users must not post or access messages containing language that is in any way unlawful, threatening or offensive. This includes the use of swear-words, bad language or offensive nicknames.
Breach of Confidence
Discussion Group Users much not post or access messages that might in anyway breach the confidence of another individual. For example, an email received from an individual cannot be posted on a discussion forum without first obtaining the individual’s consent.
Breach of Intellectual Property
Forum Users must not post or access messages that might in any way infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, database right or other similar right of any person.
Impersonation
Forum Users must not impersonate any person or identity, falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or organisation or disguise the origin of any content of a message.
Illegal and Harmful Activities
Forum Users must not post or access messages relating to (or include links to) pirated software (including computer games), counterfeit goods or any other material which is, or might be reasonably considered to be, illegal or otherwise harmful.
Personal Data
Forum Users must not post any message containing another person’s information (including but not restricted to their home address, job title, telephone number or other contact details) without first obtaining the relevant individual’s consent, nor may they use the Discussion Forums to collect or store personal information concerning other persons.
Permitted Use
You may only use the Discussion Forums for either AH lawful purposes or your own personal non-commercial use. You must not post any messages containing or including links to any overt advertisements or promotional materials, or otherwise use the Discussion Forums overtly to generate personal business from other Forum Users.
Your Personal Information
When you submit a posting to a Discussion Forum your username will appear next to the message along with the time and date of posting.
You are responsible for ensuring the safety of all other personal information. We recommend you do not include your home address, telephone number or any other sensitive personal information in any messages unless you are entirely satisfied that such information should be made public.
Monitoring
In order to provide Forum Users with general support and advice in relation to their use of the Discussion Forums and for security and abuse management reasons, AH reserves the right to access and monitor the use of Discussion Forums and any messages posted on them.
We also reserve the right to take whatever other steps we consider necessary to protect our Forum Users, including editing or removing any messages or suspending or discontinuing any Discussion Forums.
We do not undertake to monitor every message nor to monitor the conduct of every Forum User. However sporadic, random checks will be made to ensure that other Forum Users are adhering to this Discussion Forum Policy. Individuals who have created a Discussion Forum reserve the right to inspect postings of messages before they are made live to the general forum in order to check content.
Disclaimer
Users are advised that the views expressed in any Discussion Forums are those of the author of the postings and are not representative of the views of AH or Irwin Mitchell.
Therefore, AH do not vouch for the accuracy of, or take any responsibility for, the content of the postings beyond requesting that users abide by the rules of usage outlined in this document.
Contact Details
You can contact AH with any questions relating to this Policy or any other service query on 0870 1500 100.