1. What is this policy about?
TgR is a privately owned website with a significant public visibility.
Its aims are to foster greater understanding, awareness and friendship within the gender diverse community.
The website relies heavily on communication to achieve these aims, and this policy sets down the standards of conduct necessary to ensure that communication remains effective and open.
2. What does the policy affect?
The scope of this policy is all communication by members on, or relating to, the website.
This includes all the following forms of posting:
• Posts made on the TgR forums
• Text in TgR profiles
• Messages in the chat room (including private messaging)
• Emails sent by a member through the website
• Emails sent by a member to the webmistress or any moderator.
3. What constitutes unacceptable posting?
A posting is unacceptable if it falls into one or more of the following categories:
a) May violate any applicable laws
b) Is abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, or sexually-oriented
c) Contains a personal attack on another member
d) Could be interpreted as a criticism of another member's beliefs, gender choices, or lifestyle
e) Is unsolicited advertising for a commercial activity
f) Contains soliciting for sexual partners or other adult activities.
4. Who decides if a posting is unacceptable?
Any member of TgR can bring a posting that they think is unacceptable to the attention of the moderators (admin@tgr.net.au).
A decision on the acceptability of any posting will be made by a moderator of TgR (Note that the webmistress is a moderator in this context).
Where the posting is potentially an attack or criticism of a moderator, then that moderator will take no part in determining if the posting is unacceptable.
5. What happens if a posting is unacceptable?
If a posting is deemed unacceptable for one or more of the reasons given in section 2 then the member will be informed and the posting hidden from further viewing.
Any member will automatically have their membership of TgR terminated after
a. One confirmed attack or criticism of a moderator (category c or d), or
b. Two confirmed unacceptable postings
The reasons for any membership being terminated will be posted within TgR, and this record may include any private emails sent or received by the moderators in connection with the posting(s).
6. Do I have to agree with this policy?
This policy only applies to posting through TgR. It is not a condition of membership that you agree with the policy.
However, anyone posting within the scope of this policy is indicating that they agree to this policy and will be bound by its requriements.
7. Inappropriate postings
In addition to the unacceptable forms of posting, the moderators may identify a posting as being inappropriate. An inappropriate posting is identified to have one or more of the following characteristics:
Off Topic
Ideally, all posts in a given thread should have at least something to do with the topic of the thread. Having said that, some threads do have a natural discussion flow to them, which may move the discussion in different directions – while still maintaining a relationship to the topic.
Posting off topic comments in a thread may result in your post being removed, particularly if your post stands out as being off topic compared to the other posts in the thread, or if your post stands to interfere with a line of otherwise on-topic conversation within the thread. Unless, of course, you can make the moderator laugh, in which case it can stay.
Note that comments about grammar, spelling, moderation, etc, will be considered off-topic in almost every instance (unless the thread is specifically about grammar, spelling, moderation, etc).
A moderator posting moderation comments into a thread (such as warnings about behaviour, etc) is a specific exception to the above. However comments replying to such a post by a moderator are off-topic.
Personal Details
The posting of an individual's personal details is not permitted under most circumstances.
Details that have been previously published by the individual may be acceptable to reproduce.
In ambiguous cases, the moderator has the final say.
Commercial Advertising
TgR is a community forum, it is not a tool for users to advertise their business. In this vein, please be aware that, in general, the advertising of commercial ventures is considered unacceptable behaviour. Recommendations and testimonials by customers are however encouraged.
Cross Posting
Posting the same comments more than once in a thread, or in more than one thread, is considered cross-posting, and is not appropriate. Please choose the single thread in which your comments would be the most relevant, and post them in that thread only.
Duplicate Posts
Sometimes minor glitches can result in a user's post appearing more than once in a thread. Duplicate posts are sometimes removed, but if a user notices that they have posted a duplicate, they should feel free to edit one of them to indicate that a double post occurred.
Obsolete or Misleading
If a post is old and the moderator has reasonable grounds to suspect that the information is no longer valid the the post may be removed to avoid misleading others.
8. What about my freedom of speech?
Under Australian law, the only protected form of speech is that of a political nature, and even then, it's only protected from governmental interference. Private entities can not, by definition, be guilty of censorship. TgR is a private web site – owned and operated by an individual.
In short, you have no "freedom of speech" on TgR, nor is the cry of "censorship" at all valid.
In the interest of fairness and balance, as well as to help focus and improve quality of discussion, there is a team of moderators who have the ability to remove posts and threads from the public eye. There are many legitimate reasons for a moderator to remove comments, which are outlined elsewhere in this policy.