Forum Terms and Conditions

Plantminded

I've been looking at the terms and conditions of the GW Forum, having just located them!

I've often wondered about the inclusion of links to other information in posts such as plant details or product details from external sites, not knowing whether this is permissible or whether they are safe.  How do you know or check they are safe, and does anyone do this?

The following wording from the terms and conditions quite clearly explains the situation:

You shall be solely responsible for your user Contributions and the consequences of submitting them to our Services. You promise that:

(c) you will not collect, obtain, compile, gather, transmit, reproduce, delete, revise, view or display any material, data or information, whether personally identifiable or not, posted by or concerning any other person, firm or enterprise, in connection with your user Contribution or in connection with your use of our Services, unless you have obtained the express, prior permission of such other person (or their parent or guardian if such other person is under 16), firm or enterprise to do so;

(d) the user Contribution does not contain any virus, corrupt file, cancelbot, worm programme or other malicious code designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of or disrupt any software, hardware, telecommunications, networks, servers or other equipment, nor any adware, spy ware, Trojan horse or any other material designed to damage, interfere with, wrongly intercept or expropriate any data or personal information;

Has anyone else wondered about this? Should this cause concern? 

(Sorry to raise this subject, the current mood in this country is making me edgy!)

steephill

(d) is sensible but (c) is utter nonsense.

Uff

I agree with steephill that (d) is sensible. I would guess that (c) is legal speak covering their back stuff. Basically, they aren't responsible if we post stuff we shouldn't.  

BenCotto

Oh my God. Not only have I recommended a nursery on this site that provided me with great plants, I have also viewed other people’s recommendations. There. I’ve said it. Am I now going to be banned?

”The following wording from the terms and conditions quite clearly explains the situation”

When has a lawyer ever quite clearly explained anything? Their writing is an abomination of tautology, verbosity and subordinate clauses that has the clarity of my garden pond at the height of blanket weed season. Everything they write needs another lawyer to disentangle it.

Dovefromabove

I was told by a chap who knows about this sort of thing that if I use decent virus protection on my laptop it won’t let me unknowingly access dodgy sites, so I wouldn’t be able to post links to them. 

I don’t lose sleep over it. 😊 

pansyface

I've often wondered about the inclusion of links to other information in posts such as plant details or product details from external sites, not knowing whether this is permissible or whether they are safe.  How do you know or check they are safe, and does anyone do this?

I go on the basis of knowing the people who are providing the link and believing them, through past experience, to be reasonable people who would not cause mischief.

If someone provides a link but you aren’t sure about either the person or the link, you don’t have to click on it.

Life is full of unknown unknowns and also known unknowns and sometimes you just have to go with your hunch. A bit like when you meet a bloke at a dance and he says he’ll walk you home. Could be the start of a great romance, could be the next day’s newspaper headlines.

Fire

Yes, it's just the company covering their back, so that nobody tries to sue them for defamation or knowing transfer of malware etc. I suspect these are pretty standard clauses, included at the insistence of insurance companies and lawyers.

For example, if Facebook or Twitter publish a liable or paedophilic image on their platform without knowing, they would want to have the arse covered. GW and Immediate Media are the same. They have no idea what is published on their platforms. There is zero monitoring and zero effort to have a sense of whom they are hosting or the nature material that goes up.

Chris-P-Bacon

Plantminded said:

Has anyone else wondered about this? Should this cause concern? 

No... &  err, no.

Fairygirl

The fact that there's a 'quote' option in red at the foot of the posting window says it all 

AnniD

As someone who is always posting links to help other posters, l did have a bit of a moment last night 😲.
I tend to link to link to sites such as the RHS, suppliers that l have used and can recommend (trying to remember the disclaimer that other suppliers are available),  and even the GW website itself.

I was going to post a link this morning to give someone some help and found myself deleting my reply. I've never been contacted by the mods but would hate to think l was inadvertently doing the wrong thing. Not sure what to do now 🙁.

Dovefromabove

I intend to carry on as I always have done for the past 10+ years ... if my computer security is happy for me to access a website then I'm happy to post a link to it.  Have good virus software and keep it updated.  That's the best you can do. 👍