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Forum Community Rules

The Garden Commuter Community Forum Guidelines

Welcome to The Garden Commuter Community!

This is a dedicated space for our community of Garden Commuters to connect, share ideas, and discuss everything related to working from a garden office, including office design, connectivity, remote work life, gardening adjacent to your office, and more.

Please remember that the content found here is user-generated and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Garden Commuter magazine. To ensure these forums remain a safe, supportive, and constructive environment for everyone, all readers and contributors must observe the following guidelines.

1. Community Conduct and Inclusion

The Garden Commuter maintains a strict policy of inclusion and equality. We respectfully remind all members to treat their fellow community members with the respect and consideration they expect in return.

The following types of threads or comments are strictly prohibited and subject to moderation:

  • Racist
  • Sexist
  • Xenophobic
  • Defamatory
  • Ageist
  • Ableist
  • Transphobic
  • Homophobic
  • Religionist

We permit the discussion of matters such as race, sex, religion, nationality, disabilities, politics, and gender, provided these posts and comments remain on-topic, constructive, and objective. Always be considerate and think about how others may interpret your comments before posting.

2. Prohibited Content and Behavior

The following topics, content, or behavior are prohibited from The Garden Commuter forums and will result in moderation:

  • Adult material (e.g., intimate, sexually explicit media or sexually suggestive content, including that of minors or of someone without their consent)
  • Prohibited goods or services (e.g., Illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives, drugs, stolen goods, personal information, fraudulent products or services)
  • Personal attacks
  • Trolling
  • Doxxing (e.g., attempting to discover or reveal someone’s identity)
  • Spamming
  • Harassment
  • Stalking
  • Bullying
  • Cyberflashing
  • Threats of Violence
  • Medical advice (e.g., remedies, prescriptions, or advice where a user would be best seeking a professional)
    • We recommend all users seek independent advice when discussing topics which may impact money, health, and life situations.
  • Promotion of business interests, self-gain, or the use of unsolicited referral links.

2.1 Commercial Posts and Competitors for exceptions)

  • Software protected by copyright (e.g., “warez,” “gamez,” “ROMs”) and emulation
  • Promoting illegal tech or hardware, how to avoid bills, stealing electricity or gaining access to services or systems.
  • Promotion of The Garden Commuter competitors
  • Anti-The Garden Commuter sentiment
  • Swearing (Use of the asterisk is allowed; completely censoring the word in full with no letters present is required)
  • “Goodbye” threads

These rules apply to all members, including The Garden Commuter customers, colleagues, partners, or affiliates.

3. Posting Guidelines

3.1 User Accounts

  • One Account Per User: Creating multiple accounts is an infractable offense, up to and including a ban of all accounts involved.
  • Appropriate Account Name: Offensive or malicious account names will be changed by the administrator or banned by the moderation staff.
  • No Impersonation: Do not attempt to mask or spoof as other users. This will result in a ban.
  • Banned Users: If your account has been banned, creating a new account without moderation approval may result in an immediate ban.

3.2 Starting a Thread

  • Clear Title: Use a relevant and appropriate thread title for your topic. Titles like “help me” or “weird problem” are unhelpful. Be clear about your topic (e.g., “Seeking advice on broadband stability for a garden office” or “My desk setup for video calls”).
  • Describe Clearly: Describe your problem as clearly as possible, and mention what you have already tried.
  • Do Your Research: If your question can be answered quickly with a simple search, please research it yourself first.
  • Substance Over Links: Do not start a thread with just a link, picture, or meme; add appropriate and meaningful narrative.
  • Clear Language: Use clear and appropriate language, correct punctuation, and grammar to make discussions easy to read.
  • No Illegal Activities: Do not ask for or discuss illegal activities (e.g., piracy, drugs). Threads will be locked or deleted.
  • No Begging: Do not beg for free items.
  • No Bumping: Do not “bump” a thread within 24 hours. Do not start further threads on the same topic.
  • Watch Your Language: Foul language is often unnecessary. The intent and usage of foul language will weigh heavily in moderation decisions.

3.3 Posting in a Thread

  • Be Constructive: Be polite and constructive. If you have nothing nice to say, do not say anything at all. This includes flaming, continuous use of bad language, baiting, retaliatory comments, and insulting others.
  • Stay On Topic: Changing the topic detracts from the discussion.
  • Avoid Arguments: Report inappropriate posts and avoid engaging in off-topic banter or arguments.
  • Healthy Debates: Constructive debates are generally allowed if they:
    • Use useful sources and constructive wording.
    • Maintain the thread’s topic.
    • Contain no insults, trolling, shaming, hate, or toxicity.
    • Avoid political or religious comment unless specifically relevant to the topic and done in an unbiased manner.
    • Do not drag on an argument just to have the last word.
  • Post Quality: Short, pointless posts like “yeah,” “me too,” or “haha” are not appropriate.
  • Quoting: If you reply to multiple posts, use the “multi quote” feature to improve readability.
  • Post Editing: There is an editing time limit for posts. If you maintain a post that gets updated repeatedly, reach out to the mods for assistance in unlocking the limit.

4. Commercial Posts and Competitors

4.1 Promotion of The Garden Commuter Competitors

Promotion of our direct competitors is forbidden, as these forums are provided to the community without charge and cost a substantial amount of money to maintain.

Examples of prohibited competitor promotion include:

  • Posting links to direct competitors’ websites (e.g., other digital magazines or community platforms focused on garden offices).
  • Posting links to reviews that promote competitors.
  • Quoting or offering to provide the names or contact details of competitors.
  • Hinting about product availability or pricing at competitors.
  • Listing competitors’ names, URLs, or email addresses in signatures or profiles.
  • Disguising attempts to do any of the above.

4.2 Posting Links to Your Own Content

  • New Users: Postings of any commercial nature that benefit you personally (financial, promotional, or otherwise) are not allowed.
  • Active Members: Once you are an active, helpful member, you may make such posts from time to time if they genuinely help the community or provide useful information.
  • Referral Links: Referrals are allowed if requested by an individual. Do not spam referral codes in threads or via private message (PM). Abuse will result in suspensions and possible removal of forum access.
  • We reserve the right to remove any content deemed inappropriate or purely commercial.

5. Signatures and Avatars

  • Animation: Animated avatars or signature pictures are generally not permitted unless approved by a super-moderator or administrator.
  • Content: Keep profanity, vulgarity, insensitivity, politics, and flaming out of your signatures and avatars. No sexually suggestive content is allowed.
  • Size Limits: Signature pictures must be no larger than 128 KB and cannot move (unless approved).
  • Moderation: Any signatures that violate these rules or bother the moderation team will be changed at their discretion.

6. Moderation, Reporting, and Enforcement

6.1 Reporting Content

  • Report Feature: All posts and private messages have a “report post” button. Use this when you feel something is inappropriate or if you require a moderator action (e.g., thread rename or closure).
  • Avoid Drama: Do not use the report feature as an invitation to rejoin or add to a conflict.
  • Review Time: Reports enter a moderation queue for review.

6.2 Disagreeing with Moderation

  • Private Contact: If you disagree with a moderator’s action, contact them via PM. If the issue cannot be resolved with the moderator, contact a super moderator.
  • No Public Drama: Under no circumstances should you start public drama regarding moderation issues.
  • Be Polite: Be polite to moderators; attacking them in PMs is also an infractable offense.
  • Administration: Administrators are busy; only contact them if your issue cannot be solved by a super moderator.

6.3 Enforcement: Warnings and Bans

  • Infractions: Violations of these guidelines earn infraction warnings that accumulate toward temporary or permanent bans.
  • Standard Offenses: Standard offenses are generally 3 infraction warnings accumulated in a 24 hour period resulting in temporary 24 hour bans.
  • Excessive Issues: More excessive issues or repeated offenses will result in a 7 day ban and if there have been 3 or more serious complaints made, a permanent ban will occur.
  • Expiration: Always subject to moderator discretion.
  • Loss of Privileges: Multiple bans or warnings will result in the permanent loss of account access subject to our website terms of service.
  • Avoiding Infractions: We recommend abstaining from involvement in negative situations, reporting the issue, and moving on to avoid earning infractions.

7. Threads That Will Be Closed

Threads that request or promote illegal activities will be closed.

Other threads that will be closed include:

  • “Spam threads” started purely for the sake of starting a thread.
  • Spammed advertisements.
  • Threads, or posts within threads, whose topic may be seen as political or religious, or politically/religiously sensitive.
  • Threads of malicious, spiteful, or toxic intent against any user, group, or company.

8. Prohibited Inappropriate Behavior

Behavior that should be reported:

  • Insulting other forum members.
  • Racist, hateful, toxic, and otherwise demeaning comments, whether meant as a joke or not.
  • Trolling: Making argumentative posts to discredit another person or provoke a reaction, or attacking the forum’s recognized power structure.
  • Posting useless or wrong information in response to technical or help-seeking topics.
  • Non-constructive criticism of a person’s English language abilities.
  • Posting “FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) as legitimate news.
  • Post whoring (posting nonsense for the pure joy of it, spamming, or thread-crapping).
  • Posting only a picture/meme without relevant topical comment, especially as bait or to dismiss another member’s opinion.

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