Community guidelines.

Welcome to the community.

The Box Babble community was established with a broad remit to discuss all aspects of the television and video presentation with some crossover into the media in general and how new technologies and platforms are disrupting the media we consume.

If Box Babble is to work as a viable community of fellow presentation enthusiasts, we need our members to agree by a set of rules that ensure that everybody gets heard, nobody feels discriminated against and we can all respectfully co-exist together.

Please treat the site as though it was a public park or community centre – a shared resource, to share skills, knowledge and, above all, conversation.

With this in mind, please understand that participation here is only possible if community members respect the following ‘Golden Rules’.

Golden Rules

  1. Keep it legal

  2. Be agreeable, even when you disagree

  3. Don’t discriminate

  4. Mind your language

  5. Don’t be a bully, don’t harass

  6. Don’t suffer, speak up

  7. No stealing

  8. Be tidy

  9. Respect the privacy of others, including public figures

Out community’s moderation team will endeavour to ensure that community members adhere to these rules. It is their role to offer guidance to members to help them stay within these guidelines, and to take action where members are unable or unwilling to do so.

Minor infringements and first time offences will likely be responded to with a polite direct message asking that you

1. Keep it legal

Box Babble is an online community that exists within the jurisdiction of the applicable laws and courts of England.

We have to abide by the law, our members have to abide by the law. This is not optional…. it’s the law.

The law takes precedent over any other rule that we would wish to impose.

If you should use the Box Babble community to break the law, or to suggest to others that they should break the law, you should expect the site’s proprietors to co-operate with law enforcement agencies in any legal investigations that may arise – subject to English law.

2. Be agreeable, even when you disagree

Freedom of expression is something Box Babble values and hopes its members will too, but understand that the freedom also comes with certain responsibilities.

Everybody has a different idea of the way things should be done, but nobody has a monopoly on a good idea.

What a good idea actually is is completely subjective. What you think is a no-brainer may look to others like you’ve lost your mind.

We will treat those who have a different view to our own with respect.

Just because somebody espouses an opinion that counters our own does not entitle us to attack anybody, call names, belittle or otherwise act with malice towards that person.

Just because we enjoy the relative anonymity of being behind a screen and keyboard does not give us the right to communicate with less respectfully than we would in person.

Please be reasonable and debate the topic at hand, and do so without resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Specifically, those directing pejoratives against others will be moderated against. This includes political name-calling, such as ‘snowflake’ or ‘gammon’. It does nothing to advance discussion and reflects badly upon those who participate.

You should aim to improve the conversation, not lower the tone. If you have to resort to a personal attack, it’s likely that you have already lost the argument.

3. Don’t discriminate

Try to act without prejudice, while all the time being mindful of the unfortunate fact that we all come with our own prejudices baked-in.

If we try to be aware of our prejudices, we can begin to look past them and treat others with the respect they deserve, regardless of their own identity, who they love, their background, their ethnicity, physical appearance, religion or age.

Here, we will show respect to our fellow community members, regardless of who they are. Respect is an expectation of all community participants.

4. Mind your language

We ask members to keep their language rated ‘PG’.

As a rule of thumb, if you can’t say it on a free-to-air (UK) television channel before 9pm, you’re probably not going to get away with saying it here.

Sometimes there is an editorial justification for making use of profane or offensive words or phrases (for example quoting a remark made by another to add context to a discussion) – the likelihood, however, is that in most cases there is unlikely to be proper justification.

5. Don’t be a bully, don’t harass

We’ve already spoken about the community’s stance on civility – particularly in respect to not making personal attacks – discrimination and the language we use while in conversation.

Sadly, the relative anonymity of an internet browser does seem to give some individuals the impression that they have the freedom or right to target individuals for harassment or to be the subject of bullying.

Harassment and/or bullying can manifest itself in a number of ways from a compulsive need to write a ‘snarky’ comment each time a particular member posts, creating sock-puppet accounts in order to post abuse or even deliberately posting personal information to intimidate, cause upset or humiliate an individual.

Regardless of its form, this is something that our community will not stand for and measures will be taken to prevent access to it for those who show a sustained motivation to cause harm to others in this way.

6. Don’t suffer, speak up

We want Box Babble to be a vibrant community with a broad range of views expressed. We want everyone to consider this to be a safe environment for that propose.

From time to time, however, we recognise that lines will get crossed, tempers will flare and members may need time to cool off.

If you see a post that you feel goes against the principles set out in these guidelines, please resist any urge to respond in kind. Rather, bring it to the attention to the community moderators.

Moderators will endeavour to assess each flag with care and on its own merit.

Please don’t abuse the flag system though. Where there is a pattern of use of the flag button for purposes of revenge, bullying or simply to cause trouble. This will likely backfire on you.

7. No stealing

Everybody deserves to get paid for their work.

In the offline world, you can’t produce counterfeit copies of books, DVDs or other works for distribution without the risk of getting into legal hot water.

It follows therefore, that members may not post anything to the community that belongs to somebody else - without the owners’ express permission.

In particular, if you wish to add to a particular topic by referencing a piece of journalism, please do not post the whole article – rather use selective quotes and provide a link to the full article at the parent publication’s own website.

Don’t post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images).

Showing an image or video for the purpose of criticism is acceptable under the principle of ‘fair dealing’.

8. Be tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

  • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
  • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
  • Don’t post no-content replies.
  • Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
  • Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

9. Respect the privacy of others, including public figures

Everybody is entitled to a private life, including public figures.

Do not attempt to intimidate other community members - or anybody else - by posting private information about them. This includes things like addresses.

Similarly, please avoid ‘rota talk’, shift patterns or holdiays when talking about public figures such as those who present on certain programmes.