The Have Your Say rules

The House Rules

The House Rules which appear below are divided into two sections. Violation of any of the rules in the first section is likely to lead to the immediate suspension of your account and could lead to legal action being taken against you by the authorities or an aggrieved party. Be aware that in exceptional circumstances the BBC could be legally obliged to reveal your registration information and/or IP address to the authorities.

Keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant. Please:

• No defamatory comments. A defamatory comment is one that is capable of damaging the reputation of a person or organisation. If successfully sued you could be held liable for considerable damages and costs.
• Avoid contempt of court which means not posting anything that risks prejudicing on-going or forthcoming court proceedings.
• Do not incite people to commit any crime, including incitement of racial hatred.
• Avoid breaking a court injunction (for example, naming an individual or speculating as to their current whereabouts after a court has issued an injunction against doing so).
• Do not post content which you've copied from someone else and don't own the copyright.
• Do not post messages that are unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, homophobic or racially offensive.
• Do not make multiple postings. So that we can publish comments from as many different people as possible, participants should keep their number of contributions per debate to a reasonable level. Multiple posts from one individual, or small number of individuals, discourages many others who might otherwise wish to take part.
• No swearing. People of all ages read and contribute to Have Your Say. Please don't use profanities or other words which might offend them.
• No spamming or flooding. Don't repost the same message, or very similar messages, more than once.
• No personal information. It is not acceptable to publicise your or anyone else's contact details including address, place of employment, name of educational establishment, telephone or mobile number, email address, etc. This is for your own safety and that of everyone who uses this service.
• Keep your posts relevant. Each Have Your Say debate is about a particular story or issue of the day. Posts which aren't relevant lower the value of the debate for everyone and may be removed.
• No advertising, promotion of products or services, or posting of web links (URLs). If you know of a worthy web site relevant to the discussion, please inform the Have Your Say moderators via the Contact Us link.
• Post in English only. Posts containing languages other than English may be removed. Common greetings and salutations in languages other than English may be acceptable.
• No capital letters. This is internet shorthand for raising your voice. You can make your point perfectly well in lower case so please take the caps lock off.
• No impersonating. Impersonating someone (including other members) is unacceptable.
• No inappropriate usernames (vulgar, offensive, etc).
• Markets Abuse Directive. Comments must not tip shares or make recommendations on investments.
• No multiple memberships. Please do not create more than one membership. It is unfair to the other users who only have one membership and abide by the posting and recommendation limit.
• Abusing the complaints system. Please don't abuse the complaints system. It exists to enable visitors to alert the Have Your Say moderators about content which breaks the above rules. The complaints system cannot be used to complain about specific BBC programmes or services, or BBC coverage in general. Please do not use the complaints system to alert us to multiple postings, spelling mistakes and so on. Anyone who abuses the complaints system repeatedly may have their account suspended.

Copyright and the law

You own the copyright in your postings, articles and pictures, but you also agree to grant the BBC a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicenseable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, play, and exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to any such work worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any media now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in such content, consistent with privacy restrictions set forth in the BBC's Privacy Policy.

If you do not wish to grant such rights to the BBC, it is suggested that you do not submit your contribution to this site.

By submitting your contribution to this site, you also warrant that such contribution is:

You also agree to indemnify the BBC against all legal fees, damages and other expenses that may be incurred by the BBC as a result of your breach of the above warranty.

You also agree to waive any moral rights in your contribution for the purposes of its submission to and publication on the BBC site and the other purposes specified above.

You may not post any defamatory or illegal material of any nature. This includes text, graphics, video, and/or audio. Posting a message with the intention of committing or condoning an illegal act is strictly prohibited.

You may not violate, plagiarise, or infringe on the rights of third parties including copyright, trademark, trade secret, privacy, personal, publicity, or proprietary rights.

You can read more about copyright here. If there is any conflict between these Terms and Conditions and/or specific terms appearing elsewhere on this site relating to specific material then the latter shall prevail.

About your privacy

If you register with us, our registration process requires you to supply us with your email details, but we will only use this information to validate your access to the discussions and for other service administration purposes. However, from time to time we also contact a small number of contributors to ask them to participate in related television or radio programmes. The BBC complies with the 1998 Data Protection Act.

If you're under age 16

People of all ages are encouraged to read and use Have Your Say, but in the interests of child protection, those under 16 aren't allowed to become members. They can still submit comments, and these will be read by the Have Your Say moderators before being published on the site.

Disciplinary procedure

Violation of any of the rules above may lead to your membership account be temporarily suspended or terminated. The BBC additionally reserves the right to suspend or terminate any membership account at any time and at its sole discretion. While suspended, returning to the site by creating another account will constitute a further offence and will result in your account being closed permanently. The BBC reserves the right to delete any posting, at any time, for any reason, and is under no obligation to publish any work submitted.

Please see the BBC Terms & Conditions.

Please see the BBC Privacy Policy.