Please read our Terms of Service carefully.
Chat and Forum Rules
At Wikivorce, we are all facing the effects of divorce and the purpose of the community and chat facility is, primarily, to offer support to all it’s members. By participating in Wikivorce’s message boards or chats, you are agreeing to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
Wikivorce promises to you:
1. A safe place
We will endeavour to ensure that our chat-rooms and forums are safe places to be. Wikivorce is a moderated site. Our moderation team – known collectively as TeamWiki, and headed by our Community Manager - aim to provide a supportive, safe, welcoming and informative environment for all our members – our ethos is simple – Wikivorce is a support site, and all our members deserve respect and support.
2. Respect
Wikivorce is a place where it's okay to be yourself – good mood or bad – as long as you always act with consideration for your fellow members. We promise that on Wikivorce, you won't be unable to discuss your issues or share your news. We promise to bring passion to our work and to our community and to act with respect and appreciation for our members. We will listen to your suggestions and complaints, trying to incorporate your ideas in everything we do. Please remember that moderators are members too and respect what we do.
i. Language – language is important at Wikivorce since people need to be able to understand the questions and also find posts when they use the search function. Text spelling is not understood by everyone on the planet. At Wikivorce we are a support community, so it is important that we make sure the biggest portion of the people can either understand, or find ways to understand, what we are trying to communicate without too much trouble. Using shortcuts can be a fun way to talk to our friends but it should only be limited to that and not used when trying to share our communications with the world.
ii CAPS LOCK – Caps lock is when you type in all capital letters. This does not just apply to Wikivorce but is also an Internet Social Community thing. Cap locking is considered speaking loudly or shouting and few like to be shouted at. It can makes those who read it feel they are being shouted at and can be perceived as being rude and seeking attention. Doing this at Wikivorce can grant you the wrong attention and elicit many people complaining and asking you to stop it. Please respect that.
iii. Name-calling – no one enjoys being on the receiving end of this. No one enjoys being belittled or embarrassed. It is disrespectful and aggressive behaviour that will not be tolerated in this community. Being disrespectful here will likely elicit a negative response from other members, causing tension and making everyone feel uncomfortable. Posting disrespectfully here may cause your posts to be edited by TeamWiki, or removed completely. We reserve the right to do this and, should this occur, you will be informed by us though it may not be possible to do so immediately.
iv. Racism – This is not an acceptable practice anywhere and will, inevitably, lead to trouble. Using racist words anywhere at Wikivorce demonstrates your intolerance and disrespect for other human beings in this community (or elsewhere). This will not be tolerated and appropriate action will be taken by TeamWiki should it occur.
v. Discussion – Whilst we encourage discussion here at Wikivorce, there is nothing wrong with a healthy exchange of views, opinions and ideas, you must make your comments in a respectful manner. Challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully… without insult and personal attack. Harassing, offensive, vulgar or abusive communications – especially those aimed at sexual orientation, gender, race, colour, religious views, national origin, or disability – will not be permitted. BEFORE you post a message (or say something during a live chat) that is intended to embarrass, humiliate or harass another person or group of people, stop and think first. Harassing communications are those that may cause distress, embarrassment, unwanted attention or other discomfort. The real objective of community is to understand each other, not to impose your view on others and attempt to convince them that you're right. Inappropriate language, insults, inflammatory and provocative attacks are not appropriate and will not be tolerated. Agree to disagree respectfully.
vi. Freedom of Speech – many of us enjoy having the freedom to speak, however Freedom of Speech does not mean you can go anywhere you like and say whatever you want. Freedom of speech has nothing to do with the rules and regulations each of us has a right to enforce. Everyone has the same such freedoms here. If others do not want to hear what you are saying then they have the right not to listen. There are consequences to everything that we say and it is for each of us to take responsibility for our own comments, thereby accepting the consequences. It is pointless then to argue a freedom to speak; if it is to do so at the expense of the freedom of others, this is not freedom.
vii. Abusing other members – abuse of another member will not be tolerated in any form. If you are having a problem with another member then either communicate privately with the member (though respectfully - reference this section) or tell a member of TeamWiki. If you discuss an issue with another member publicly (either in forum or chat) you must do so with respect, avoiding sarcasm and offensive language. Sarcasm is an intent to belittle someone (see 2.ii.) and will be considered as such.
viii. Criticising the site – if you have an issue with any part of the site, there is a process to use (see 3 below). Please don't be rude and offensive about the site. Many of our members have been here a while and enjoy this site, as do many new members. We do not appreciate people coming here and disrespecting the site or the members.
ix. Profanity – We at Wikivorce try hard to respect each other. We like to believe we are mature enough to use mature language. Using crude language may be not be offensive to you but may offend others. 'Swearing' and 'profanity' may be arguable in interpretation but offense is not. If you are not sure that something you want to say will offend, then don't say it. How do you know if something is offensive? If someone is offended by it, then it is, by definition, offensive. Using profanity often demonstrates a lack of intellect and education. Please don't do it at Wikivorce.
x. Keep your posts clean - there may be places where explicit, obscene or vulgar language, graphics or behaviour is appropriate: Wikivorce is not one of them. Forum posts that contain explicit, obscene or vulgar language will be removed. Similarly, forum posts that solicit or offer explicit or X-rated GIFs, JPEGs or other graphic files will be deleted without notice. Profile pictures, pictures posted to the user gallery and uploaded videos will also be removed if they contain explicit or X-rated images.
xi. Posting Images and Information about Children - Wikivorce does not permit the use of photographs or other images of children under the age of 18. This includes photographs/images uploaded to the Photographs section, on profile pages, as content in forum posts/blog/library etc or as members profile pictures. Any member who has used/uploaded an image/photograph of a child under the age of 18 is subject to Wikivorce removing that photograph/image without prior notice.
Posting about children.
Under section …..97 of the Children Act 1989, you must not make public details which could lead to the identification of a child involved in family proceedings.
(2) No person shall publish to the public at large or any section of the public] any material which is intended, or likely, to identify—
(a)any child as being involved in any proceedings before [F3the High Court, a county court or] a magistrates’ court in which any power under this Act [F1or the Adoption and Children Act 2002] may be exercised by the court with respect to that or any other child; or
(b)an address or school as being that of a child involved in any such proceedings.
Such details could include:
Name[s] of child/children (either first or full name)
Age or date of birth of child/children
Home address/location, ie town, area within a town
The name and/or address/ and/or the location of the child’s school
Details of the child’s activities
Specific medical conditions
Which Court is involved
Specific details of siblings or other family members
Wikivorce reserve the right to edit or remove posts/blogs, without prior notice, that contain details that we believe could lead to the identification of a child/children. Any member found to be persistently posting identifying details could face an exclusion from the site.
For example – this paragraph would contravene this policy:
My daughter (Sally), aged 9 yesterday was picked up by her dad from her school in Colchester so she could go to his and have tea with him in Southend. I only knew about this when a friend called me to say Sally hadn’t gone home with her daughter after school as arranged. This isn’t in our contact order. He is only meant to collect at 5pm from her ballet class on a Friday night.
To re-word the paragraph so it still contains the jist, but not the identifying details:
My child was collected by her dad from school on a non-contact night without telling me first – he took to his to have a celebration tea. The contact order states that he is only to collect after her activity has ended on a Friday night.
The reason we have this policy is to prevent potential/possible identification of any child, but particularly those who may be involved in court proceedings.
3. How to report a problem
If you come across any violations to these rules, wish to report an issue or an inappropriate post, blog or member, or have any problems navigating the site, do not hesitate to let the Community Manager by sending a private message by clicking here or via email at:
4. Keep personal information private
Think before you post or speak: do you really want to put your address or telephone number on the forums or share it during a live chat? We encourage you to keep personal information private, and to remind your children to do so, too. Similarly, do not ask for personal information from others. Forum posts that request members to submit personal information to another party will be removed unless these posts have been pre-approved by Wikivorce staff. This includes, but is not limited to, communications that ask for personal information submitted via e-mail, mail, telephone, surveys, and research studies.
5. Be courteous: avoid duplicate posts
It is best not to post the same message more than once on the forums. Duplicate messages can be frustrating for other members, especially for those whose time and energy is limited. Sifting through the same message in multiple locations is not only frustrating, but can be annoying.
6. Don't post commercial items or links to alternative community sites
7. Don't post others' copyrighted information
8. Use of Chat-room - Use of the chat room is for registered members only, and members must adhere to our supportive ethos at all time when using our chat facilities.
Use of inappropriate language, and/or behaviour that may be considered racist, sexist, prejudice, pornographic, threatening, aggressive, antagonistic etc will not be tolerated and anyone involved in such language/behaviour will see themselves removed from the chatroom, and could face further action as deemed appropriate by the moderating team/community manager.
Anyone found “spamming” in the chatroom will face an immediate exclusion.
Use of image-sharing - members may share images with other members in the main chatroom, providing those images are not of a child under the age of 18 or inappropriate (ie pornographic; depicting violence, prejudice, or other scenarios which are not conducive to the ethos of Wikivorce).
For your safety, the chat rooms are moderated, should you have any concerns about either the safety of behaviour of another member using the chat-room please contact a moderator immediately. You can also contact the Community Manager (currently rubytuesday) via Private Message. If you are uncomfortable with a situation that may be developing in the chatroom, then simply leave the chat facility and contact a moderator/the Chat-room Manager - Tets; or the Community Manager - rubytuesday immediately.
9. We reserve the right
Wikivorce also reserves the right to prohibit or delete messages that are thought to violate applicable law or that may be harmful to other members, or the rights of Wikivorce or others. That said, Wikivorce does not have the practical ability to restrict conduct or communications that might violate Wikivorce’s Terms of Service prior to transmission on the Web, nor can we ensure prompt removal of offending message board posts.
10. Failure To Comply
Any member who fails to comply with the rules after a formal warning is at risk of a ban from the site, with immediate effect. In extreme cases, we reserve the right to ban without warning.
Written for, and on behalf of Wikivorce by Ruth Langford, Community Manager; and TeamWiki.
