[DS Forum Support]

We strive to ensure that Digital Spy is a constructive, non-discriminatory and friendly place to discuss a wide variety of topics. To maintain a positive forum atmosphere and to promote constructive discussion, we ask that you adhere to the terms and conditions. As well as this, please consider the points below to ensure that the time you spend at Digital Spy is both enjoyable and productive.The community guidelines apply to all aspects of Digital Spy, including; forum posts, article comments and private messages.

Contacting Digital Spy
If you have any queries or comments regarding forum operations including moderation processes and technical issues, please make use of the dedicated contact form at http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/contact/?contact_type=forum. Every message is reviewed and we appreciate your feedback. When contacting Forum Support please be sure to include as much information as possible including URLs of the content to which you are referring and details of any error messages which may be showing on-screen.

Dealing with Inappropriate Content
The forum is predominantly reactively moderated and we ask that forum members notify us of any inappropriate posts by clicking the ALERT button next to the post in question: the post is then flagged for attention from the Forum Support team. Please only alert posts which break the terms and conditions or community guidelines and not just posts that you disagree with. Please provide any relevant information in the reason for reporting textarea. Please refrain from being overly emotive and using terms such as "Excuse me?!?! I've been banned for less!" - the key to effective alerting is to be clear and concise while supplying as much contextual information as possible.

Copyright
Do not reproduce complete texts/images to which you do not own the copyright. When linking to articles elsewhere on the Internet, you can quote the first few lines and then provide a link to the content in full. If quoting other media, be sure to cite your source.

External links and Advertising
We only permit links to third-party sites when they are relevant to ongoing discussion. Any Users posting URLs of sites excessively or in a way which could be construed as advertising are liable to have their right to post removed. If you wish to discuss advertising solutions, please visit http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/contact/...ct_type=advert.

Appreciation Threads
Appreciation threads are designed to allow fans of a particular subject to engage in positive and lighthearted discussion of a subject. Negative posts in an appreciation thread are considered off-topic and will be removed. If you wish to discuss the subject of an appreciation thread you are welcome to post constructive negative comments in a separate thread.

Game threads
We know that a lot of forum members enjoy playing forum games and we have created subforums across the board where people can do so. The separate forums are in place so that those who do not wish to participate in games do not have to sift through a list of unconstructive or non-topical discussions to find what they are looking for. If you feel there is a particular forum which would benefit from the addition of a gaming subforum, please contact us.

Terms and Conditions
Please take the time to review the terms and conditions and consider how they apply to you when posting. These guidelines are by no means exhaustive and it is expected that this part of the document will grow with time to cover situations which regularly arise. If there is an area of the terms and conditions which you are unsure of, please get in touch via Contact Us and your comments will be passed to the forums manager for consideration.


Acceptable Use

Respect other forum members
While you are of course welcome to disagree with other members, we will not tolerate posts which insult, belittle, bait or otherwise antagonise forum members. This includes posts which disrespectfully label others posters as 'fanboys', 'haters' or similar.

'You're a complete idiot: that's not the case at all' is not acceptable; a simple, 'I don't agree' would suffice.

Offensive material
You must not post messages that are vulgar, crude, sexist, racist, homophobic or otherwise offensive. We will not tolerate offensive, immature or unconstructive postings.

'[BB Housemate X] is an ugly slut', and '[Random Politician Y] is a prick' are not acceptable. '[BB Housemate Z] is irritating me. Why do they have to shriek so often?' is fine.

Our aim is to make each of our members feel welcome. Racism, homophobia and sexism have no place on our forums and will be dealt with swiftly.

Swearing
The Digital Spy forums do have a language filter which should block terms deemed too offensive for use on the forums. Deliberately evading this language filter in order to post offensive language will likely result in a ban as you've demonstrated a complete disregard for the forum rules. This includes but is not limited to masking letters with an asterisk, reversing letter order or substituting numbers for letters.

Casual swearing (where the words are NOT filtered) will not be punished but your post must satisfy the other terms and conditions meaning it needs to be a constructive, non-offensive post. Swearing at people or groups is not permitted.

'May have had a little too much to drink last night. I feel like shit!' would be fine. Posts such as 'You're a w*nker, I hate you!' and 'That makes no sense, piss off!' are not.

Baiting
Don't wind people up to try to get them to say something in violation of the Terms and Conditions. It's obvious to other users and to us, doesn't work (we evaluate other posts and wider context when dealing with alerts), and backfires.

Libel
Don't post anything that might be libellous.

Phone numbers
Due to ICSTIS regulations we are unable to permit the publication of premium rate numbers on the forum. Please do not go around the filter to post these.

Privacy
Do not post personal email addresses, telephone numbers or other personal information on the forums. General contact information (that displayed on a company's 'Contact Us' page, for example) is fine.

'Try emailing firstname.lastname@randomcompany.co.uk and see if they can help you!' is not.

Illegal activity
Discussions regarding illegal activities such as 'chipping', 'patching' and methods of distributing copyrighted material for free are not permitted.

Multiple Accounts
We allow one account per person. If there is more than one person using your computer or network to access the Digital Spy forums, please contact us so as to avoid any confusion further down the line. Registering an account after having been banned (temporarily or permanently) is not permitted and will result in all linked accounts being terminated.

Third-party Websites
Be careful
Be mindful of the links that you visit from within posts. We are not responsible nor liable for third-party websites.

Advertising and 'spam'
We only permit external linking when relevant to the thread in question. Any users posting URLs excessively or in a way which could be construed as advertising are liable to have their right to post removed.


Etiquette
Communicate clearly
Try your hardest to communicate clearly: avoid using 'txt spk'. We ask that all users post in English.

Duplicate threads and cross-posting
Before creating a new thread please carry out a brief search to see if your contribution could be made to an existing thread. Do not purposely duplicate threads or cross-post to multiple forums.

Posting "I've PM'd you" or "I've sent you a message!"
The forum does not need to know that you have sent a PM to a user. Such posts are unconstructive and completely unnecessary given the way in which the forum software alerts people when they receive a PM.

Post in the appropriate forum
Check that you are posting in the right place. Do not, for example, create a thread regarding Music in the General Discussion forum just because you "want more people to see it".

Spoilers
Please be mindful of other forum members who may be trying to avoid spoilers. You may encase your post in tags where appropriate. Ignoring 'no spoilers' or ' pace' in thread titles is considered disruptive and will be dealt with as such.

Commenting on spelling/grammar
Unconstructive posts commenting on the spelling and/or grammar of another user's post will not be tolerated. We ask that users make the effort to communicate clearly and, so long as posts are understandable, there should be no problem.

Bumping
Posting in old threads with little reason to do so is considered disruptive. If a thread has long since died a natural death, a fresh thread should be made if you wish to continue discussion.

"Where has my thread gone?" "Why was my post removed?" "Why was I/XX banned?"
These are not questions that can be answered on the forum. Please contact us directly with your query via http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/contact/?contact_type=forum

Under 16s
If you are under 16 years of age please obtain the permission of a parent or guardian before you register. Do not reveal any personal information on the forums or via PM including but not limited to surname, telephone number, school name, or email address.

Proxy Services
We reserve the right to restrict forum access of users accessing Digital Spy via any anonymous proxy services to prevent abuse/ misuse of the site and protect our community.