Why not join our forum and have your say. If there’s anything on your mind, or you feel a pressing need to raise awareness about issues affecting members of your community, feel free to create your own thread. If you agree or disagree with any of our writers or contributors, post your views under their posts or videos, or start your own thread.
We want to promote discussion and we can only do that, if we have your involvement. We don’t do ‘censorship’ at the Portmir Foundation. We are committed to freedom of thought and expression, and if people are offended by you ‘expressing’ your views or sharing your experiences, you have our full support.
All we ask is that you be respectful, courteous and tempered in your forum posts.
Ground Rules
By using the Forum, you agree to follow these rules. We encourage open discussion and active debate, but to ensure that all our users enjoy the site we have the following rules.
Treat other users with respect
1. Respect the opinions of others and their privacy. Don’t post personal details of others without their explicit consent and don’t post personal email addresses (including your own) on the public forums.
2. Be friendly to other members.
3. Don’t insult people, don’t patronise or belittle them, don’t make personal attacks.
4. Do not express discriminatory or otherwise offensive views. You know the kind of thing – there’s no place for racism, religious hatred, sexism or homophobia here. We recognise that discussion of certain social and political issues may legitimately require the use of sensitive or potentially offensive terms, but outside of those limited contexts the use of such terms is not allowed on this site.
5. We have a ‘swear filter’ on the site, that censors a small list of words considered to be inappropriate. If you try really hard you can get around it: please don’t. You can self-censor if you wish, in which case the entire word must be starred out. For example, “f*ck” or “f***” would not be acceptable), but otherwise, just type out all words in full and the filter will replace any censored words with asterisks. Please – no images or other media that include unfiltered swearing, and no links to any content that includes significant unfiltered swearing.
Make sure the content you add is appropriate for all members
1. Do not post or link to adult content, which would include sexually explicit images or text and graphic/violent images or video clips.
2. Be friendly to other members. There’s no need to be hostile and agressive just becasue you disagree with someone
3. Text speak (eg, “b4”, “l8r”) is impenetrable gobbledegook for many people, so please don’t use it on the Forum. Please also avoid posting in a foreign language unless you also provide a translation.
Keep all your posts relevant and constructive
1. You can help keep the conversation flowing by posting in the correct forum, keeping to the topic of the thread and adding constructive posts. If your post is made up wholly or predominantly of images, emoticons or ‘memes’, it might be worth asking yourself what it’s adding to the conversation.
2. Sometimes people want to ‘bump’ a thread (ie, post in it again so it returns to the top of the chronological thread list). That’s fine once, if your thread hasn’t had a response after a significant amount of time. But please don’t bump a thread multiple times or without allowing appropriate time for others to read the thread and reply. How much time you should wait for a reply depends on the forum – in busier forums, it becomes appropriate to bump a thread sooner than in quieter ones. As a rough guide, please give it a few hours and don’t bump a thread while it’s still near the top of the most recently updated threads in its forum.
3. Do not post the same content multiple times, within either a single or multiple threads.
4. Please check before posting that the thread is still current. If you’re adding to a thread that’s been dormant for more than six months, you’re probably better off starting a new thread instead.
No cheating!
Portmir Foundation is not here to help anyone gain an unfair advantage over others in interviews, academic work or similar.
1. Some exams are taken in different locations worldwide at different times. For many of these, there are restrictions on when discussion of these can take place on the Forum. Keep an eye on the site for announcements about these restrictions, which you should read before posting about an exam.
No spammers, please.
That means no advertising or other promotional activity.
1. If you post a link, please make sure it’s useful. This isn’t the place for promotional activity, so please avoid posting about both commercial and non-commercial products/services, job adverts, Facebook groups, societies and forums other than Portmir Foundation.
2. Don’t post referral links, codes or similar, which offer a benefit to you when another person uses the link/code to make use of a service.
3. Don’t campaign for votes, petition signatures or similar.
No violence or criminality!
Do not use Portmir Foundation Forum to assist with, condone or advocate illegal activity.
1. Examples of illegal topics would include copyright infringement (including torrents and unauthorised streams of copyrighted material), fake IDs and drugs that are either banned or (where not in a prescribed context) prescription-only.
2. We’re a UK-based site, so the laws of England and Wales are our guideline for determining illegality, although laws from other countries will be considered if appropriate to the context of the relevant post.
3. The full site guidelines also apply to content included in avatars, signatures and personal reputation comments.
Do not misuse secondary accounts
1. You are welcome to create and operate multiple accounts on the Forum, so long as you continue to follow the guidelines.
2. If you have an account banned, you may use another account to browse the site and/or to contact the forum moderators to ask about the reasons for your ban. However, any other use of the account – including posting, sending private messages, leaving visitor messages or use of the reputation system is not permitted.
3. Do not use another account to back up the opinion that you post using one account or otherwise to deceive/mislead others. Do not impersonate other members.
4. Do not use another account to abuse the reputation system, eg, by attempting to get around the usual restrictions on the frequency of leaving reputation/post ratings.
Moderation
Sometimes the moderators and community team may edit, delete or move any material that is posted on the site. For example we might edit or remove posts, or close individual threads. If you are using a specific forum in an inappropriate or unacceptable manner, including through breaking any of the forum rules, we may restrict, suspend or terminate your membership, either by banning you from part or all of the site or by locking your account.
If you break any of the rules, an email ‘alert’ or warning may be issued to you by a member of the moderation team.
If you have any issues concerning these rules or have general queries or suggestions that could potentially benefit the Forum please email us at moderators@portmir.org.uk and a member of the team will get back to you as quickly as possible.
