another subcontinent member agreement, please read BEFORE registering Options

[arnab]

the another subcontinent member agreement

all activity on another subcontinent is governed by this member agreement. registration and activity on the site imply agreement with the terms of this agreement (and all related documents in this forum) and members are legally bound to it by their activity on the site regardless of whether they have read it or not. this is a private site that is governed by its own rules and by joining it you agree to play by these rules.

respecting the site's focus, interpersonal communication among members, and our commitment to principled discussion

another subcontinent's areas of focus are the art, film, food, literature, music and other aspects of cultural identity of south asia. politically south asia is usually taken to comprise the following sovereign nations: bangladesh, bhutan, india, the maldives, nepal, pakistan and sri lanka. (members, of course, do not need to be originally from or located in these nations.) this is not the site on which to discuss the art, film, food, literature or music of other parts of the world, and nor is it the site on which to discuss aspects of south asian culture other than those listed above. posts on religion and on politics are especially discouraged. posts on other topics - such as literature, cultural identity, food - may refer to religion and regional history/politics in order to illuminate the main topic. the reason we make this distinction is because (i) discussions on religion and politics often get out of hand, acrimonious and long-drawn, (ii) we think that these discussions can drown out the others and (iii) also make it harder to build a virtual community that is being administered on a completely voluntary basis. we reserve the right to determine what posts cross the line, and may shut down threads/topics that we perceive may potentially create problems. we also reserve the right to shut down long-running threads/topics that have just begun to cause problems but had not in the past. members who persist in ignoring these guidelines and/or administrative decisions may have their membership revoked.

another subcontinent does not limit the kind of language members may use in their posts. however, we do not allow posts that gratuitously insult or attack other members or site administrators, nor do we countenance the use of hate speech (including but not limited to racist, sexist or homophobic slurs against members and non-members alike)—such activity is subject to moderation by our staff, and members who persist in such activity are subject to removal from the site with no recourse. when conflicts arise among members we will consider all parties involved in furthering the conflict to be equally responsible. thus if you feel attacked or insulted beyond the pale of normal constructive discussion or criticism do not retaliate on the forums or via private message. instead, report the incident to a moderator and allow them to judge and resolve the situation. the moderators decisions do not need to be popular ones and you agree to abide with these and not discuss them or their fairness on the public forums. please see the note on moderation elsewhere in this forum for more details on our moderation policies.

ignoring these rules, and moderators' decisions, can also lead to membership revocation.

members with private messenger access are, of course, free to discuss any subject they wish in private messages to each other. however use of the private messenger is still governed by our rules of interpersonal communications.

defamation and copyright-violations

over and above the proscribed forms of interaction described above members also agree not to engage in activity that constitutes defamation of other members or anyone else on this site. gossip and hearsay that impugns someone's character or public-profile will not be tolerated. similarly you agree not to invade the privacy of other members through the tools available on this site or to post any information about other members or anyone else on this site that can constitute an invasion of privacy. opinion is, of course, free but responsibility for any information represented as fact rests with you. you also agree to indemnify another subcontinent against any legal or other action that arises out of your activity (whether opinion or fact) anywhere on this site.

members also agree to respect copyright laws and the principle of fair-use in their posts, their signatures and their avatars. images you display in your posts via links or uploads or which you use as an avatar must either be owned by you or in the public domain. quotations etc. from other published work must respect fair-use guidelines and must always be cited and attributed appropriately. this extends both to text, images etc. and also to bandwidth theft; see this website for a description of bandwidth theft: http://altlab.com/hotlinking.html

another subcontinent does not screen posts before they are made and does not guarantee that all posts will necessarily be screened after they are made. we therefore do not guarantee the accuracy etc. of information posted on our forums or certify that information etc. presented by our members is not in violation of our policies. when made aware of any infringements we will make good-faith efforts to rectify such situations.

ownership of content on another subcontinent

members retain ownership of all original content they post to our forums. however, we retain the rights to re-use, publish or reproduce any posts made on our forums at any point.

additional policies, and addendums and changes to the member agreement

registration and activity on the site implies acceptance of not only this member agreement but also of all ancillary policies and documents contained in the “site information” category of the site. we reserve the right to make changes to these policies at any time. changes will always be announced and noted and will immediately go into effect; it is incumbent on members to remain cognizant of the rules governing this community and their activity on it.

this agreement and related policies go into effect on july 25, 2004