Community Guidelines

Welcome to the eFestivals forum! We strive to be an all-inclusive, fair, and welcoming space for anyone to join and discuss festivals, music, art, politics, and almost anything else. As such, diverse opinions and varied discussion are welcome and encouraged. However, please read the rules below and be mindful of them before you post.

The rules are not hard laws, but are to be used as a guide for our community and moderating team to safeguard open discussion in a helpful, friendly, and constructive manner.

Together, we’re all contributing towards an incredible community resource for all festival-goers, present and future, so get stuck in and enjoy the show!

General Posting

If the moderation team believes that a user has broken these rules, the said user may be sent a warning, temporarily suspended, or permanently banned from the eFestivals community. Their content may be removed.

Rude, abusive, or extreme language - Do not post anything that most reasonable people would agree is abusive, offensive, or hate speech. Posters that excessively swear, use abusive language and insults, make accusatory statements, or post hate speech or extreme views will be banned from the forum.
Ad hominem attacks & insults - Please refrain from ad hominem attacks on others, whether another user, member of the eFestivals team, or any other party. Posts that are abusive or insulting to others may be removed, especially if most of the post is a derogatory statement. Please be civil towards your fellow humans.
Pornographic or sexual - Don’t post anything lewd, pornographic, sexual or overly suggestive in nature. This encompasses any format of content including images, videos, text, etc. No suggestive or sexual behaviour will be tolerated towards other forum users, when posted publicly or privately.
Illegal or socially unacceptable - Do not post or discuss any content showing or promoting illegal (under UK law) or socially unacceptable behaviour.
Controversial opinions - It’s important that controversial opinions are discussed out in the open so that the poster and anyone sharing a similar opinion can hear alternative views. However, at our discretion, we may remove content that shares overly extreme or hateful views, or is highly offensive in nature, or pertains to specific sensitivities of current events.
Political propaganda - All political views are welcome, as long as they’re not what a reasonable person would consider extreme or hateful. Any users that we determine are clearly pushing a specific political agenda or attempting to spread propaganda will be at risk of being banned from the forum.
Spamming, trolling, flaming, etc. - Make sure your posts are relevant to the topic and don’t attempt to derail the conversation in an existing thread. If bots post spam, please report it and don’t quote it as this makes the clean-up job more difficult for our moderators. Deliberately trolling other users or being exceptionally hateful towards their opinions will likely get your posts removed.
Instigating or provoking other users - Do not deliberately provoke a reaction out of other users. This is not the place to antagonise others. This also includes subtweeting - talking about a user's back without specifically mentioning them in a post using the ‘@’ symbol to make sure they’re aware.
Private or personal information - Please do not post or reveal any private or personal information about yourself or anyone else. This information includes but is not limited to, real names, addresses/location, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. If you choose to reveal any of your own personal information, please bear in mind that this is a public forum and assume this information will forever be public knowledge.
Copyrighted content & intellectual property - Don’t post or upload copyrighted material, or someone else’s intellectual property to which you don’t own the copyright/rights or have express permission to use it for such purpose, either by direct agreement or under license.
Appropriate section of the forum - Before posting, consider what is the most appropriate section to post in. For example, if the topic is not itself related to a particular festival, post it in the general discussion section. Threads that moderators determine are in the wrong section will be moved, but please save us the time in advance. Your posts will probably get more of a response if they’re in the appropriate section.
Duplicate content and topics - Please do a quick search of the forum before posting to check if a thread on a topic already exists. Also, please don’t post the same topic or post in multiple forum sections or threads.
Topic bumping - If your topic isn’t getting responses, please don’t keep posting to bump the thread to the top of the threads list. A reasonable check-in or update a couple of times over the course of a week is acceptable. However, if nobody is interested, please let the thread be.
Poor formatting - When you post, please try to ensure your posts are clearly formatted to make them as easy to understand as possible.
Username, avatar, and signature - Please refrain from using offensive language, brand names or trademarked terms in usernames, avatars, and signatures. These may be removed if spotted or if eFestivals receives complaints.
Research projects & data gathering - If you are a student or another third party and you wish to ask the eFestival audience for their input into your research, please reach out to the community admin (@eFestivals) before posting. Not doing so may get your post or account removed. The same goes for any third party that would like to leverage the knowledge and opinions of the eFestivals community.
One account per person - Once you’ve signed up for an account with eFestivals. Please do not create any additional accounts, even if with a different email address. If you’re struggling to log in or would like to change your username, please reach out to the community admin (@eFestivals) or get in touch via the forum’s contact form.
Impersonating other users - Do not impersonate or attempt to impersonate another user or person in any way.
Private/direct messaging - all these guidelines also apply to any messages sent directly to other users. Just because the post isn’t public doesn’t mean these rules can be ignored. DMs can be reported the same way as public posts.
Please post in English - Feel free to use a free translation service such Google Translate to translate your post from its original language to English and please specify that you have done so in your post. This will help everyone communicate effectively and clearly.

Please Do…

Respect all other users.
Be civil and not rude.
Post as often as you like. Share your experiences and express your opinions.
Encourage other users to post and discuss or express their opinion.
Feel free to start new topics that could help you or the community, or that you find interesting or amusing. We’d love to hear it all, especially if it’s festival or music related.
Engage positively with moderators and report any content that breaks the forum guidelines.
Help us keep discussions civil by encouraging other users to do the same.
Request changes and improvements to the forum and the eFestivals website as a whole.
Tell you friends and social media followers about how great the eFestivals community is ;)

Commercial Posts

External products and/or services - Users are permitted to post about and link to external services or products as they wish, for the purpose of discussion, recommendation, critique, etc.
Promotion & advertising - You may not promote or advertise external products or services in the eFestivals forum without our express agreement beforehand. If you wish to advertise on eFestivals, please refer to our Advertising page for details. If we consider your posts to be unsanctioned advertising or spam, your posts will be deleted, and your account may be terminated.
External discussion boards & services - members are permitted to discuss other discussion boards and services such as Reddit and Discord, and discuss and link to content on those services. However, posts solely or mostly promoting such services, or groups using these services will be removed.

Moderation

Please respect our moderation team. The mod team is made up of volunteers who dedicate their own personal time to help make the eFestivals community a welcoming, fun, and helpful space for all.

The moderation team strives to make decisions as fairly and democratically as possible. It’s common for all moderators to discuss a decision before it is enacted. Please bear this in mind.

All moderation decisions are made for the sole good, and in the interest of, the community as a whole. It’s understandable that moderation decisions and actions will not always please or be accepted by everybody. However, please respect the mod team’s decisions and engage with them in a friendly and constructive manner, no matter their decision.

Disagreement with moderators - If you disagree with a moderation decision, please privately address this with a moderator of your choice, or the community admin (@eFestivals). Publicly arguing with the moderation team, and public criticism of the moderation team is unacceptable and all comments doing so may be removed. The offending account may be suspended if this becomes a recurring behaviour.
Report a moderator - If you feel a moderator has made a decision that was not entirely fair, please discuss with the community admin (@eFestivals). However, please don’t abuse the system and constantly report decisions simply because you do not like them.
Moderation actions - moderators may use the following methods to guide discussions: written request or warning; remove or edit content; move posts or threads; hide content; give users official warnings; temporarily or permanently suspend users from posting; temporarily or permanently ban users from accessing the forum at all. eFestivals and its moderators reserve the right to use these methods as they deem necessary and fit for any given situation.
Reporting-system abuse - Please do not abuse or spam the reporting system. The system is there to help everyone and get the moderators’ attention. Constant false reports clog up the system and use up our volunteers’ valuable time. Reporting a user over a disagreement, or because you feel upset or treated unfairly by them isn't a reason to report them. Please either use the ‘ignore’ functionality to hide posts from users you don’t get on with, or resolve it directly in a civil manner if possible.
Join the mod team - If you would like to join the mod team, please send a message to an existing moderator or the site admin. Alternatively, please use the site’s contact form to apply. We’re always pleased to welcome new moderators who can help this community thrive! Moderators enjoy an ad-free forum experience as a modest token of gratitude for their help.