Terms of Use

SABSA INSTITUTE – WEBSITE TERMS OF USE AND MEMBERSHIP TERMS 

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE OR BECOMING A MEMBER OF THE SABSA INSTITUTE

What’s in these terms?

These terms tell you the rules for using our website which refers to sites published under the following domains https://sabsa.org/, http://sabsainstitute.org and http://sabsa-institute.org (our sites) and for (where applicable) becoming (and remaining) a “TSI General Member” or an accredited “TSI Chartered Member”. These terms also apply to “TSI Founding Members”.

For a list of TSI Member details see: https://sabsa.org/membership-benefits/

Who we are and how to contact us

https://sabsa.org/ is a site operated by The SABSA Institute C.I.C. (we, us, our or TSI). We are a community interest company registered in England and Wales under company number 08439587 and have our registered office at 110-114 Duke Street, Liverpool, England, L1 5AG.

Our VAT number is GB229594079.

We are regulated by UK Companies House and the UK Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies.

To contact us, please email info@sabsa.org  

By using our sites, you accept these terms

By using our sites, you confirm that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to comply with them.

If you do not agree to these terms, you must not use our sites.

We recommend that you print a copy of these terms for future reference.

There are other terms that may apply to you

These terms of use refer to the following additional terms, which also apply to your use of our sites:

• Our Privacy Policy available at https://sabsa.org/privacy-policy/. See further under How we may use your personal information.
• Our Cookie Policy in ANNEX A COOKIE POLICY below, which sets out information about the cookies on our sites.
• Our Acceptable Use Guidelines (as amended from time to time), as set out in ANNEX B below.

We may make changes to these terms

We amend these terms from time to time. Every time you wish to use our sites, please check these terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time. This version 2 of these terms was most recently updated on 14 October 2024.

We may make changes to our site

We may update and change our sites from time to time to reflect changes to our services, the benefits available to chartered or full TSI members, our members’ needs and our business priorities and for other reasons.

We may suspend or withdraw our site

Our sites are made available free of charge and contains a freely accessible public area and also a paid membership area.

We do not guarantee that our sites, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend, withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our sites for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal.

You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our sites through your internet connection are aware of these terms of use and other applicable terms and conditions and that they comply with them.

We may transfer this agreement to someone else

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. We will always tell you in writing if this happens and we will ensure that the transfer will not affect your rights under the contract.

You must keep your account details safe

If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, including passwords and login details allowing you to access content which we only make available only to full TSI members, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.

We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.

If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us at info@sabsa.org.  

How you may use TSI copyrighted material

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our sites, and in the material published on them, together with any physical or electronic materials distributed to you by any of our accredited education providers (AEPs) bearing the SABSA name or trademark (our Content). Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

You may access Content on the basis of our website Content terms which are listed here: https://sabsa.org/open-source-licence/ and which form a part of these terms by reference.

If you print off, copy, download, share or repost any of any Content in breach of the above terms, your right to use our sites and any Content will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the Content you have made.

The above will be subject to any specific terms provided by your AEP in respect of any SABSA® Content distributed or made available to you by any AEP (including any Content modified by an AEP).

Terms applicable to TSI General Membership

For clarity, membership of TSI is a contractual right between you and TSI which confers certain benefits, as articulated here: https://sabsa.org/membership-benefits/ (or other applicable URL on our sites from time to time). Please note that these rights may change from time to time.

In particular, payment of a membership fee contractually entitles the named individual who has opened an account to one year (365 days) (starting from the date of cleared access) of access to the member-only TSI Member Portal (the Subscription), including some specific member-only content. Access will be withdrawn after 365 days unless membership is renewed prior to that date. Annual auto-renewal selection is available but can be toggled on or off at any time (and is set off by default), and if toggled on your membership will automatically renew at the relevant date (although you may be notified if this is the case, and similarly notified of any proposed increase in membership fees prior to the renewal date).

Please note that a paid membership subscription for  “TSI general membership” is different from successful completion of an approved SABSA examination or course administered by one of our AEPs, which entitles you to describe yourself as a “TSI chartered member” (to the appropriate level  / extent of the course or exam you have undertaken i.e. SABSA Chartered Master, SABSA Chartered Practitioner and SABSA Chartered Foundation Architects), but does not entail access to the paying member’s only Subscription Content.

As noted below, we give no guarantee as to the nature of the Content that will be made available via the Subscription and how it may change from time to time, or as to the hours during which you will be able to access the members only portal through your Subscription. The Subscription is provided, as with our sites more generally, on an as-is and as-available basis.

All consumer users have the right to cancel their membership under The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 (UK), which gives consumers extra protection when making online purchases.

You have the right to cancel the purchase of the membership services without having to give a reason within the “cooling off period” of fourteen (14) days, beginning on the day after you receive access to the services.

Once you have notified us of your intention to cancel, any sum debited to us will be refunded to you as soon as possible and in any event within 30 days of your cancellation.

No text or data mining, or web scraping

You shall not conduct, facilitate, authorise or permit any text or data mining or web scraping in relation to our sites or any services provided via, or in relation to, our sites. This includes using (or permitting, authorising or attempting the use of):

• Any “robot”, “bot”, “spider”, “scraper” or other automated device, program, tool, algorithm, code, process or methodology to access, obtain, copy, monitor or republish any portion of the site or any data, content, information or services accessed via the same.
• Any automated analytical technique aimed at analysing text and data in digital form to generate information which includes but is not limited to patterns, trends and correlations.

The provisions in this clause should be treated as an express reservation of our rights in this regard, including for the purposes of Article 4(3) of Digital Copyright Directive ((EU) 2019/790).

This clause shall not apply insofar as (but only to the extent that) we are unable to exclude or limit text or data mining or web scraping activity by contract under the laws which are applicable to us.

This site, its content and any services provided in relation to the same are only targeted to, and intended for use by, individuals located in territories whose laws permit you to access our sites and utilise our Content and uphold the enforceability of these terms and our agreement with you (each, a Permitted Territory). By continuing to access, view or make use of this site and any related content and services, you hereby warrant and represent to us that you are located in a Permitted Territory. If you are not located in a Permitted Territory, you must immediately discontinue use of this Website and any related content and services.

Do not rely on Content

Content is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of any Content.

Although we make reasonable efforts to update any of our proprietary Content, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that our Content is accurate, complete or up to date.

We are not responsible for websites we link to

Where our sites contain links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them.

We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources.

User-generated content is not approved by us

This website may include information and materials uploaded by other users of the site, including to social media pages, video-sharing sites, bulletin boards and chat rooms. This information and these materials have not been verified or approved by us. The views expressed by other users on our sites do not represent our views or values.

How to complain about or report Content

If you become aware of any Content that is illegal (including which you believe infringes your or any third party’s intellectual property rights) or could comprise or be connected to child sexual abuse or exploitation or could comprise terrorist content or be connected to terrorism, please contact us immediately on info@sabsa.org.

Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

Whether you are a consumer or a business user:

We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

If you are a business user:

• We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our sites or any of our Content.
• We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
  • use of, or inability to use, our site; or
  • use of or reliance on any of our Content.
  • In particular, we will not be liable for:
  • loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
  • business interruption;
  • loss of anticipated savings;
  • loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
  • any indirect or consequential loss or damage.

• Our liability to you will be limited to the total membership fees you have paid in the 12 months immediately preceding the date of any relevant claim.

If you are a consumer user:

• Please note that we only provide our sites for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our sites for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

How we may use your personal information

We will only use your personal information as set out in our in our privacy policy, available here: https://sabsa.org/privacy-policy/

Uploading content to our site

Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to our sites, or to make contact with other users of our sites, you must comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Guidelines in ANNEX B below,

You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you are liable to us and indemnify us for any breach of that warranty. This means you will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of warranty.

Any content you upload to our sites will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your content, but you are required to grant us and other users of our sites a limited licence to use, store and copy that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties. The rights you license to us are described in the paragraph of these terms entitled “Rights you are giving us to use material you upload”.

We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to our sites constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights or of their right to privacy.

We have the right to remove any posting you make on our sites if, in our opinion, your post does not comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Guidelines in ANNEX B below.

If you wish to contact us in relation to content you have uploaded to our sites and that we have taken down, please contact info@sabsa.org.

You are solely responsible for securing and backing up your content.

You must not upload any material that could incite a terrorist offence, solicit any person to participate in terrorist activities, provide instruction on any method or technique for committing a terrorist offence or threaten to commit a terrorist offence.

Your rights to claim against us if we restrict access to your content

If we restrict access to any content you upload to our service in a way that breaches these terms of service, you have a right to bring a claim against us for breach of contract.

We will suspend your service if you frequently upload illegal content

• If you frequently upload material that is clearly illegal, we may suspend your access to our service for a reasonable period of time. We will warn you in advance if we plan to suspend you. When deciding whether to suspend you, we will consider:
  • how many items of clearly illegal content you have uploaded within a given time frame in terms of the volume of other content uploaded by other users during that time;
  • the gravity of the misuse, including the nature of the illegal content and its consequences (potential or otherwise);
  • where possible to identify, your intention in posting the material.
• If you frequently submit notices or complaints that are clearly unfounded, we may suspend the processing of any further notices or complaints from you for a reasonable period of time. We will warn you in advance if we propose to suspend processing of your notices or complaints. When deciding whether to suspend you, we will consider:
  • how many items of clearly unfounded notices or complaints you submitted within a given time frame in terms of the volume of other notices or complaints submitted by other users during that time;
  • the gravity of the misuse;
  • where possible to identify, your intention in submitting the notices or complaints.

Your rights to claim against us if we suspend or ban your use of our service

If we suspend or ban you from using our service in a way that breaches these terms of service, you have a right to bring a claim against us for breach of contract.

Rights you are giving us to use material you upload

When you upload or post content to our sites, you grant the following rights to use that content:

a) a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform that user-generated content in connection with the service provided by the sites and across different media, including to promote the sites or their services, such rights to expire when the user deletes the content from the relevant site, in accordance with the open-source terms on which we generally make Content available as set out above.

b) a licence (enforceable directly by such parties pursuant to the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1998 and otherwise to the extent permitted by law) for other users, partners, advertisers or anyone else permitted to access our sites to use the content in accordance with the open-source terms on which we generally make Content available, as set out above, such rights to expire (as regards any new use by new users (but not restricting use of the content by such parties as have already downloaded or accessed it) when you delete the content from the sites.

The above rights shall apply unless otherwise expressly specified in respect of specific content when posted in the relevant pages of our sites by you that such content is subject to separate copyright restrictions and may not be used in accordance with our open-source terms as set out above.

We are not responsible for viruses, and you must not introduce them

We do not guarantee that our sites will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.

You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our sites. You should use your own virus protection software.

You must not misuse our sites by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our sites, the server on which our sites is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our sites. You must not attack our sites via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our sites will cease immediately.

Rules about linking to our site

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.

You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

You must not establish a link to our sites in any website that is not owned by you.

Our sites must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our sites other than the home page.

We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

The website in which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Guidelines in ANNEX A.

If you wish to link to or make any use of content on our sites other than that set out above, please contact info@sabsa.org.

Which country’s laws apply to any disputes?

If you are a consumer, please note that these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except that if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.

If you are a business, these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Our trade marks are registered

SABSA^® is a registered trade mark of TSI. All derivations of this word are by default also registered trademarks of TSI.

You are not permitted to use them without our approval, unless they are part of material you are using as permitted under How you may use material on our sites paragraph as set out above.

ANNEX A COOKIE POLICY

SABSA’s website at https://sabsa.org/ (the Site) uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our sites and also allows us to improve our sites. We use cookies to understand how you use our sites and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content, advertising, transaction processing and security.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

We use the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website or make use of e-billing services. Your consent is not needed for this type of cookie.
• Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
• Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

Cookie	Domain	Duration	Purpose
Strictly Necessary Cookies
gdpr[consent_types]	Sabsa.org	1 year	This cookie is set by the GDPR WordPress plugin. It is used to store the consent of the users to use cookies.
gdpr[allowed_cookies]	.sabsa.org	1 year	This cookie is set by the GDPR WordPress plugin. It is used to store the cookies allowed by the logged-in users and the visitors of the website.
m	m.stripe.com	1yr 1month 4 days	Stripe sets this cookie for fraud prevention purposes. It identifies the device used to access the website, allowing the website to be formatted accordingly.
_ _ stripe_mid	.sabsa.org	1 year	Stripe sets this cookie to process payments.
_ _ stripe_sid	.sabsa.org	1 hour	Stripe sets this cookie to process payments.
_GRECAPTCHA	google.com	6 months	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
rc::a	Google.com	never	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
rc::f	Google.com	never	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
rc::c	Google.com	session	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
rc::b	Google.com	session	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
Analytical / Performance Cookies
_ga	.sabsa.org	1 year 1 month 4 days	The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.
_gid	.sabsa.org	1 day	Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website’s performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
_gat_gtag_UA_*	.sabsa.org	1 minute	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store a unique user ID.
_ga_*	.sabsa.org	1 minute	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views.
Functional Cookies
Not applicable
Targeting Cookies
Not applicable

You may also configure the setting on your browser to refuse the setting of all or some cookies.

If you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies), or do not give us consent to use cookies, you may not be able to access all or parts of our sites and may only experience a limited version of the website.

For further information on how we comply with data protection law, please see our Privacy Notice https://sabsa.org/privacy-policy/

ANNEX B Acceptable Use Guidelines

Blogs

Browse our community of bloggers but be aware that the opinions expressed by the bloggers on our sites and those providing comments are theirs alone and may not reflect the opinions of TSI. TSI is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by bloggers or in relation to any comments that are posted. You should bear in mind that circumstances change and that information that may have been accurate at the time of posting will not necessarily remain so.

Comments

TSI will not tolerate defamatory or libellous material, obscene content and abusive or intimidating comments. TSI moderates comments on this website and may remove any material from the website at its sole discretion, without warning and without prejudice to any other accrued rights. TSI has set House Rules based on the BBC moderation house rules for determining if comments should be published.

Acceptable Use Guidelines

TSI provides a collaboration platform in the form of a forum, where registered members can initiate and/or participate in discussions. TSI has set these Acceptable Use Guidelines to keep a healthy environment for discussion and to protect you and TSI from legal and editorial risks. The guidelines outline how you should behave and post on our sites. They apply to any material you upload or share to our site or generate on our site (User Content). They also apply to any contact you make with other users on our site, links to our site, and any other ways you use our site. You must comply with these standards in spirit as well as to the letter.

Breach of these Acceptable Use Guidelines will result in the removal of your comments/posts. Repeated breaches will result in TSI contacting you in relation to your membership and the Board of Trustees of TSI reserves the right to rescind the membership of anyone who violates these guidelines. If your post has been removed or your account has been restricted and you do not agree that you have broken these rules, please contact info@sabsa.org. The Board of Trustees of TSI reserves the right to rule absolutely and finally on any dispute regarding website content. Once the Board has issued a final decision the matter will be closed to any further discussion.

Display Name

TSI reserves the right to reset display names that:

• Contain website or email addresses.
• Contains contact information, i.e. phone numbers, postcodes, etc.
• Appear to impersonate someone else.
• Contain swear words or are otherwise objectionable.

Moderation

TSI reserves the right to remove comments which:

a) Advertise a product solely without contributing to the subject of the discussion. Advertising or promoting products or websites is not allowed anywhere on TSI website. This may include links to:

• Personal websites or forums.
• Surveys and questionnaires.
• Commercial websites or auction sites that mainly exist to sell products; and/or
• Details of charity or fundraising events.

For example, if it’s relevant to the debate, it’s fine to link to a website that sells a solution or book if it’s helping another user or recommending something they would like. However, posting links to your own product or trying to drive buyers to your/other’s organisation website or fundraising site may result in your comment being removed.

You must not upload advertisements for any of the following:

• cigarettes and other tobacco products, electronic cigarettes or electronic cigarette refill containers, and prescription-only medicine; or
• alcoholic drinks that are not aimed specifically at under 18s and do not encourage immoderate consumption of alcohol.

Any advertising included in a video you upload must not:

• prejudice respect for human dignity.
• include or promote discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
• encourage behaviour prejudicial to health or safety or grossly prejudicial to the protection of the environment.
• directly exhort such persons to purchase or rent goods or services in a manner which exploits their inexperience or credulity.

b) Risk breaching copyright law

Copyright law exists to stop someone from taking another person’s work and passing it off as their own. It applies to the Internet in the same way as it does to TV, books and the press. Breaking copyright law can result in being taken to court.

Please do not post large chunks of text copied from other sources as this may be an infringement of copyright. Short quotes to illustrate a point may be permissible, although this is at our discretion.

If you wish to refer to external sources of information, it’s better to include a link to an appropriate external website. However, make sure that all external links included in comments meet our editorial guidelines for external links. Remember that the controller of that external web site may change external links and they become defunct. It is useful to quote a date on which accessed the link.

c) Are not in English

Comments that are not in English are not allowed except on designated blogs. This is to ensure that comments can be checked and that all readers of the blogs understand them.

d) Risk breaking law

Contributing material to a TSI website community with the intention to commit a crime, break the law, or condone or encourage unlawful activity is prohibited. User Content must not in any way:

• breach any local, national or international law or regulation, or have any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect. Examples of illegal content prohibited by the Online Safety Act 2023 includes:

• • • terrorism offences.
    • child sexual exploitation or abuse offences including grooming and child sexual abuse material.
    • drugs or psychoactive substance offences.
    • firearms or other weapons offences.
    • extreme pornography offence.
    • fraud and financial services offences.

• breach any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
• be in contempt of court.
• advocate, promote, incite any party to commit, or assist any unlawful or criminal act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse
• contain a statement which you know or believe, or have reasonable grounds for believing, that members of the public to whom the statement is, or is to be, published are likely to understand as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

In addition, we may remove comments that we consider are harmful or that could endanger other users in any way – for example content:

• offering medical and health advice.
• encouraging drug or alcohol abuse or self-harm.
• harming or attempting to harm minors in any way.
• depicting real or realistic serious violence or injury against a person or animal (real or not) or fictional creature.
• encouraging, promoting or providing instructions for a challenge or stunt highly likely to result in serious injury to the person who does it or to someone else.
• threatening death or serious harm while intending or being reckless as to whether the object of the threat would fear that the threat would be carried out.
• containing flashing images when it is reasonably foreseeable that an individual with epilepsy will see it and the sender intended that the individual would suffer harm and the sender has no reasonable excuse for sending the images.
• that is pornographic.

User content must also:

• be accurate (where it states facts).
• only contain opinions that are genuinely held.
• comply with the law applicable in any country from which it is posted and to which the website is targeted.

e) Contain potentially defamatory statements

Defamation laws exist to protect individuals or organisations from unwarranted, mistaken, or untruthful attacks on their reputations. Posting a defamatory statement on a blog is the same as publishing it in a newspaper or magazine, and if a formal complaint is made, it can result in a court case.

To avoid breaking defamation laws in your comments, please ensure that you verify the information in your comments, especially when presenting negative statements as facts. Also avoid jumping to conclusions, exaggerating or making subtle implications. Remember that adding the word ‘allegedly’ to a statement does not stop it being defamation. It is best to avoid any ‘naming and shaming’ but you can make a sanitised reference such as ‘some sources’ or ‘some commentators’ without identifying the object of your criticism.

Both you and TSI can be held liable if you make a defamatory statement on TSI website, so we will remove comments where we have insufficient evidence to defend the publication of your statement. This means TSI moderators may err on the side of caution when considering some comments.

f) Are abusive or disruptive

Abusive or disruptive behaviour is not allowed on TSI website. This includes:

• Using swear words (including abbreviations or alternative spellings) or other language likely to offend.
• Harassing, threatening or causing distress or inconvenience to any person or people.
• Flaming: This means posting something that’s angry and mean-spirited.
• Trolling: This means saying deliberately provocative things just to stir up trouble.
• Infringing the rights of, restrict or inhibit anyone else’s use and enjoyment of TSI website.
• Attempting to impersonate any person or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person.
• Bumping or creating duplicate threads, posting in such a way as to cause technical errors, or any other attempts to disrupt the normal flow of conversation.

Users who seriously or repeatedly demonstrate such behaviour will be contacted by administration regarding violation of House Rules and the entitlement of being a member of TSI. The Board of Trustees of TSI reserves the right to rescind the Membership of anyone who repeatedly and seriously violates the House Rules.

g) Are offensive

Comments that contain offensive content are not allowed on TSI website. Racist, sexist, homophobic, disablist, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable material will be removed and, if extreme, will result in immediate and permanent restriction of your account.

h) Are off-topic

Comments that are unrelated to the subject of discussion are considered ‘off-topic’.

Please do not contribute off-topic material, except where a blog has a designated open post, or a message board has a designated off-topic discussion. If your comment has been removed for being off-topic, you may be able to resubmit your comment somewhere more relevant.

Discussion of moderation and moderation decisions are off-topic unless otherwise stated. To comment or complain about moderation, please contact info@sabsa.org.

i) Contain personal details

Including contact or identification details in comments, such as phone numbers and postal or email addresses, is not allowed. Please do not reveal any personally identifiable information about yourself or others in comments and or forum posts, as it might inadvertently put you or someone else at risk.

j) Contain spam

Spamming and/or flooding is not allowed on TSI website. Spamming means submitting the same or very similar comment many times across the site. Flooding means re-submitting your contribution to the same blog entry or message board thread multiple times.

Please do not use a signature beneath your comment to promote websites, services, products or campaigns. This will cause your comments to be removed as spam.

k) Contain unsuitable links

When posting links, please make sure they do not link to:

• Unlawful, unsuitable or sexually explicit content.
• Websites that require payment to access.
• Foreign language content.
• Websites that initiate a file download or require additional software to view them. This includes .mp3 files.
• Websites that advertise or promote products.
• In some cases, the moderator will edit out the link/s, leaving the rest of the comment visible on the board. If so the link will be replaced by [Unsuitable/ broken URL removed by moderator].

Users must not knowingly transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware.

l) Video content

You must comply with our guidance on use of maturity or sensitivity ratings on video content. For the avoidance of doubt, for any User Content in the form of video content:

• • you must tell us immediately, if you upload a video containing any of the following: criminal material (relating to terrorism, sexual exploitation of children, child pornography, racism and xenophobia), unclassified or unclassifiable videos, videos rated r18 or suitable for r18 rating and other material that might impair the physical, mental or moral development of persons under the age of 18 (restricted material).
  • you must not upload a video containing material likely to incite violence or hatred against a group of persons or a member of a group of persons based on any of the following grounds: sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or other belief, political opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation.

The Board of Trustees of TSI, having considered all the available evidence and having due regard to all legal and moral responsibilities vested in the Board, reserves the right to make a final and binding decision on any matter of compliance with these Acceptable Usage Guidelines.