The Clan Rules, and Staying Safe Online

The Clan is a website for all ages. This means we have minors and adults posting together in an electronic environment - hence there are certain legal rules we have to follow. All the following rules are intended to make The Clan family-friendly. We do not tolerate posters that compromise the Internet security of minors. Any Clanner that is found to have willfully broken these rules will be immediately banned.

1. Please always post in the spirit of civility and respect for other Clanners.
2. This means no verbal abuse, racist, sexist or provocative comments; no swearing (or kind-of swearing, eg. replacing letters with *** or other symbols or drawing rude images with ASCII text); no posting of links to sites that contain offensive, obscene or lewd material. We will edit out profanity in posts. Please use the Report Post link (located at the bottom of every post) if you find one that contravenes these rules.
3. Please do not use text speak in The Clan - it’s hard to read and generally unpopular.
4. Please keep yourself pseudonymous on The Clan - only use your username and do not share your real name or any other identifying information anywhere on The Clan. You can read more about staying safe online below.
5. Post non-Clan-related information (eg. films and music chat, discussions on the environment and politics) in the relevant forums, i.e. Down The River. This does not include spam or other commercial messages, which will be deleted. Please use the Report Post link (located at the bottom of every post) if you find one that contravenes these rules.
6. The Clan is an online community that has grown through the years because its users have made intelligent and thoughtful contributions. Please do not treat The Clan like a chat-room. We encourage all Clanners to get to know one another through posts that are more than simply, “Hey, what’s up?”.
7. There are many old threads in the forum. Please do not ‘resurrect’ old threads that have not had new posts in months, i.e. posting in them and bringing these ‘dead’ threads back to the front page.
8. When discussing the plot of any book, please be sure to make sure you add the word *SPOILER* to your posting before discussing it.
9. The same rules about personal privacy, spam and language apply to private messages: do not share any personal information, do not send any spam or other commercial messages, and do not use any inappropriate language in a private message. Anyone who has received a private message that contravenes these rules should forward them to The Clan’s site administrator.

Staying Safe Online

We want The Clan to remain a friendly and welcoming place for everyone - young or old. Please follow these guidelines to stay safe and enjoy yourself.

• Never post any pictures or videos of yourself online or send them to anyone on email or text. Once they are out there, you have lost control of it.
• Do not ever arrange to meet (face-to-face) anyone you have met online unless your parents have given their full consent and will be present at the meeting.
• Do not reveal any personally-identifying information online. This includes, but is not limited to, your real name, email address, telephone number, address and school name.
• Never download pictures, music, videos or any other types of files from unknown sources. If you receive emails from friends with links that look suspicious, always ask them if they meant to send it to you.
• Please report any belligerent, harassing, abusive, obscene or otherwise suggestive messages instead of responding to them. In The Clan, please use the Report Post link that is located at the bottom of every post or if it is a private message, please Forward it to a Clan Guardian or The Clan’s site administrator.
• Do remember that what you are told about someone online may not always be true.
• The Clan will collect your email address when you register to join. This is never shared with anyone, and we have disabled the email function in this forum - this means that no one but the administrator can see your email address. Please do not include your email address in your signature or posts.
• If you are ever concerned about anything on this forum, please get in touch with the site administrator by using the Contact Form (linked to at the bottom of every page).