Singletrackworld.com is intended to be a friendly place where all mountain bikers, both experienced and not so experienced can visit and chat, joke, debate, ask questions and generally hang out.
Rule One
Generally the visitors to the website are adults but there are no age restrictions. That freedom demands a level of self moderation from its users. Please remember that bad language and discussion of certain topics can and does cause offence. Essentially if you post anything that is intended to cause offence then expect to have it deleted and possibly have your account suspended.
In short, think twice about posting anything that you wouldn’t be prepared to say face to face.
Please have respect for other forum users and refrain from bad language and abusive postings.
Rule One is simple and easy to remember and follow. Don’t be a dick!
What topics are suitable for discussion?
We have two discussion forums and a classified ad forum.
- Topics on the Bike forum should be restricted to discussion about bikes. A non exhaustive list of allowed topics include, bikes, components, rides, biking holidays, travel, mags…. Without stating the bleeding obvious we will assume you get the idea.
- Topics on the Chat Forum can be about anything that doesn’t belong on the Bike Forum. Politics, general chat, current affairs, latest movies, big brother, the price of fish.. Again, we think you get the idea.
- The forum can be used for getting rides and friends together, but is not a personal message board. Please don’t clog it up with personal messages that can be sent by email.
- If you think a post is a deliberate troll, abusive, offensive or otherwise a bit naughty then don’t hesitate to email us at moderator@singletrackworld.com and we’ll have a look. We can’t guarantee we’ll agree with you but at least we’ll be aware of any infringements to other members’ sensibilities.
- If you notice that a post has been moderated and after reading this page you are still unclear as to why, then please email us directly and we will try to explain our decision. DO NOT post your request for a reason on the forum as we have found that this just provokes needless argument. Any such requests posted on the forum will be removed without comment.
Copyright Notice
By posting to our forum, we (Gofar Enterprises Ltd) are often considered to have published your comments, even though strictly, you are the publisher of your own comments and we (Gofar Enterprises ltd) are merely the platform you use to publish to. That’s why we sometimes choose to remove posts that could cause potential legal problems. Please don’t be offended if this happens to you, but please also note that you could also be held personally liable for your comments. As the publisher we reserve the right to reproduce, quote, reference or use any comments posted on our forums or elsewhere on the website, in any way we see fit to promote the business of Singletrack Magazine and it’s websites. After all you may write some words of genius that we want to share with all our readers. We will ensure that if we do use your posts in this way that we use them as so far as is possible within the context that they were intended by the poster. In other words we won’t deliberately use them to misrepresent you or the opinion that you have expressed.
You have the opportunity to edit your posts up to 15 minutes after you have posted them. After this time all posts are recorded as part of the historical record/archive of the site and we reserve the right to retain them as such or to use them in anyway we choose subject to the assurances we have given above. This constitutes a non-exclusive universal right to store and reproduce your posts along with your username in the context of the author of those posts.
Image Uploading
Full members (Paying members) have access to our image upload function which allows users to upload images from your device for display in our forum. Any registered user can hotlink to an image stored elsewhere on the internet in order that a users browser will render out the image within the users post/reply.
The principal function of this service is to allow users to upload images that they own the rights to. For example images they have taken. By and large any images that a user has not taken themselves is unlikely to pass the copyright test. Images taken from other websites will in the majority of cases breach the copyright of the image owner and as the uploader you run the risk of being held liable for any subsequent claims by the copyright holder.
By using this service you must take full responsibility for the files you choose to upload and you agree to indemnify Gofar Enterprises Ltd against any action taken by copyright holders in the event of a copyright claim. You must not upload any images that you do not have the rights to use. By uploading an image file a copy of that file is stored on our server. If you upload any images subject to copyright we reserve the right to remove them and any other images we may suspect of such a breach within a reasonable time following those images being reported to us.
If you spot an image that belongs to you posted by a forum user to our forum then report the post using the report this post function and our moderators will act to remove the image swiftly. If you do not have an account you can report any suspected breaches of copyright directly using the address moderator@singletrackworld.com and including a link to the post that contains your image.
Singletrackworld.com will always act to respect copyright where it exists and we will act to remove any copyright material posted by a registered user to our platform in a reasonable amount of time. Normally this will be a matter of hours at most although this may take longer at weekends or unsocial times of the day.
We reserve the right to ban accounts that post copyright material and we reserve the right to remove any images that we suspect may breach copyright of the image owner, irrespective of any reports received. We also reserve the right to pass on contact details to any genuine third party copyright holder in the event of a copyright breach subject to their lawful request for those details.
If you aren’t sure if you have the right to upload any image then you most likely do not have that right. Play it safe and upload only those images you have taken.
Rules
In addition to the above guidelines we have a limited number of hard and fast rules that you should familiarise yourself with before posting on any of our forums.
- No posts of a sexual nature, including images of a sexual nature or intended to provoke a sexual response.
- No Trade or business advertising – except bona fide retailers may respond to genuine enquiries from potential customers.
- Usernames or names displayed in forum threads or story comments may not be used to criticise individuals or companies and are subject to the same rules as for any other post or comment on the site. Where a username is in breach of this rule the account will be deleted or the username altered by a moderator.
- No posts which, in the Moderators opinion, are likely to cause offence to either an individual, or group, whatever their gender, sexual inclination or ethnicity.
- No posts, including links to other sites that are deemed to be of a sexual or distasteful nature, incite racial or sexist behaviour or are in any way discriminatory and/or offensive towards individuals or minority groups.
- No abusive or foul language – There is a swear filter on the site that will capture what we consider to be the most offensive vocabulary but any attempt to evade this swear filter will result in that post or thread being deleted. Repeat offenders will be banned. Our swear filter is not exhaustive and the moderators reserve the right to moderate any language regardless of its inclusion or otherwise in the swear filter library.
- No posting of referral links and codes where the poster will benefit financially or otherwise
- No ‘Paging…’ threads. They only gum up the forum. If a user wants to be contacted their email address will be on their profile page.
- No posts which in the opinion of the moderators are solely intended to, or are likely to provoke or abuse any individual or group.
- No impersonation of any other poster, or use of another poster’s identity, including letting a banned user post via your account.
- Placing images on the forum requires you to link to the site where the image originated from. Read forum help for details on how to achieve this.
- Multiple accounts are not allowed. One member – One account. Users who are found to own more than one account may have ALL accounts deleted. At the very least the extra accounts will be deleted and the user’s remaining account will be suspended for at least 48 hours.
- The consequences of infringing these rules and guidelines are entirely at our discretion but will generally start with a 48 hour suspension from posting on the forum for which we may or may not give warnings or notify the user of their ban. In addition moderators may suspend any account for any reason they see fit at any time.
- Users must have a current and valid email address registered on their account.
Full Member Accounts
Access to the “paid for” areas of the website are conditional on the user agreeing to abide by these rules and complying with any instructions that moderators may give in order to maintain the proper function of the website. We reserve the right to suspend access to any area of the website including the Premier Account exclusive areas if any part of these rules and guidelines are breached.
Refund policy:
No refund will be given for any user account suspended from a paid for area of the website where that suspension period is less than 28 days. For periods over 28 days a refund of monies paid will be granted on a pro-rata basis on the period of suspension that exceeds 28 days. It is the account holders responsibility to request any refunds in writing (email is ok).
Example 1:
A Premier Account user is found to have breached forum guidelines and their access to the forum is suspended for 5 weeks.
The user will not be able to claim a refund on their annual access fee as the Forum is not part of the Premier Account exclusive access package.
Example 2:
A Premier Account user is found to have been running several user accounts simultaneously and their account is suspended for 6 weeks with the result being they cannot access the exclusive ‘paid for’ areas of the website. Their annual access fee being £20. For the first 4 weeks of the suspension no refund will be given. For the 2 weeks above this 4 they can claim a refund which will be calculated as follows. £20/52 = £0.39/week Refund = £0.39 x 2(weeks) = £0.78. This refund may be requested as either a cash refund using the original payment method or as an extension to the users period of access in increments of 1 week.
Full Members’ Right Of Appeal
Access to the paid for content of the website may be denied or restricted for any reason at the discretion of the moderators. Full Members may appeal a moderators decision where that decision results in the restricted access to the ‘paid for’ areas of the website. Such appeals should be sent to office@singletrackworld.com. The result of any such appeal will be notified to the user within 2 working days.
There is no right of appeal for free members.
Negative use of the forum
It is our aim that the forum should have an overall positive effect on the mountain bikers that use it. Experience has shown us that certain individuals like to contribute simply to cause trouble. Technically these people are known as Trolls but like all negative elements in society they learn the rules and are quite cunning in their ability to stay just within the letter of the law and yet still manage to cause irritation to other users. So, to try and combat these negative forum users we reserve the right to suspend the accounts or remove the posts of anyone we consider to be a predominantly negative contributor to the forum.
For example…
- If your posts are persistently argumentative we will consider that a negative use of our forum.
- If you resort to abuse of other forum users we will consider that a negative use of our forum.
- If you post irrelevant posts to the topic in discussion we will consider this negative use of the forum.
- If in our opinion your contributions to the forum are predominantly off topic we will consider this negative use of the forum.
- In all these cases and in others we have not mentioned, we reserve the right to ban you for an unspecified time from the forum.
- Any attempt to circumvent any suspension by re-registering or using the account of another forum user could result in a lifetime ban from the forum.
Basically, if you respect the forum and your fellow mountain bikers who make use of it then you have nothing to fear.
Ok, to sort out the tags, which we all love, and to make sure they stay within the bounds of a) being vaguely useful for searching etc. and b) stay within limits of taste and decency, here are the rules..
- Tags must be no longer than three words – any longer and they will be deleted
- Tags must follow the same rules of the forum ie.. no swearing or personal abuse.
- Tags must be relevant to the thread. They will be deleted if we think they are not.
- Tags of contributors names will be deleted. Calm that ego.
Sanctions we may impose on rule breakers.
- We may just give you a warning via the topic you have posted on.
- We may contact you directly by email and ask you to behave
- We may suspend your account. This suspension will be for a limited period of time.
- For serious or persistent rule breakers we may ban you from posting to our website for an unlimited period of time.
Our policy on Ad Blocking
Singletrackworld is an ad supported website. As a non-premier, registered user you are accepting that the displaying of ads in your browser is the cost of being a registered user and you agree that you will not block these ads. If you block the ads we reserve the right to suspend your account and/or block our content from displaying in your browser. In addition you agree not to promote the use of ad blocking on our site in either story comments or forum posts.
The ads in a very real sense do allow you to use this site without having to hand over cash for the content. If the ads were not there earning us money for the time we spend keeping this site running and filling it with content then we simply would not bother with a website at all or we would severely strip it back to just being a promotion site for the mag. It simply would not be economically viable without the ads there.
What does ‘Ad Free’ mean?
Full members can view the site ‘Ad free’ when logged in to their accounts. Ad Free in the context of full members’ account benefits means they can view the site free from the display ads that are supplied through our third party ad provider – at this time that is Ezoic. Technically this means that full members requests will bypass the Ezoic system and no programmatic ads will be injected into their browser.
However, ad free in the context of full membership does not exclude all forms of marketing. Forms of marketing that as a full member you could see during a user session include sponsorships of certain areas of the website, affiliate marketing links or widgets that we may insert into our web pages. It does not include marketing or ads for services that we provide ourselves (Singletrack) such as ads and promotions for memberships, merchandise or other services we may provide.
It does not include sponsored content articles that we may publish from time to time that appear in our content categories – although this type of marketing will be labelled clearly as sponsored content using a variety of labels.
Appropriate account details
Use of what we consider to be disposable email addresses or anonymous IP addresses may result in your account being blocked.
Rights of use
Legally anything you write on our forum is deemed to have been ‘published’ by Gofar Enterprises Ltd. That’s why we sometimes have to remove posts that could cause us potential legal problems. Please don’t be offended if this happens to you, but please also note that you could also be held personally liable for your comments. However, by posting on our forum you agree to allow us to reproduce your comments in any form at any time. After all you may write some words of genius that we want to share with all our readers.
Account Deletion & Personal Data
Personal data of registered users stored on our servers consists of a username (fixed at time of account creation), a password and an email address. It is a condition of use that your email address be valid so that we may, as the need arises, contact you directly with regard to the running of your account (eg. if you are naughty and the moderators need to tell you to stop). Your email address will never be passed on to third parties and we won’t add you to our editorial mailing lists unless you explicitly opt in or give us permission. However, we may from time to time contact you with information about your account or changes to the functionality of your account and the website – these are what are termed transactional emails and as such are exempt from GDPR rules as they are deemed necessary for the correct function of our website and your use of it.
The posts or comments you may post on our site do not constitute personal data and become part of the historical archive of the website after the 15 minute edit period. Your username, once you have posted on our site, also does not constitute your personal data. This is why it is always vital that you are happy that what you post on our site will remain in the public domain along with your username indefinitely.
You can request that we remove your data from our servers by contacting us directly at tech@singletrackworld.com giving your username and the email address you have registered in your account. We will then remove your email address from your account. We will not remove your posts or comments from our servers or your username that is attributed to those posts and comments. Your password is encrypted on our servers and even we cannot access it. We can ‘destroy’ it by changing it to something random at your request and we can prevent any future logins – in effect removing your email address and password and closing down your account permanently.
We retain your username after your account has been deleted in order to prevent any future individual from re-registering your username and potentially causing identity confusion or even fraud.
Other information that is displayed in your profile includes ‘About me’, ‘Website’, ‘Location’. This information is user created and can be edited or deleted by you at any time via your account. We recommend that you delete this information before you request your account be deactivated.
The approval of your account and it’s subsequent maintenance by us is conditional on you agreeing to abide by these rules and guidelines.
In addition to these rules and terms & conditions you must also agree to the use of your personal data as laid down in our Privacy Policy. Click the link below to read our privacy policy.
Privacy Policy
