As a guest or member of TAFN The Accessible Friends Network, you agree to the following:

  1. As a guest or full member of TAFN The Accessible Friends Network, you are required to be subscribed to the Announce mailing list. This list is used to send official emails and daily live event information.
  2. All guests will be subscribed to the main mailing list for a short time. This allows other members to welcome you. This is not a permanent subscription and may be changed by request.
  3. You understand that TAFN The Accessible Friends Network holds certain personal data about you. None of this information will be shared outside of the organisation.
  4. You agree to be bound by the three documents outlined below, the Code of Conduct, Communicator Guidelines and List Guidelines.

Code of Conduct.

Overview:

The code of conduct is a set of rules for the behaviour and responsibility, of all members of TAFN. This code covers ALL activities under the TAFN umbrella, including events on the server, all emailing lists, TAFN emailing addresses and outside events such as the cameo weekend.

All members have a duty to TAFN to maintain the standards set out in these rules and, it is every member’s responsibility to uphold the good name of TAFN at all times, and to promote the name of TAFN by means of their commitment to the aims of the organisation.

Behaviour:

The behaviour of members should be considerate to other members at all times. Room and list guidelines for the behaviour of members towards other members should be followed at all times. All members are required by these rules and code to show consideration to other members in respect of the following:

Language:

Language that may be seen as insulting, offensive or incompatible with the organisation should be avoided by all members at all times. Foul language will not be tolerated and such instances will be monitored by a Moderator in the room or mailing list.

Furthermore language that is deemed to be insulting, offensive or derogatory in any way to another member’s ‘ethnicity’, sexual orientation or religious beliefs will not be tolerated.

Intoxication:

Intoxication in a room will not be tolerated. members who are under the influence of excessive alcohol or recreational drugs should not enter a room or write an email to any list.

Harassment:

No member of TAFN whatever their status should harass another member of the organisation. Harassment is deemed to be repeated annoyance, bullying or intimidation. TAFN is based on friendship and any member male or female that takes that friendship further without the consent of the targeted party will be considered to be harassing that person. Therefore no harassment of any kind will be tolerated.

Passwords:

Please note that your user Id and password for the TAFN Communicator are strictly private and must not be passed on to others. The user name and password you have are unique to yourself and if others connect to the Communicator using these, it will be classed as gross miss-use of the server.

Information Protection:

Any information to do with the finances, account details or any other written information held by members in respect of TAFN is deemed to be strictly confidential.

All members of TAFN have a responsibility to other members in respect of their privacy. Any information held by TAFN on any member of the organisation is deemed to be confidential. Members who wish to share their details must do so by other means.

Members should not re-broadcast information acquired through the use of TAFN outside the membership without prior consent. This includes re-broadcasting of live audio through other programmes or telephone calls, Forwarding of emails received through the lists and Audio clips retrieved from the TAFN members area for broadcast to non members.

Legal Action:

we would ask that any member of tafn refrain from discussing any subjects on either the communicator or on any e-mailing lists run by tafn, that may result in legal action being taken against either an individual or the organization as a whole, in accordance with UK law. This is for the protection of individual members as well as the entire charity.

Failure to comply with these rules may result in a member drafting a complaint to the elected members of the Mediation Arbitration and Development Committee.

Communicator Guidelines.

1. Using Real Names:

All users of the TAFN Communicator are requested to use their real name when signing in to the server. It is strictly forbidden to sign in pretending to be somebody else.

2. Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality:

Please respect the privacy and confidentiality of others. Unless information that you are told or overhear is stated otherwise, it should be assumed to be private and confidential.

3. Use of Multiple Voice Communication programs:

You are required to refrain from using other voice communication programmes such as Skype, whilst on the Communicator. These communication programmes may result in conversations on the server being relayed to outside parties and this rule is to ensure privacy for all participants on the Communicator.

4. Courtesy:

4.1.1. Members are expected to be courteous at all times and observe all the rules set out in the Code of Conduct, (Please refer to the sections headed Behaviour and Language in the Code of Conduct), subject to the following clause.

4.1.2. In the “Chat which may contain explicit lyrics” room, the use of language some may consider offencive is permitted provided that it is not used to attack other users. Courtesy is still expected at all times and no abuse of any kind will be tolerated.

4.2. Members should acknowledge those entering a room they are in at the time.

4.3. Members and guests are requested to refrain from:

4.3.1. Cutting someone off when they were asked a question by grabbing the key and talking about something else..

4.3.2. Hogging the key and talking for a long time.

4.3.3. Conversing with someone who is not on the communicator while holding down the key.

4.3.4. Sending a text message to the room while music is being played unless there is a technical issue.

4.4. A headset must be worn in duplex rooms and all external sounds in the environment where the member is speaking must be kept to a minimum.

4.5. In events, an event host must be permitted to have the key in order to control the event.

4.6. The event host’s decision must be respected at all times.

4.7. When an event has finished members who wish to continue to chat should move to another room such as the lounge.

4.8. If two or three people need to conduct a technical support session or have a brief confidential discussion then they can make use of the private rooms such as Me and You or Threes Company. Members are advised that these rooms are intended to be used for short periods of time and not for extended general discussion.

4.9. Also when in a room please leave a short break between people keying up, as some members of the room may be having slight difficulty in obtaining the key.

4.10. Please avoid remaining silent for long periods of time when in a room where other users are talking, where possible notifying them if you are multi-tasking or have for example, received a telephone call. When you take or need to make a phone call you must leave the room, or if you have tasks to perform away from the computer and do not wish to leave the room, please text a comment to an individual in the room requesting that person to tell the room that you are unavailable to speak while carrying out that task. For advice on placing such comments, please speak to one of the allotted Moderators or any other person in the room who will be pleased to explain this to you. If a comment is not heard from a participant in a room for some time, it may result in them being disconnected from the server by a Moderator. Moderators can be identified by the word Mod beside their name on the locator frame. and in the room list of participants.

4.11. Please be aware that Texting privileges are given to all users but will be revoked if users abuse this privilege. Texting to the room can disturb an event. It is therefore requested that in music events texting should only be sent to an individual other than the event host and not to the whole room. Please only text where necessary.

5. Recordings:

5.1. Please do not record any conversations on the server whether for technical help or personal reasons, without the express permission of the other users involved. Recordings must only be made using the inbuilt recording facility on the Communicator and not any third party recording software. All users of the Communicator will be aware that you have started or stopped a recording on the Communicator itself and recording rights will only be given to certain members of the Communicator for administration or for the purposes of technical help.

5.2. Any recording made either in accordance with the guidelines or in contravention of the guidelines should be available to the people who are being recorded and also, should not be used for any other use without the peoples permission.

6. Password Protected Rooms:

On rare occasions a room may be created which is password protected. The password for this room must be kept confidential and must not be passed on to a third party.

7. Private Rooms:

Any rooms on the Communicator with the word “private” in their name are for private use . Only those members invited to attend may enter these rooms.

8. Abuse or Misuse of The Communicator:

8.1. In the event of anyone breaching these guidelines or any of the rules detailed in the code of conduct, they may be subject to disciplinary action including being removed from the room and/or other measures at a later date.

8.2. When abuse of the server is noticed it should be reported to any available Moderator as soon as possible. If no Moderator can be found, it should be reported by email either to the MAD or Executive Committee. You can find contact details on our contact page.

These guidelines are created to ensure your continued enjoyment of the server, our thanks to you for your cooperation.

The following guidelines are to help you understand what is and what is not acceptable on TAFN’s main list.

1. On Topic:

Where there is already a list setup to cover a particular topic, I.E., sport, this topic will not be acceptable on the main list.

2. Copyright:

No topic regarding copyright material. Offering members access to a sendspace link containing a copy of a cd, will not be acceptable on the main list.

If you are unsure what is covered by copyright, please contact the List Moderators and we will be happy to advise you on this matter.

3. Content and Harassment:

Any topic of a sexual or racial nature, or derogatory comments or personal harassment will not be acceptable on the main list.

4. Attachments:

No file attachments will be acceptable on the main list. It is recognised that some anti-virus or security software sometimes adds small attachments to an e-mail message and this guideline does not, of course, apply to such attachments.

5. Subject Lines:

Changing the thread of a conversation without changing the subject line is not acceptable.

If this is seen to be the case, then one of the list moderators will write to the list reminding them that if the body of the message has moved on to a different topic from that of the subject line, then the subject line must be changed.

6. Moderation:

If any member finds themselves placed on moderation for breeching any of the list guidelines, they will be sent, via e-mail, a copy of the guidelines.

They will be required to confirm that they have received and read the guidelines before the end of their moderation period.

Failure to comply with this will result in the member remaining on moderation until they comply with the list moderator’s request.

Contravention of any of the above guidelines will result, in the first instance, in the member being contacted by a list moderator drawing attention to the guideline that has been breached.

If, following this initial contact, a member continues to post inappropriate or unacceptable messages to the list, this will result in an automatic period of moderation lasting for one month, which can be extended at the discretion of the list moderators.

We would also request that members refrain from moderating the list themselves, as this can lead to confusion.

If you have any concerns about the nature or content of an e-mail sent to the TAFN main list, please contact the list moderators directly, and we will deal with your concerns in accordance with the guidelines stated above.