3 GUIDING PRINCIPLES

1. Be accurate, where they state things as facts
2. Be genuinely held, where they state beliefs or opinions
3. Comply with the law

19 THINGS WE WON'T TOLERATE

1. Defamation, slander or libel
2. The promotion of violence
3. The promotion of religious hatred
4. The promotion of racial hatred
5. The promotion of or engagement in illegal activity
6. Discrimination (for example, but not limited to, race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, age)
7. Threatening or victimising behaviour
8. Harassment or abuse
9. Invasion of privacy
10. Material that breaches the rights of others (for example, copyright)
11. Obscene, sexually explicit or otherwise offensive material
12. Impersonation of others
13. Misrepresentation (of the user's affiliation with another person or organisation, for example)
14. The needless upset or embarrassment of others
15. Personal attacks
16. Comments that are not related to or don't add value to the contextual article or debate
17. Trolling (posting with the intention simply to provoke a reaction rather than to add value to a debate)
18. Blatant promotion for commercial purposes and/or of no value to the contextual article or debate
19. Spamming (posting the same or very similar material in multiple comments)

THINK BEFORE YOU POST

By all means post to challenge, to dissent and to amuse. C+D provides the facility for users to comment with the aim of fostering a professional community in which its users can share views and best practice as well as robust debate. Humour, freedom of expression and a light-hearted approach are all within the spirit of this community. Childish, boorish, rude or unprofessional behaviour that discourages others from contributing is not.

We value the vast majority of reader comments that are mature, considerate and add value to the C+D community. Thank you for continuing to make this a place for intelligent discussion and debate.

You must be a registered user of chemistanddruggist.co.uk and be logged in to post comments.

WHY WE NEED THESE PRINCIPLES AND WHAT THEY MEAN

If we believe a comment breaks one of our Community Principles, we may remove or edit it as we deem appropriate (see Removal and editing, below). The Community Principles are non-exhaustive and the editing and removal of comments remains at our discretion.

Users who repeatedly post comments that are edited or removed may have their site registration suspended or terminated (see Suspension and termination, below), or be prevented from posting comments to the site.
If repeat offending occurs, then suspensions or bans may be made against the relevant user’s IP address.

If you believe a comment posted by another user breaks one of the above rules or is otherwise inappropriate, please follow the Notification procedure below

NOTIFICATION

The comment facility allows users to post directly to the site - comments are not moderated and do not necessarily reflect the views of C+D or any of its employees or authors. We accept no responsibility, legal or otherwise, for comments posted by users; the responsibility and any liability remains with the user posting the comment.

If you believe a comment breaches our community principles, then you can notify us by using the ‘flag comment’ option, which is located below every comment. This will open a ‘pop up’ box where you can explain your concern and then submit it to the C+D admin team. A copy of the concern, along with a copy of the original comment, will then be sent to a C+D admin member, who will act accordingly.

We will review your notification as soon as we are able, in any case within two working days. We may contact you for further information about your notification when necessary. If we deem the post in question to be inappropriate, we will remove it from the site or edit it at our discretion (see Removal and editing, below). This may result in the suspension or termination of the user (see Suspension and termination, below). Accordingly, we may contact the user with information about, or a copy of, your notification (although we will never include your name or contact details). We will respond to your notification to let you know what action, if any, we have taken as a result.

Timely and appropriate notifications are essential to the smooth running of C+D's community in the spirit in which it is facilitated – thank you to all users who provide them.

REMOVAL AND EDITING

If we are notified of a comment (see Notification, above) and subsequently deem it to break the Community Principles (above) or to be otherwise inappropriate, we will remove it from the site or edit it at our discretion. We will leave a note in place of the comment stating that we have removed or edited, as appropriate, the comment for a breach of the Community Principles.

The removal or editing of posts is at our discretion, but we may sometimes contact a user to explain why their post(s) has/have been edited or removed.

SUSPENSION AND TERMINATION

We will contact offenders who post comments that we consider to breach C+D’s Community Principles. This is considered a written warning; continued breaches of the community principles may result in that user being banned from commenting, or the immediate suspension or termination of their registration with the site.

Please be aware that we have the option to use IP detection to identify accounts that show similar patterns of offending behaviour. In the case that we suspect multiple accounts are created by a single user - who is posting comments that breach C+D’s Community Principles and has not responded to a warning - then a commenting ban will be implemented against that individual’s IP address. C+D cannot be held responsible if this action affects multiple users that access the site from the same IP address.

HOW WE MIGHT USE YOUR COMMENTS

Comments are considered in the public domain and may be used in future Chemist+Druggist coverage.