Terms and rules
Introduction
1. These forums (Member Forums) are operated by the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed Limited t/a IPSE (we and us).
2. Use of the Member Forums is on the terms contained in this document (Terms of Use). If you do not agree to these Terms of Use, exit from the Member Forums immediately. By accessing and using the Member Forums you are indicating your acceptance to be bound by these Terms of Use. They are a legal agreement between you and us and can only be amended with our consent.
3. We reserve the right to change these Terms of Use from time to time without prior notice by changing them on the Member Forums
4. The language of the Member Forums is currently English.
Username and Password Security
5. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the username and password which you use to access the Member Forums, and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your username and password. You agree to: (a) notify us immediately of any unauthorised use of your username or password and any other breach of security; (b) ensure that you exit from your account at the end of each session; and (c) not give consent to other forum users or third parties to use your username or password in order to access the Member Forums
6. For security or other reasons, we may at any time require you to change the username name or password which facilitates your access to the Member Forums
Service Availability
7. We reserve the right to withdraw or modify any aspects of the Member Forums with or without notice to you, where we have legal, technical or other reasons to do so. There may also be times when the Member Forums become unavailable, whether on a scheduled or unscheduled basis. You agree that we shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any withdrawal, modification, unavailability, suspension or discontinuance of the Member Forums.
Usage
8. The Member Forums are intended to be used by forum users for their own personal and business use as permitted by these Terms of Use. Please respect others in your choice of words, thoughts and comments. Accordingly, you must not upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any information, data, text, photographs, images, graphics, signature, messages or other materials (collectively Content):
(a) that is defamatory, in breach of confidence, invasive of another's privacy, harmful, threatening, abusive, insulting, harassing, hateful, sexist, racist or ageist;
(b) that is unlawful or advocates any illegal activity, or which might constitute a contempt of court;
(c) that makes reference to or contains any pornographic material, literature or acts or anything vulgar, obscene, immoral or indecent;
(d) that contains any other private individual's personal information, including without limitation, contact details including address, telephone or mobile number, email address, or place of employment or name of educational establishment;
(e) that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, damage, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
(f) not engage in spamming or flooding or re-post the same message, or very similar messages, excessively;
(g) not upload any logo or image that you may attach to your signature that exceeds 50Kb;
(h) not impersonate any person or entity, including without limitation a forum moderator, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent an affiliation with any person or entity;
(i) not forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any Content transmitted through the Member Forums;
(j) not create or attempt to create multiple concurrent membership accounts; and keep all posts relevant to the purpose of the forum in question and the nature of any debate;
(k) not copy, repeat or otherwise bringing to the attention of anyone not authorised to view the Forums in whole or in part, any information, messages or other material contained within the Forums.
9. You acknowledge and agree that we may preserve Content and may also disclose Content:
(a) for the purposes of properly administering your account and providing the Content to you in an efficient manner; and/or
(b) if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that any such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process, enforce these terms, respond to claims that any Content violates the rights of third parties, or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of other members or the public.
Behaviour
10. Although the Member Forums are moderated, you acknowledge that we are not and cannot be responsible for the behaviour of forum users - whether in the Member Forums or outside of them. We only provide a venue from where the Member Forums may be accessed.
11. You acknowledge that all Content, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from whom such Content originated. This means that you, and not we, are entirely responsible for all Content that you upload, post, email or otherwise transmit via the Member Forums and, as such, we do not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such Content.
12. You acknowledge that we do not pre-screen the Content contributed or posted by forum users and therefore that, by using the Member Forums, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable. Content comprising of information or commentary is not intended to amount to advice on which reliance should be placed. We make no representation or warranty that any such information or commentary is accurate, complete or up-to-date.
13. In the absence of our negligence, under no circumstances will we be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not limited to, for any errors or omissions in any Content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of reliance placed on any information or commentary comprised in the Content by you or anyone to whom you communicate such information or commentary.
14. You should bear in mind that those you encounter in the course of using the Member Forums may not necessarily be who they say they are. We do not verify forum users' identities and make no warranty or representation in this regard. You should not reply to any forum posting that is hostile, rude or inappropriate, or in any way makes you feel uncomfortable, but report it in accordance with the following section (see Moderation Discipline and Complaints).
15. You acknowledge that from time to time IPSE staff members may answer queries and post information in the professional forums. IPSE has a legal responsibility under employment law to ensure all terms and conditions of the staff's employment contracts are adhered to. IPSE also has a duty of care to its staff and members are expected to treat the staff courteously at all times. Therefore, note, in particular T&C 8.1a, as this will be enforced strictly when dealing with members of staff in the professional forums and if not adhered to will result in an immediate ban of a minimum of seven days.
Moderation, Discipline and Complaints
16. All forum users are encouraged to understand and respect the intention of these Terms of Use so that the need for moderation is kept to a minimum.
17. The Member Forums will be moderated at all times in line with the purpose of the forum in question and the nature of any debate in accordance with detailed guidelines on acceptable use which we issue to our forum moderators from time to time. Any Content that, in the view of a forum moderator contravenes those guidelines may be disabled or deleted as necessary. Where there is any doubt about the nature of the Content, it will be locked until the forum moderator is satisfied as to its status. Where there is no doubt, the Content will be deleted. We also reserve the right to edit, or require you to edit, any Content.
18. Moderators' rulings are necessarily subjective but are final and must not be contested openly on the forums. The moderator will use the Oxford Online Dictionary for the definition of any words or phrases that may breach the terms and conditions, such as vulgarity in posts.
19. In extreme cases, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Member Forums, or parts of them, or suspend or revoke your ability to upload Content. Any banned member MUST NOT ask another IPSE member or member of staff to make any forum posts on their behalf whilst their forum ban is still in force
20. You agree that any suspension of your access to the Member Forums may be effected without prior notice, and acknowledge and agree that we may immediately deactivate your account and all related information and files in your account and/or bar any further access to such files or the Member Forums. Further, you agree that we shall not be liable to you or any third party for any suspension or termination of your access to the Member Forums.
21. We will be the sole arbiter of whether any Content contravenes the provisions or spirit of these Terms of Use, or brings the Member Forums or our name or reputation into disrepute and will determine any breach or reported complaint in our sole and absolute discretion. Our decision on any matter concerning any Content is final.
22. You can highlight a post to the moderator(s), if you believe the Forum T&C's have been contravened by using the 'report this post' link. This will send an email to the moderator(s) who can then act accordingly.
IPSE operates a warning points system where moderators can issue warnings by means of an automated system. This system issues between one and three points depending on the gravity of the breach of these terms, however, just like the driving licence totting up system any user reaching 12 points will be automatically banned from the forums for seven days. Members who are banned under this scheme more than three times may have their IPSE membership cancelled at the sole discretion of the Board of Directors. You will receive an alert for each warning issued.
23. Official Complaints about Content (which must be made only at https://www.ipse.co.uk/contact-us) must contain details of and links to the specific Content which gave rise to the complaint. Official Complaints will be brought to the attention of elected Board member(s) for consideration.
Intellectual Property
24. You acknowledge that you are responsible for ensuring that (a) you have the right to submit all Content you elect to post to the Member Forums and that no such Content infringes on the intellectual property rights or other rights of any person; and (b) you have obtained the permission of any person other than yourself who appears in any photograph or likeness you submit as part of that Content.
25. With respect to all Content you elect to post to the Member Forums, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive right and licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.
26. You acknowledge and agree that the Member Forums and any necessary software used in connection with the Member Forums contain proprietary and confidential information that is protected by applicable intellectual property and other laws. You are permitted to use the Member Forums and IPSE material or Content only as expressly authorised by us. You will not and you will not assist or facilitate any third party to copy, reproduce, transmit, distribute, frame commercially exploit or create derivative works of such IPSE material or Content.
27. You acknowledge and agree that, for any Content obtained from the IPSE Forums, you will abide by the copyright and other proprietary restrictions and licenses displayed in the particular Content or relevant area on the forum. In the absence of any particular notices, as a forum user you may make copies of copyrighted, patented, trade marked or other proprietary materials displayed on the Forums, provided that the materials are exclusively for personal use and that any notices contained in the material are maintained.
Liability
28. Although we hope the Member Forums will be of interest to forum users, we accept no liability and offer no warranties or conditions in relation to the Member Forums or their Content; to the fullest extent such liability can be excluded by law.
29. If you are using the forums in a personal capacity, we shall not be liable to you for any business losses and, to the extent to which we are liable to you; we shall only be liable for any losses which are reasonably foreseeable.
30. If you are using the forums in a commercial capacity, in no event shall we be liable to you for any indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, revenue or goodwill arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Site or information on the Site.
31. Except as provided in these Terms of Use, all terms implied by law are excluded.
32. We accept liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence and responsibility for fraudulent misrepresentation that cannot, under English law, be excluded.
Indemnity
33. You agree to indemnify us and our subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents and employees against all liabilities, claims and expenses that may arise from any breach of these Terms of Use by you or from any Content you submit, post to or transmit through the Member Forums, your use of the Member Forums, your connection to the Member Forums, or your infringement of any rights of any third party.
General
34. The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed Limited t/a IPSE is a company registered in England and Wales. Our company number is 03770926 and our registered office address is Heron House, 10 Dean Farrar Street, London, SW1H 0DX. Our VAT registration number is 737 0350 48.
35. Any formal legal notices should be sent to us at the address at the end of these Terms of Use by email and confirmed by post.
36. Failure by us to enforce a right does not result in waiver of such right. You may not assign or transfer your rights under these Terms of Use.
37. If any part of these Terms of Use is found to be unenforceable as a matter of law, all other parts of these Terms of Use shall be unaffected and shall remain in force.
38. You and we agree that English law applies to these Terms of Use and that any dispute between us regarding the Member Forums or arising out of or in connection with these Terms of Use will only be dealt with by the English courts, unless you are resident in another part of the United Kingdom, in which case the applicable law of that part of the United Kingdom will apply and any dispute will be brought before the courts there.
How to contact us
39. Please feel free to contact us in the following ways:
(a) submit at Contact Form
(b) by telephone on 020 8897 9970 between the hours of 9am - 5pm, Monday to Friday.
(c) by writing to us at: IPSE, Floor 5, 116 Pall Mall, St. James's, London SW1Y 5ED
Updates
40. These Terms of Use were last updated 31st October 2017