Darlington Borough Council has set up a number of discussion forums to enable a new additional approach to engaging with the community about a range of topics. Feedback from the forums will be used alongside other activities such as Talking Together events to determine future decisions.
You may read all postings in the discussion forums without registering. If you wish to have your say and post a message then you will be required to register. Registration to the forum is free, but we do insist that you abide by our rules.
Before you contribute your views to a forum, please read through the terms and conditions that are outlined below:
Visit the Open Forums - Please contribute your views to the forums below (click on the image to access the forum)
View the Closed Forums (you can view previous forums by clicking on the links below).
The Council provides these forums 'as is' and accepts no responsibility for any loss, liability, claim, demand, damage, expenses, or legal fees arising from or connected to any comments made on these forums.
Unless indicated otherwise, the comments posted on the forums are personal views, and do not represent the views of the Council.
The Council strives to monitor these forums as closely as possible and will remove any unlawful, offensive, defamatory or inappropriate information. If you spot any such material in the forums please contact the Communications team via communications@darlington.gov.uk.
Darlington Borough Council is using the services of Website Toolbox Inc, a third party organisation to host the forums and manage the account registrations. If you register to add posts to the forum, your registration details will be stored with Website Toolbox Inc. Whilst Darlington Borough Council has made every effort to select a trusted and secure service provider, we do not accept responsibility for any information that Website Toolbox Inc stores on your behalf.
The forum is intended to encourage sensible and constructive discussion.
The moderation guidelines are designed to balance freedom of speech with ensuring a mature and disciplined attitude to discussions is maintained.
All messages submitted to these forums may be moderated before they appear. Moderation hours are Monday to Thursday (9:00am – 5:00pm) and Friday (9:00am – 4:30pm).
You can post to the forum as per normal at any time including evenings and weekends, however, posts will only appear on the forum during those moderation hours.
The forum will be checked on a regular basis to ensure postings are reviewed and cleared as soon as is practicable.
We ask that users act responsibly when posting or replying to messages. Any repeated misuse of the forum will result in the user being banned (via their IP address).
The Council makes no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy of the information contained in forum postings.
Any comments written should not be taken as representative of the views of the Council.
Postings will not be cleared which could be judged to be:
- Defamatory -Adversely affecting the reputation of a clearly identifiable person, company or organisation.
- Personal -Including private information about yourself or other people.
- Harassing - Harassment is unwanted conduct (including insults and ‘jokes’) affecting the dignity of another, including written attacks on another person. Such conduct could relate to gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, disability or other similarly sensitive issues.
- Obscene - Material that is offensive, indecent or pornographic, including any material of a sexual nature.
- Offensive - Material that might reasonably be expected to cause distress to others. Postings should be civil, tasteful and polite. They should not be mean-spirited, or contributed with the intention of causing trouble. They should not include vulgar language. They should show respect for users of all ages and abilities.
- Confidential - Any information, disclosure of which would constitute a breach of the common law duty of confidentiality.
- An incitement - Any posting that seeks to influence another to the commission of a criminal offence.
- In contempt of court - Disclosing information about live court proceedings before that information has been heard in court or where reporting restrictions are in place. Please note that the moderators will generally bar any postings relating to court proceedings, as they cannot be expected to know or investigate the legal status of individual cases.
- Advertising - Postings advertising a service or business.
- Party political - Postings that are clearly party political in nature. This is particularly relevant during elections, and those postings that canvass support for, or opposition to, any political party.
- In breach of copyright - Postings that may infringe any of the laws governing copyright. (The council accepts no liability whatsoever for any actionable breach of such laws).
- Using multiple log-ins - If you use multiple log-ins for the purpose of disrupting the community or annoying other users you may be barred from the forum.
- Duplicate or overly trivial repetitive or trivial postings.
- Spamming or off-topic material.
- Impersonation Postings perceived as impersonating another through user name or views.
- Using vulgar or offensive user names.
- One to one arguments. Such postings should be conducted through private email and not through public discussion.
- Messages will not be posted in languages other than English.
The Council reserves the right to remove inappropriate or offensive messages. If you feel there is a post that is offensive or inappropriate in any way, please report it to the Communications team via the communications@darlington.gov.uk email address.
If you have any general questions or concerns about how the forum operates, please contact the web team at the email address above.
Please note that the forum topics and moderation of comments are conducted by the Communications Team in collaboration with the relevant Council department.
| Forum Do’s |
Forum Don’ts |
- Do make sure you are familiar with the guidance on acceptable content.
- Do share your views and local knowledge with others.
- Do be patient with other users. Even if someone posts in a way that annoys you (in “txt spk” for example), try to stay polite and balanced in any response.
- Do be very careful what links you use, respected news sources that contain a relevant news story you wish to talk about are OK. Do not post any personal urls in the forums as this will result in your account being suspended. If you are unsure, then don’t use a link.
- The Council is not responsible for the content of third party sites.
- Do inform the moderator if you think they need to check a post for any reason. For example, you may think it is offensive or inappropriate.
- Do inform the moderator if you think someone is misusing the forum, don’t get involved yourself.
- Do contact the moderator if you have any concerns, questions or complaints about the use of the forum.
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- Do not give out any personal information about yourself especially contact information. There are many casual guests who will visit the forum and you can never be entirely certain that you know the people you are chatting to.
- Do not post any personal information about others; respect other people's privacy.
- Do not post defamatory, harassing or unlawful comments relating to individuals, organisations or any group of people.
- Do not add anything to your signature that others users may get annoyed by, such as very long signatures or excessive emoticons.
- Do not put any links in signatures.
- Do not copy and paste large chunks from other sites, or include copyrighted material in your post.
- Do not link directly to any kind of media file, photographs, and movie clips, etc… will not be accepted.
- Do not try to use the forum to promote your website, business, or yourself.
- Do not repeatedly re-post deleted topics; this may result in your being banned from using the forum.
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