Terms and Conditions

[Admin]

TERMS OF USE OF THE NEW ZEALAND KNIFE FORUM
http://www.newzealandknifeforum.co.nz


Please note: Members must fully accept and comply with these terms and conditions as laid out to participate on the forum.
The forum consists of five general sections:

• Forum, including discussions, reviews and collectors’ corner;
• Gallery, various entities;
• Market place, private sales of second-hand goods only;
• Makers Corner;
• Guild.

We believe that our members are people with integrity and do not make fleeting statements on discussion points without standing by what they believe, therefor we expect members to register with their Own Name as their Username,or if their username is connected to a business or a very well-known username, then to have their full names in their signature.
The mission for the New Zealand Knife Forum is:


To provide an open, easily accessible and honest forum for collectors, makers and general users alike by providing and aiming for the following:

• The establishment and maintenance of a platform within which like-minded people can share knowledge and learn.
• To become the leading New Zealand resource for knives.
• To be regarded as a forum with integrity and professionalism.
• To make friends, form partnerships and protect the knife communities’ rights.

Banned Topics

• Pornography.
• Posting links to any pornographic or other unsuitable site.
• Any discussion of Politics, Religion, Ethnicity, Creed or Sexism.
• The use of crude, bad language; swearing or cussing.
• Racism

2 GENERAL INFO

1. New Zealand Knife Forum, (hereinafter referred to as NZKF), is privately funded and sponsored by Knives4Africa.co.nz, owned and managed by Terry Finney. K4A is a custom knife dealer but Terry is also an avid collector and past maker who has a passion for edged tools and functional art.
2. NZKF aims to provide an open, easily accessible and honest community for primarily users, collectors and makers.
3. All members are encouraged to openly and respectfully communicate on this platform. Any breach of the guidelines will be dealt with in accordance with the rules of the forum.

3 GUIDELINES

NZKF guidelines are based on the following principles:

1. NZKF believes in the notion of building a community and trusts that all members will uphold the name of the New Zealand Knife Forum. NZKF believes that everyone has something to contribute to the community, no matter the level of expertise or whether you are just a tomato cutter or hardcore hunter. The principle aim will always be to motivate and inspire others.
2. NZKF believes that each member is honest and capable of showing respect towards other community members. NZKF will not tolerate flaming, fighting, bashing, deconstructive arguing and mudslinging. For this reason, we also expect you to use your Real Name as a Username, or if your username is connected to your business or well known, then to have your real name and surname in your signature.
3. NZKF believes that all members will post acceptable content, since NZKF does not censor and moderate each post before it goes on the web. Should content be unacceptable, NZKF will remove it. This is especially true if the material includes or refers to violence, is of a pornographic nature or if it denigrates other community members.
4. NZKF does not allow any form of gratuitous promotions/advertising on the forum other than as defined in the market place rules. Knifemakers and dealers are required to purchase membership to advertise on NZKF.
5. NZKF is a knife forum for all members - no debates will be allowed on political, sexual or religious matters. Any posts containing these issues will, at the discretion of the administrators, be deleted from the site. Non-constructive manufacturer debates will also not be tolerated.
6. NZKF encourages good discussion and interesting contributions but reserves the right to delete any contributed material at its sole discretion and without prior notice. No warning is necessary, and administrators have the administrative rights to effect this.

4 POSTING CONTENT IN THE FORUM CHANNELS.

4.1 Important Copyright Notice!

All content, including photography and text on this site is copyrighted to the respective authors. Any use or reproduction of the content without the written permission of the author is strictly forbidden. Please read the rest of this document in full before using this forum.

4.2 Copyright and content/image Theft

All content appearing in the NZKF forums are the copyrighted work of the respective authors and are presented as such for discussion and information. Please do not copy, download or use content without the express written consent of the author. That said, saving information and images for personal use is quite acceptable and all authors acknowledge that information and images may be used in such a manner.

4.3 Gallery Participation

Whilst this is not a photo forum, the galleries are provided for image sharing, a bit of bragging and for information purposes.
Please do not abuse the galleries and resize the images before posting. Bandwidth is expensive.

4.4 Code of Conduct

NZKF is strictly dedicated to edged tools and all conversation should pertain directly to it. Whilst on-topic, spirited debate is welcome, please keep all conversation congenial, professional and non-combative.
Discussion of religion, politics or any other controversial subject that has little or nothing to do with the art and technique of photography is subject to deletion without notice.
Off topic discussion should take place in the respective forum. Should a member have any issues or concerns with any aspect of forum activity, they should please contact the forum administrators using their email contacts at the top of the forum page.
NZKF administration may also be contacted directly at admin@newzealandknifeforum.co.nz
Members should also review the basic rules of internet etiquette (netiquette) for additional information on effectively communicating with others over the Internet.
The use of these forums for unauthorised commercial promotion or advertisement is strictly forbidden!

If you want to advertise on NZKF, please peruse the marketplace rules.

5 THE USE OF THE MARKET PLACE

5.1 Basic, Premium and Guild Members

1. Non-registered members are able to read the Market Place and therefore the exposure is fair to good.
2. The Market Place is there for all registered members to advertise their used knives and equipment.
3. Members are only able to upload an advertisement if they are logged in.
4. Basic members are limited to a total of 3 ads per month.
5. Premium members are limited to a total of 10 ads per month.
6. Guild members have no limitations and may place as many adverts as they like.
7. Advertising new products or other commercial services is not permitted unless the relevant membership is purchased. admin@newzealandknifeforum.co.nz
8. It must be very clear what is advertised as well as the condition.
9. Images attached to the ads must be of the actual product being advertised and not a generic image found on the internet.
10. Only ONE item per advertisement - No Sets or Groups - Adverts with more than one item will be deleted without notification or question. You may sell items bundled together (knife plus sharpener or a collection) but with a single price only.
11. All products listed in the classifieds are done by members, and transactions will be between the seller and the buyer. Therefore, NZKF waives all responsibility.
12. Any items not conforming to the rules as set out above will be removed without explanation.

5.2 Subscription based Commercial Advertising

Knifemakers

1. The knifemakers category is for small business owners that make knives or related supplies for the knifemaking community..
2. A separate sub forum in the market place will be created for each subscriber in which they may place as many adverts as they like including information about new products etc.
3. The total limit for this category is 100mb.

Commercial Advertiser/Dealers

The knifemakers category is for small business owners.

1. A separate sub forum in the market place will be created for each subscriber in which they may place as many adverts as they like including information about new products etc.
2. The total limit for this category is 200mb.

6 TO REGISTER AT NEW ZEALAND KNIFE FORUM

• Registering at NZKF is free. Please adhere to the rules mentioned on this page when registering. Member registrations not complying with these rules will be removed. See also Section 7, Member conduct below.
• Other paid membership options are also available that offer more functionality to members.
• Using an email account from an inappropriate website will be deleted.
• Using an inaccessible email account when registering will not be permitted
• Multiple registrations will not be permitted
• Controversial or inappropriate usernames will not be permitted.
• Misleading usernames like "moderator" "administrator" or creating an illusion of being a representative of an organisation of which you are not, will not be permitted.
• New members or trial memberships are expected to become contributing members if and as soon as they happen to like the NZKF community and appreciate the resource that it is for their enjoyment and benefit.

NZKF needs members' support to sustain the growth of the community and keep enhancing it. Premium members can upload larger images, have more private message space and can customize their experience on NZKF.
Please note: NZKF uses Google Analytics to track usage. The purpose is to find out who visits and from where, but also to a very large degree, what kind of technology they are using (screen sizes, operating systems and browsers) This allows us to continuously develop the forum to better suit the needs of the majority of our members.
To help fund this website's costs, we do present ads from Google on some pages. These are intended to benefit our users and promote items they might find valuable or services they would need. We also use the same advertising system to make announcements of NZKF events or promotional services and activities. If you use an Ad-blocker, please enable Open-X for the NZKF forum, otherwise the site will not function.

7 MEMBERS' ACCOUNTS, PASSWORDS AND SECURITY

• When members register, they may give a username and password of their own choice. They should take care of their username and password and not allow anyone else to use it. Members must agree to immediately notify NZKF of any unauthorised use of their password or account or any other breach of security. NZKF cannot, and will not, be liable for any loss or damage arising from members' failure to comply with this.
• Members must agree to keep their account information current - profile, email address, etc.

If a member believes that someone is mis-using their account, they must inform the administrators about it as soon as possible.

8 MEMBER'S CONDUCT

• Members must understand that all materials, such as data, information, software, photographs, articles, reviews, stories, forum postings or other materials ("content"), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, are the sole responsibility of the person from which such content originated. This means that members, and not NZKF, are entirely responsible for all content that they upload, post, email or otherwise make available via the site.
• Since there are many contributors on NZKF, the administrators cannot control the content posted via the site and, as such, do not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such content (see Disclaimer of Warranty below). Members must understand that by using the site, they may be exposed to content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable to them.
• Members must agree not to use the forum to:

1. Upload, email, post or otherwise make available any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.
2. Upload, email, post or otherwise make available any content that said members have no right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as information from an employment relationship or learned under nondisclosure agreements).
3. Upload, email, post or otherwise make available or engage in solicitation of illegal copies of software and/or, of any content that infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party.
4. Upload, email, post or otherwise make available any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail", "spam" or any other form of solicitation.
5. Upload, email, post, or otherwise make available any material that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment.
6. Interfere with or disrupt the site or servers communication infrastructure connected to the forum, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the forum.
7. Engage in any form of solicitation of any illegal act.
8. Violate any applicable local, state, national or international law, including, but not limited to, laws of New Zealand.
9. Upload, email, post or otherwise make available any content that deliberately and repeatedly bashes any brand, product or company. If a members wishes to make a complaint or other negative comment in respect of any brand, product or company, then it should be made once and documented facts to support the member's remark should be in his / her possession.

• NZKF reserves the right to terminate the account of any member at any time at the convenience of NZKF. Any such termination shall be without refund of unused membership fees, if any.

9 LICENSES, OWNERSHIP AND COPYRIGHT ISSUES

1. If a member contributes material (information, data, software, photographs, articles, reviews, stories, forum postings etc.), he / she also automatically grants NZKF an irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable and worldwide right and license to modify, publish and reproduce that material in perpetuity, for the purpose of operating, displaying, distributing and promoting the forum without any compensation to the member. This also means that the member, as the legal owner of the contributed material, automatically and implicitly - through the submission - declares him / herself as the rightful owner of the contributed material and that all so called moral rights which may be raised out of this material have been waived. None of the material shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of NZKF and/or its owners or administrators.
2. Submitting the property of another, without the consent of that owner, may also subject members to legal liability for infringement of copyright, trademark, and/or other intellectual property rights.
3. In the event that NZKF would like to use the contributed material for anything not related to the purposes mentioned in 9.1, NZKF will contact the owner of the material to negotiate terms of usage beyond the rights already granted through the submission of the material.
4. Copyright stays with the legal owner, the author of the content.
5. By registering, the member agrees that although the member retains the copyright of his/her own content posted on NZKF forums, all posts belong to and are the property of NZKF. NZKF is not responsible for loss of posts, modifications, copying, republication, distortion, quoting or other use of the posts by other users or third parties. Members hereby waive any right to make any claim against NZKF or other users for any use of a post, including but not limited to any modifications, copying, republications, distortions, or quoting. If any member has content of commercial value to them and they fear the misuse thereof, NZKF encourages them not to load such content onto the NZKF forum.

10 OWNERSHIP OF CONTENT

1. Members must agree not to reproduce, recompile, duplicate, copy, nor sell, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion of the site, its content, use of the site or access to the site.
2. Members or Site Visitors may not use the site to violate anyone's copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights, including those of NZKF.

11 LINKS TO THIRD PARTY SITES

• NZKF contains links to third party web sites. Since NZKF has no control of such sites, NZKF does not endorse, has not reviewed and therefore, is not responsible for the content or availability of such third party sites.
• Members acknowledge that they use third party sites at their own risk and that NZKF is not responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss which may result of such usage in connection with products or services available on third party sites, nor for the content or the quality of the service(s) provided at such third party sites.

12 RECEIVING EMAILS

• As registered users at NZKF, members will receive emails from NZKF from time to time. NZKF does not often send out emails but when it does, the information is considered to be important and it feels that all registered users should be informed about that specific issue. Typically, these emails are not sent out more than twice a month and are very short. Emails are only sent out to registered users.
• If a member does not wish to receive any emails from the NZKF community, he / she may send NZKF an email and his / her account will be removed. This also means that his / her registration at NZKF is cancelled completely.
• If any members receive unsolicited email through the site they should inform administration immediately.

13 ADMINISTRATORS. - THE WHO, WHY AND WHAT ABOUT THEM

Every discussion forum on the internet these days, and there are literally zillions of them on millions of different subjects, have appointed administrators and moderators. But the question may arise as to just who these administrators are, where do they come from, and most importantly, what they are supposed to be doing.

13.1 From where

NZKF management appoints these persons. NZKF may discuss this proposed administrator with other active administrators at the time, as is the case here at NZKF, before officially approaching the identified person, requesting his / her services as an administrator. Should this person agree, he / she will then become an official site administrator.

13.2 Why

Administrators are there to moderate the various channels of the forum.

13.3 What

This is the more entertaining aspect of being an administrator. What are they supposed to be doing?

• Facilitate discussions which are relevant to the forum members.
• Where possible, address the questions of members.
• Ensure that all posts in a thread stay on-topic, relevant to the subject, do not become slanderous, abusive, degrading to any user, and that all posts stay in the accepted norm of decency.

All of the above do not imply that only the administrators should post discussions/comments on forum topics and images, instead, being a community-based forum, each and every member may/should do so, providing the forum members with a wide selection of input, from the varied perspective of a large population.
Administrators are not required to comment on every post or answer every question unless specifically requested to do so by the poster.
Administrators and moderators are not being paid a salary to act as such, they are true volunteers committed to performing a community service in their spare time and time taken from the office, and they do so to the best of their abilities, with the limited time and resources available to them, without skimping on their day jobs at the same time.
So the administrators read all the new posts, commenting on them where applicable, edit them where applicable, like moving them to relevant threads, deleting offensive posts or part thereof, correct obvious misleading/half-truths in posts, sometimes requiring a little research before posting the comment, view images to ensure content is acceptable to the norms of the forum and ensure that advice given is correctly presented.
Administrators are usually a friendly bunch; they will give their all to help out the forum members. Administrators usually receive numerous requests, either by e-mail or the private messaging system on the website, from members requesting additional and sometimes extensive info on topics discussed, or to make the administrators sit up and take notice of new content.

13.4 Making things easier

Administrators are few and far between and they usually have normal 9-5 jobs, well most of them anyway, and they need to actively participate on the forum and with the members. Members can, however, makes things easier for the administrators by just following the basic rules.
Members should have compassion towards the administrators; they are an 'overworked and underpaid' group of people serving a community of like-minded enthusiasts. By giving them support with active participation in the forums, sticking to the rules, not attacking them verbally or in postings, would really help in this respect.

13.5 Reaction to administrators moderating:

Actions taken by administrators may be queried with the administrator in question or another administrator of the member's choice via private message or e-mail. NO discussions on these issues are to take place in the forum. Administrator's decisions will stand until such time as NZKF informs the administrators than an alternative view may be taken on the issue. The administrators retain the right to delete posts without explanation to the member in the thread. This may be done once again by PM or email, if the administrators so chooses.

Finally...

Understanding the life and times of the administrators will help to make the forum function just that little bit better.

DISCLAIMER

NZKF assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in any provided information, software or other data (hereinafter referred to as "materials"). ANY MATERIALS LOCATED ON THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.
NZKF further does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information, text, graphics, links or other items contained within these materials. NZKF shall not be liable for any special, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, including without limitation, lost revenues or lost profits, which may result from the use of these materials. NZKF does not provide or support the provision of legal advice. The law of the many jurisdictions represented by the membership vary widely on the legal issues raised in the questions and the answers you read on the forums. Accordingly, members should seek authorised counsel for any questions in their specific jurisdiction and not rely solely on the general viewpoints expressed on NZKF. Various laws will be posted in the relevant channel in the forum but the interpretation thereof is the responsibility of qualified legal representatives.
The materials on these sites are subject to change without notice and do not represent a commitment on the part of NZKF in the future.

ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS?
Should members have any questions regarding these terms, or any other questions, they can get in touch with any of the site administrators online. Or email admin@newzealandknifeforum.co.nz