Guidelines

  • Welcome to the Safeguard Forum! It is intended for anyone with an interest in workplace health, safety, wellbeing & environment to ask and respond to questions, and for wider discussions.
    While the focus is on New Zealand, members are welcomed from anywhere.

    Here are the guidelines for use.

    Technicalities
    • Only forum members may post messages.
    • Postings are not normally pre-moderated, so your message will go up instantly (except for those which contain attachments or video or certain sensitive words of our choice).

    What is the forum NOT for?
    • Promoting your seminar, conference or other event.
    • Promoting your course or qualification.
    • Promoting your product or service.
    • Promoting your job vacancy.
    In other words, this is a non-commercial forum. If you wish to discuss promotion via Safeguard's commercial channels please contact our advertising manager

    Forum etiquette
    • Don’t be anonymous. We prefer members use their first and last names when creating an account (Contact @Admin to have your member name changed.)
    • Don't assume every forum member is as knowledgeable as you are. Some members might have only just been given responsibility for health & safety.
    • Respect people's privacy: when describing a situation at a specific workplace, ensure no individual is identifiable.
    • Respect data privacy: when sharing a document, make sure you have permission to do so from the person or organisation who created it.
    • When an active thread evolves into a conversation between only two people, and you are one of them, please take it offline.

    Forum behaviour rules
    • Be respectful - disagreement is fine, but rude, belittling, trolling or defamatory statements about other people or groups of people or their opinions aren't acceptable.
    • Don't hog the forum - participation is welcomed, but if you have been particularly active, give it a rest for a few days to ensure other voices are heard.
    • Stick to the topic. Don't use health & safety as an entry point for a rant about something else. There are plenty of other online forums for that.
    • In other words, don't be a dick.

    Still not sure?
    If you are unsure whether a message will be appropriate, please contact @Admin for an opinion.

    Sanctions for violation of these rules
    Any member who @Admin believes consistently ignores these guidelines will receive a formal warning and will be placed on pre-moderation for two weeks.

    (Any posts made by the member during that period will require @Admin approval before they appear on the Forum. Posts which @Admin believes do not meet the guidelines will not be approved.)

    After two weeks, pre-moderation of the member will cease.

    Further violation of the guidelines is likely to result in the member being permanently removed from the Forum without further warning.

    Suggestion for best use
    We strongly recommend you opt in to receiving the weekly email newsletter, which summarises activity on the Forum over the previous seven days.
    Also, if you change your email address (eg: new job) then be sure to update the email address associated with your Forum membership. This will ensure you continue to receive the weekly summary email.

    Data privacy
    The information you supply to Thomson Reuters when you become a member of the Safeguard Forum will not be disclosed to any third party, nor will we enter into any contract with a third party to permit it to make use of the information.

    Thomson Reuters will use the information only if we need to email forum members to advise on matters relating to the function of the forum, for example, if the software which drives the forum is temporarily unavailable.

    Safeguard magazine sample copy
    If you are not familiar with Safeguard magazine and would like to see a recent edition, please ask for one here.