The "Spirit" of the online forum

[travesto]

The “Spirit” of the online public forum.

The intent of this online forum is to make a positive contribution to community debate and the flow of information regarding the Queensland State Government’s decision to dam the Mary River catchment to provide water for the anticipated future demand for water within S.E. Queensland. All users and posts to this forum that contribute to this aim are welcome. Ideas, thoughts and opinions relevant to this intent will not be censored. However, the administrators of this forum expressly reserve the right to remove posts and users that use the forum to address issues outside its intent, or that contravene socially accepted norms of public behaviour. (The forum is a public document.)

Here are some examples of contributions that are “in the spirit” of the forum:
- expressions of the emotional, social and economic impact the dam proposal has on peoples lives
- discussion of technical issues concerning water supply and the Mary Valley.
- scrutiny of public officials in relation to the performance of their roles in society, their public words and actions relating to the issue of damming the Mary River.
- posts that work to constructively engage all people who have a stake in this decision to work with unity towards a desirable future – with respect for other people, regardless of the opinions they hold.

Here are some examples of contributions and users that will be removed from the site by the site administration.
-advertising of irrelevant products, links to off-topic websites.
-savemaryriver material, offensive language.
-personal abuse, potentially defamatory attacks, posts demonstrating a public lack of respect for other people in their private lives.

Unfortunately, some posts, threads and users have already been removed from the forum for each of the reasons above. I sincerely hope that people will ‘get the message’ and we will no longer need to control the forum in this manner.