Rules, Terms & Conditions, and Policies for use of this website
General:
MotuekaOnline is published and maintained on behalf of the people of Motueka, using material largely supplied by residents. All material submitted for inclusion is checked by the site editor for accuracy and appropriateness.
Legal problems with contributions:
All material is checked for obscene language, defamation or libel, disparagement of product, and invasion of privacy. If the possibility exists for any material to present such legal problems, the editor reserves the right to check independently and to contact the contributor for clarification or explanation.
Grammar and spelling:
The website editor reserves the right to amend contributions for grammar and spelling, and to edit or discard contributions for offensiveness or other potential legal problems.
Advertising material:
This website is for non-commercial purposes. The editor reserves the right to edit or reject any contributions that appear to be mainly advertising for private businesses or organisations. Although it is often not possible to write articles with no "free plugs" included, if an article is clearly primarily aimed at attracting business custom, it may be edited or rejected.
Use by non-residents:
Contributors must be from the Motueka area or be able to show they have legitimate ties with the area. To ensure the site not used by "outsiders" for spurious or commercial reasons, the editor reserves the right to check the name and contact details of contributors if any doubt exists, before the contribution is published, and to discard any contributions thought to be not of local origin. If you believe this may apply to you, please make your intentions clear when making a contribution.
Hobby horses:
We encourage contributions to the site, but do not want it to become a channel for anyone to repeatedly post material and opinions on their own 'hobby horses' that have already been well-aired. So the editor reserves the right to reject contributions which add nothing to what the writer has already said several times in other posts, articles and comments.
Accuracy:
No responsibility is taken by editor for the accuracy of any material on any pages used by individuals or groups. We do our best to check facts, but if there's something wrong, please tell us via the contact page.
Copyright:
By default, all material on this website is free of copyright, meaning that it can be reused and reprinted anywhere else. The only exception is for contributed articles in which the author has requested copyright protection. For such articles, a copyright notice is included on the page displaying the article, and anyone wishing to reprint all or part of these articles must first request permission from MotuekaOnline.
Other legal problems:
In particular, the editor cannot be held responsible for any plagiarism, infringement of copyright, title, slogan, trademark, trade name, service mark, or intellectual property rights, resulting from material included in the website, nor for any unauthorised use of material in the website.
Editorial Policy
News section:
The website editor will try his or her utmost to remain neutral and impartial on any contentious issue raised by contributors. The editor will not use the news section of the site to promote any political agendas or campaigns for or against any businesses, people or ideas.
Discussion forum:
The editor treats the discussion forum content in a way similar to the policies of a conventional 'Letters to the Editor' section of a print newspaper. As long as items submitted to the forum contain no obvious slander, defamation or libel, and subject to all other rules set out elsewhere on this page, they will be published on the site.
As is the case in newspaper 'Letters' pages, the editor of this website takes no responsibility for any inaccuracies or untruths on those posts. The editor does not have to take active steps to seek balancing or correcting comment from people or organisations criticised in forum posts - it is up to those people or organisations to respond by adding comment to the forum (just as in newspaper 'Letters' pages), and their failure to do so does not mean that the editor is encouraging unbalanced comment.
While the editor will not seek out comment to balance any side of an issue, neither will he or she suppress or exclude any balancing comment, except where those comments break the rules set out elsewhere on this page.
The editor will normally require all comments to be accompanied by the writers' names, although in special circumstances anonymous comments will be posted.
How contributions work
Some potential contributors may worry (or hope) that as soon as they send some material, it goes straight on the website. This does not happen - all material sent via website forms or emails go to the editor, who then decides what to do with it.
Some contributions are, in fact, not intended for publication as they stand. Some will be published but may need a little touching up for spelling, grammar and/or clarity. Some publishable material may need to be placed on some other part of the website than what the contributor thought. And some may not be publishable because they break the rules set out earlier on this page.
After the editor checks and decides on a contribution, it is placed on the site during the next round of updates (normally within a day) and a return email is sent to the contributor telling them that this has been done.
