Terms of use

We welcome your participation in any interactive feature on our site, including your posting comments to our blogs, submitting questions for a featured Q&A, adding your opinion to one of our debates, or taking part in one of our polls. We want to hear your views in response to our debates and blogs and we will listen to your comments.

For the purpose of the Terms of Use, 'post' can refer to a blog post, an online debate, a 'have your say' feature, a Q&A session, a poll or other submission.

Due to the sensitivity of some of the locations we work in and the issues that we address, we may moderate comments submitted. This is a precaution to ensure that we do not jeopardise our staff security. For this reason, there may be a delay between the submission of your comment and it appearing on the site, or it may be withheld or edited. We will do our best to include your post as quickly and as fully as possible. We reserve the right to withhold any post, without further comment or notice to you.

We reserve the right to remove the access of any individual who has abused Oxfam's web services, breached the terms and conditions, Terms of Use and/or persistently submitted inappropriate material.

Be aware that in exceptional circumstances Oxfam could be legally obliged to reveal your registration information and/or IP address to the authorities.

In order to participate in any interactive feature on this site, we ask that you observe the Terms of Use, including the following Participants' Rules. Site users are also governed by our website terms and conditions.

• Please be considerate of other participants' access to and enjoyment of the post. Post in English only please and avoid using slang or shorthand. Not everyone speaks English as a first language and we do not have the resource to make translations.
• People of all ages and backgrounds visit oxfam.org.uk. Please do not use profanities or other words that might offend others.
• Do not post any material that is defamatory, obscene, indecent, lewd, pornographic, violent, abusive, insulting, threatening, harassing, discriminatory, blasphemous or otherwise unlawful or illegal. A defamatory comment is one that is capable of damaging the reputation of a person or organisation.
• Do not post anything that is or may be contempt of court (anything that risks prejudicing ongoing or forthcoming court proceedings) and avoid breaking any known court injunction.
• Do not incite people to commit any crime, including incitement of racial hatred.
• Do not post personal attacks on other participants.
• Do not impersonate other participants or public figures.
• Do not create multiple user identities for the purpose of abusing the services of this site or the experience of other users.
• No personal information please. It is not acceptable to publicise your or anyone else's contact details. This is for your own safety and that of everyone who uses this service.
• Please do not submit questions or comments of a personal nature to our bloggers, debaters or interviewees. We will consider these off topic and will not include them.
• No spamming or flooding.
• All posts should relate directly to the discussion topic.
• We reserve the right to terminate lengthy and involved discussions between a handful of people if we feel that this is having a negative impact on fellow participants' experience on the site.
• We reserve the right to post a representative comment or question if we have received a number of a similar nature.
• We reserve the right to edit comments for length.
• Occasionally, when discussions have become irrelevant to the post in question, we will close comments on that post, and we may delete comments already posted if they are unrelated to the topic, to reduce the size of the page for other users.
• Do not submit anything that may infringe another's rights, including intellectual property rights.
• All submissions should be your own original work. Do not post content you have copied from someone else. On submitting content or comment, you warrant to us that your submission is your own original work and you acknowledge that any breach of this warranty may cause us damage or loss and you agree to indemnify us in full and permanently against any third party liabilities, claims, costs, loss or damage we incur as a result of including material you submit to us, including consequential losses.
• You can use limited quotes from published sources as long as these are referenced clearly.
• You grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide licence to republish any material you submit to us in any format, including without limitation print and electronic format.
• No advertising or marketing or any kind.
• Please do not respond to posts in order to make a general complaint or ask a general question about Oxfam. Instead use our contact us pages to direct your question to the relevant department.
• Our registration process requires you to supply us with your name and email details. We will only use this information to validate your access to the discussions and for other service administration purposes, unless you specifically opt in to receiving further information from us.
• We will hold your personal data on our systems for as long as this service is provided, or until you request that we remove your details.