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Attention: Following are the guidelines for participation in the HP Business Support Forums. They are intended to provide you guidelines for appropriate conduct and message content submissions when engaging in the online community. Using the HP Business Support Forums indicates you accept these terms. If you do not accept these terms, do not use the HP Business Support Forums.
Purpose
The Business Support Forums is a free online community for peer-to-peer technical support and knowledge sharing. Members exchange knowledge, best practices, and experience relating to the use of HP products in a business environment.
The online Support Forums are designed to help members find useful and valuable information for support. Community members who are not associated with HP provide the bulk of the information found in the Support Forums. HP does not guarantee the reliability or completeness of any information provided in the Support Forums, nor in any hyperlink appearing on the site. You are responsible for your own decisions to act upon the information provided by community members.
Treat other community members with respect and courtesy. The community offers the most value when its members remain open and honest while adhering to a set of basic rules of conduct. Content of posted messages needs to align with the guidelines found below.
Member Generated Content
To ensure that community members receive maximum value, we insist that you refrain from using the technical Support Forums as a chat room. Topics should be focused on support for business products, processes, policies, etc., in regards to a business environment. Members who post chat room type messages will need to move their conversations to another venue.
The content found in the HP Support Forums comes from a variety of sources, primarily from community members. HP makes no claims or representations as to the accuracy, completeness, or truth of any material submitted or found in the discussion areas. HP is not liable for any errors or delays in the content or transmission of postings on the site.
Do not use profanity in your messages, and do not post sexually related messages or "Adult" content. Messages of this type will be deleted from the site. Do not make any personal attacks on another participant or the HP moderators. Messages containing personal attacks or otherwise harassing another forum member, ethnic group, or religious group will be deleted. The HP Business Support Forums are a place for anyone to feel welcome. These forums are not a place for expressing your anger. We ask that you find some other venue if that is your intent.
Conduct
HP encourages active and open discussions among the community members. We do insist that conduct is civil - be it posting a message or emailing another member. You may not use or allow others to use your registration membership to:
- Post or transmit any content that is abusive, vulgar, obscene, hateful, fraudulent, threatening, harassing, defamatory, or which discloses private or personal matters concerning any person.
- Post or transmit any material that you don't have the right to transmit under law (such as copyright, trade secret or securities) or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as nondisclosure agreements).
- Post, transmit, or link to sexually explicit material.
- Impersonate any person, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
- Post or transmit any advertising, promotional materials, or other forms of solicitation including chain letters and pyramid schemes.
- Intentionally violate any other applicable law or regulation while accessing and using our site.
- Post or transmit any file that contains viruses, corrupted files, "Trojan Horses," or any other contaminating or destructive features that may damage someone else's computer.
HP may at any time and without prior notice remove or edit any posted message, or ban your account for violating the above reasonable provisions. You are responsible for all statements made and acts that occur through the use of your user name and password.
Messages of Value
The HP Business Support Forums are not a chat room. They are a site for problem solving, knowledge exchange, and learning. Posting messages of value using “good” words will help ensure the community remains vibrant and valuable for all.
We encourage you to share your knowledge and allow thousands of others to learn from your expertise. When members read your messages of value, they will learn more and recognize you as a valuable contributor to the community. “Rants” or “flaming” messages serve no useful purpose in the community and will not be tolerated.
Message Posting Guidelines
There is tremendous value in having HP customers exchange knowledge and experience in an online community venue. At the same time, certain guidelines must be followed. A message posting should be:
- A technical or non-technical question regarding an HP product (or related product used with an HP product).
- A request for the experiences of others relating to their use of an HP product.
- An unsolicited technical tip, suggestion, or piece of knowledge regarding the use of an HP product.
A posting that is deemed not acceptable may be edited and/or removed without notice at the discretion of HP. Examples of such posts include:
- Off-topic comments not related to a technical issue regarding an HP product or related business support issue.
- “Rants”, “slams”, or legal threats against HP or another company or competitor, similar to “chat room” behavior.
- Threatening, defamatory or abusive posts, either between forum members or directed towards an HP moderator, employee or management.
- Bigoted, hateful, racially offensive or religious comments.
- Language that promotes illegal activity or discusses illegal activities with the intent to commit them.
- Unauthorized copyrighted material.
- Advertisements or posts that contain any form of commercial solicitation.
- Spam messages or posts repeated on various boards and folders with little or no reference to relevant topic.
- Personal phone numbers and addresses (to protect privacy).
- Personal e-mail addresses that are not your own, including, but not limited to, personal HP e-mails.
- Vulgar, obscene or indecent language, information or images.
- Hyperlinks that lead to sites that violate any of the forum guidelines.
- Posts that solicit or promote the use of an illegal substance.
- The dissemination of computer viruses or other destructive material.
- Posts where a person impersonates another person or affiliation with an entity, including, but not limited to, HP.
Advertising and Vendors
Advertising through posted messages or “spamming” is not allowed. If more than 2 copies of 'substantially' the same message are posted, they may be considered "spam" and deleted. Persons or companies are not allowed to announce products/services/web sites etc., within the community pages. This community is not a chat forum, and advertisements are not allowed, whether the advertisement is for products or personal services.
Some third-party vendors may have a product or service that could help a member resolve a problem. We encourage vendors to participate in the discussions, however, not for advertising purposes. Product features may be discussed in response to a question, however, we insist upon a non-sales atmosphere. This is a support site, so as a vendor you must not discuss pricing or purchase requirements. Failure to adhere will result in messages being deleted from the service and your user account banned.
Disagreements
We expect the HP Support Forums to be a resourceful use of your time, and to generate problem solutions as needed. There are many intelligent, reasonable, and earnest community members who frequently post messages of value. However, there exists a possibility that somebody will be “uncivil” in posting messages. They may even verbally “attack” you.
If you disagree with another member, challenge the member’s information, but refrain from ever attacking the person who posted it. It is the information that is either valid or invalid, not the community member. You may know personal attacks are also referred to as "flaming". HP will not tolerate flaming. Thousands of people read the HP Business Support Forums searching for information of value and community opinions. Our goal is to maintain a lively, dynamic discussion area that produces valuable information. We will not allow the site to be reduced to attacks and insults, including those directed at HP.
"HP" Logos
You will see some community members have an HP logo next to their names. These folks are our official site moderators. Their primary purpose is to help keep the Support Forums running smoothly, answer HP-directed questions, and report any issues with the service. HP is not responsible for content provided by HP employees who are not official site moderators.
On occasion, the site moderators will answer your questions, particularly those regarding how to use and navigate the site. The moderators contribute to various discussions as they see fit, but they are free to contribute or not contribute. Our moderator staff is drawn from a wide variety of support folks who have knowledge in some, but not all, discussion areas. They will assist you as much as possible, but remember that this site is a peer-to-peer discussion area to share knowledge, experience, and best practices.
If you recognize any violation of the site’s Terms of Service, please notify us of the offending message(s) along with the associated URLs in the Business Support Forums' site support area.
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