TERMS OF SERVICE (the “Rules”)
Before you post on Kids As Critics (“KAC”), please read this whole page. Below are the rules, regulations, terms and policies of service and of use of this site (www.KidsAsCritics.com) (together with all other relevant communications by KAC, the “Rules”), as well as all other actions relating to or having anything to do with KAC and Smart Matters, LLC (KAC’s parent company “SM”, “KAC” to include SM) and tips which make the forums and overall experience better for everyone. All of the Rules are subject to change, addition or deletion, in part or in whole, at any time and for any reason with no notice required. If you do not agree with the Rules, which shall include anything on this or any other page of KAC, then please leave the site now, otherwise you are hereby agreeing to follow the Rules in letter as well as in spirit.
In order to post here, you must follow these tips and Rules. If you break any of the Rules below, your post will be deleted and you may be banned from the site and subject to further punishment or penalties. Further, management of KAC and SM, or any site moderators, may at any time and for any reason delete any one or more posts and/or ban one or more users from the site for any reason.
Kids As Critics is a community for teens and kids. So, first and foremost, we will be looking for every opportunity to protect our members from unwanted attention to the extent we can. This means that there will be no direct contact between our members via email or private messaging. In the future, we may be looking for opportunities to organize in-person events, where our members will be able to meet each other in supervised settings. The rule at our house is that: Unless you already know the person you’re talking to, don’t contact them outside of the site. Safety is everyone’s concern. Help keep KAC safe.
First Off, Don’t Be Afraid To Post:
If you’re new to our community, taking the step to post publicly for the first time to a discussion forum can sometimes seem intimidating. Don’t be afraid to jump into a discussion. We and the KAC users love hearing from new people. While we hope that you’ll become an active participant and join in our discussions, you’re welcome, of course, to simply hang out silently until you feel more comfortable posting a comment or creating a new thread. You will see how great the experience can be once you become a regular contributor.
General Rules:
You must be 18 years old or younger (i.e. a “kid”) to post on our site. Kids under the age of 13 must have parental permission to join (see COPPA). Everyone of all ages is welcome to join and follow their favorite critics, but only kids and teens will be allowed to post and comment.
Posting:
Absolutely no flaming, cursing, racism, discrimination or hate speech of any kind. The team will not tolerate attacks on any person or persons based on their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or any other reason. Remember this is a safe site for writing your opinions…be constructive, be creative, be opinionated and be eloquent; don’t say “I thought it was crap,” instead say “I thought it was crap BECAUSE…”
No multiple accounts:
Any person identified as having multiple accounts may be banned without warning. We do understand that family members who share a computer may wish to register. We try to be as flexible as we can. Our main area of concern (though not the only one) is the distribution of rewards, points or entries into competitions where multiple accounts create an unfair advantage. In these circumstances, we will judge each case individually. Further, you should only have one voice to share your opinions. If you have two accounts you might be able to “team up” on someone who disagrees with you. Disagreement is great. In fact, we encourage it! But it must be respectful and fair.
No advertising/spam:
We do not allow posting of advertisements without the prior written consent of our team. If you wish to advertise on our forum, please e-mail us using the contact form to obtain information on our advertising rates and plans.
Posting in English is preferred:
As the moderators and administrators of this site do not speak most of the languages spoken around the globe, we ask that you try to post in English. That being said, we want our community to be global. One of our major focuses is to learn what kids around the world are reading, watching and listening to. We will try to incorporate a translation tool into the forums in the future, so if your language is other than English POST AWAY!!! We will figure it out for you.
However, all users hereby acknowledge that all Rules and other terms of services and all notices, etc., will only be in English, and you hereby agree that this is sufficient for you.
Censored words/phrases:
We will have a filter in place for words that may be considered offensive. Working around these filters by adding dots, spaces, hyphens, substituting with special characters, etc. is not acceptable. Please keep in mind that the users of this forum vary in age from very mature teens to younger children.
Mining:
We do not allow mining, which is any activity to gather data for the purposes of use on another website or for any other purpose. If you are found to be gathering data from the forums or members for this reason, you will be banned and subject to legal prosecution.
Thread creation:
Make sure you are posting in the right section of the forum. Any thread posted in the wrong section will be moved. If you are unsure, contact us and we will help you.
Moderators:
Our users are the moderators! Moderators will be chosen from by KAC from amongst our frequent and articulate posters. They will be interviewed by KAC management, if not in person, then by video chat with their parents present. Limited biographical information of moderators will be listed on the website, with their permission. The moderators may delete, move or edit any post or comment for any reason at any time without notice. The administrators of KAC will also act as moderators.
Disrespect of moderators’ decisions or forum rules will not be allowed.
Disagreeing with the actions or opinions of a moderator in a moderation case is fine, but any sign of disrespect will be looked upon with grave seriousness. Ultimately we are here to keep order and keep the community content appropriate; impeding these goals is unacceptable. For that matter, disrespect of any of our members for any reason will not be tolerated.
Back seat moderation will not be allowed to bring threads off topic. Comments like “why isn’t this thread locked yet?” or “we don’t allow your type in this community” are not acceptable; they slime the thread creator and undermine forum moderation. Discussions about moderation, moderators’ actions or rules and policies are allowed provided they do not throw threads off topic and are done without excessive rudeness. We want to know how we can improve the way we moderate or things that we have missed, but we don’t want to be flamed any more than anyone else. The best way to make your point is to contact us.
Dodging or ignoring moderators’ actions is unacceptable and will result in an immediate long-term ban in most cases. This “dodging or ignoring” includes creating a new account to avoid a temporary ban or restoring a moderator-edited or moderator-deleted post to its original content without permission.
Copyright:
No material which is protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary mark or right of any kind shall be uploaded, posted or otherwise made available on the KAC forums without the express written permission of the owner of the copyright, trademark or other proprietary mark or right. By posting anything to the website, you are hereby agreeing that you have full rights and permissions to post whatever you are posting, and you take full responsibility for any postings you may have. Stories, news articles, thoughts, essays, images, etc. posted to this website are the sole responsibility of the poster. Should any copyright infringements or violations occur, please direct your inquiries to the poster. KAC, its moderators, its management and its web space provider are not responsible in any way for any infringement or for any posting whatsoever, and all users and posters explicitly acknowledge this fact and take full responsibility for their posts and comments. This remains a public forum/newsgroup. Posters are always responsible for their actions. If you believe that your copyright has been violated, please contact us and we will endeavor to correct the issue.
Also, all users hereby grant unrestricted, full and irrevocable rights to SM, KAC and all principals and affiliates thereof to use for any purposes and at any time any postings, data, information, essays or any other content submitted by such user anywhere on this site.
Again, absolutely NO FLAMING. If you have unfavorable comments about anything, outside of a professional opinion, we ask that you keep them to yourself. Professional courtesy and common manners is the atmosphere in our forums. Kids As Critics is a place for healthy, constructive dialogue. When used as such, we believe that you will find that this site to be tremendously rewarding.
Personal Identifying Information:
Don’t give out or ask other people for personal identifying information or any personal information of any kind. Personal Identifying Information is anything that would allow a person to contact you elsewhere or find you in real life, because that can be extremely dangerous. Personal identifying information includes instant messenger screen-names, email addresses, phone numbers, your full name, your address, etc.
Private Instant Messaging:
At this time we will not be allowing private instant messaging, as it is our intention to keep everyone here safe.
Avatar / Display Picture Rules:
When choosing your avatar for the forums, you must respect these rules. No offensive images or language. No nudity or sexual images. No material protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary images. For safety reasons, no personal photographs.
User Name & Signature Rules:
When choosing a user name and a signature for your posts and comments, you must respect these rules. No commercial links or names or links or names promoting products, brands, businesses, etc. No obusive or obscene terms, links or graphics. Also, no inflammatory statements, brand evangelism, political or religious prolamations, etc. For safety reasons, no personal idenifying information.
Disclaimers:
KAC and SM and all affiliates, directors, officers, employees, advisors, Members, principals and representatives thereof (the “KAC Represtatives”) hereby disclaim any and all liability and shall bear no responsibility for anything, for any reason whatsoever, having anything to do, directly or indirectly, with any posting on this site or with any action of any member/user or non-member/user of this site, and all users and potential users of this site or any affiliate thereof hereby irrevocably agree as such,
How to Report Problems:
If you see a post which contains material that you think may be offensive to our members, or otherwise may be breaking the Rules or spirit of the Rules, please contact us. This will alert the moderators and management to check out the post and take action if necessary.
If you have any other problems or want more information about KAC or the site, please feel free to contact us.
