SABRE statements of practice (2023 revision)

SABRE's statements of practice outline the general working procedures relating to the day-to-day running of the Society and its online facilities. The ultimate authority remains the SABRE Constitution, last updated 26 March 2020, which underpins many of the protocols outlined here.

The word "user" refers to any Discussion Group Member or Voting Member with an account on any of SABRE's online facilities.

These statements of practice are not exhaustive. If you are in any doubt about what to do, please do not hesitate to contact the President or Site Management Team.

User Guidelines

SABRE is a site for discussion, education, and research about roads, as per its Mission Statements. The Society, through its Discuss forums and other online presence, aims to foster an ethos of reasoned, open, and constructive discussion and debate among people of all ages, occupations, and backgrounds, with strong and widely varying opinions. SABRE is neither pro- nor anti-roads, and the Discuss forums are not intended for campaigning on minor issues.

SABRE's User Guidelines illustrate the things users should keep in mind when posting, to uphold this ethos. We expect all users, regardless of rank or role, to follow these guidelines whenever they engage with any of the online facilities operated by SABRE.

You have a right to be treated with respect by other members, and for your opinions to be regarded as equally valid as those of others. You therefore also have a responsibility to ensure that right is upheld for other members too.
Your opinion, however strong, is still your opinion, and it should not be treated as a fact.
Keep content PG – avoid strong language and adult themes. Automatic word filtering is in operation on the Discuss forums; you must not attempt to circumvent this.
"Play the ball and not the man". We encourage constructive discussion of relevant viewpoints, but do not unnecessarily criticize a user's posting style, spelling or grammar.
Personal ad-hominem attacks are not appropriate in any circumstance, even if a user offends you or appears to breach these User Guidelines.
Avoid posting anything which could reasonably offend another user. We encourage free speech, and we appreciate that different people will have different views on what is offensive and what is not, but please follow a common-sense approach.
Posting an overly egregious or inflammatory viewpoint simply to stoke a reaction is not appropriate, nor is excessively repeating the same viewpoint over and over (whether in a single thread or across several related threads).
Try to stay on-topic within each thread. If you wish to digress significantly, consider starting a new thread, so the flow of the original discussion is not disrupted. Ensure also that any new threads you start are within the correct section of the Discuss forums – if you are not sure, contact the Site Management Team and we will guide you.
If you spot a post which offends you, or otherwise contravenes these guidelines, do not reply in-thread to express your discontentment. Report the post to the Site Management Team, who will investigate and take the appropriate moderation action. See below to learn more about reporting posts.

Where users fail to follow these guidelines, and thus reject the ethos of fair and constructive debate, they are liable to moderation action from the Site Management Team as per the Moderation Policy.

Reporting Posts

Moderation Policy

The Site Management Team (SMT) are ultimately responsible for the running of SABRE and its online facilities. The President usually also appoints Social Media Admins, Wiki Admins, and the Maps Team to assist the SMT in those specific areas. All of these officers monitor the facilities for which they are responsible, to ensure users are abiding by the User Guidelines, and other regulations where applicable (such as our Copyright Policy, outlined below).

There are various actions the SMT can take to deal with an infraction of the guidelines. Each will be dealt with individually, and the moderation action taken will depend on the nature of the infraction.

The moderation actions outlined below are generally sufficient

Where one or more individuals infract the guidelines

We understand that most users do not intend to breach the User Guidelines, so minor infractions are usually dealt with informally at first.
- An SMT member may send a Private Message to a user, to let them know that they breached the User Guidelines, and to remind them to abide by the guidelines when making future posts.
- This message will make no mention of an official Site Warning.
- Where editing a post would bring it in line with the User Guidelines, such as removing a derogatory word or phrase, the SMT may offer the user an opportunity to do so without penalty.
If a user severely breaches the User Guidelines, continues to break them after repeated reminders, or does not edit a post when requested to by the SMT, the SMT will issue an official Site Warning. The recipient will be sent a Private Message, stating clearly that a Site Warning has been issued, and explaining why. Once issued to a user, a Site Warning remains active on their profile for 90 days, after which it expires automatically.
If a user accrues three Site Warnings within a 90-day period or commits an exceptionally serious infraction of the User Guidelines, the SMT will escalate the matter to the Suspension Policy.

Where several infractions impact an entire discussion

Where the behaviour of some or all of the posters in a thread are impacting the entire discussion (for example a vigorous debate descending into ad-hominem attacks), the SMT will usually intervene in the first instance by posting a reminder within the thread concerned. An SMT member will post the reminder in "blue pen", to indicate that they are speaking in their official capacity on behalf of the SMT.
If posters fail to heed a reminder posted in a thread and continue to breach the User Guidelines, the SMT will lock the thread for a fixed period. This prevents any new posts or replies within the thread. A first lock will usually last for 24-48 hours, and any subsequent locks for the same thread will last longer.
If multiple post reports come in for the same thread at the same time, or if the SMT believes a thread has heated up to the point where a reminder on its own would do little to calm the situation, the SMT reserve the right to lock a thread without prior warning.
If multiple reminders and fixed-period thread locks have failed to bring discussion in line with the User Guidelines, the SMT also reserves the right to permanently lock a thread.
If a thread has been locked, do not attempt to circumvent this by starting a new thread about the same subject matter. Doing so will result in an immediate Site Warning from the SMT.
Where one or more individuals in the thread can clearly be held responsible for the breakdown of discussion, and their posting behaviour in the thread is deemed to have fallen foul of the User Guidelines, the SMT may additionally deal with these users according to the section above, or, in the most extreme or repeated cases, escalate the matter to the Suspension Policy.

Suspension Policy

Ban Policy

A ban refers to the termination of a user's SABRE membership. The Constitution sets out the limited scenarios where a user's account may be liable to termination, and this policy outlines in more detail the processes which must be followed in each of these scenarios.

Appeals Policy

If

Copyright Policy

SABRE is legally bound by intellectual property protection legislation, including copyright.

Uploading images and other media to SABRE (including Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki, the Photo Gallery, or uploaded as an attachment on the Discuss forums) that you have found elsewhere on the Internet can infringe copyright laws. The Site Management Team will therefore be obliged to remove any such media.

We appreciate that this media may well play a role in discussions that take place on SABRE. To avoid copyright infringement, for which SABRE or its Site Management Team may be held legally responsible, we ask you to provide a link to the original source of the media rather than re-uploading it.

Copyright law also provides for a grey area of "fair use", where copyrighted material is used in a transformative manner as a basis for original work. A limited fair use policy applies to small map extracts uploaded to Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki. These map extracts must be tagged with the {{newmap}} template so that they can be easily identified.

Some images have Creative Commons licenses, which allow re-use under certain conditions. If you wish to upload such images to the SABRE Wiki, then please ensure that information about the original source and its Creative Commons re-use licence is included. This is done for you with the automated Geograph and Flickr upload form that is available for use.

All maps scanned and uploaded to SABRE Maps must be within the public domain. We cannot accept any maps that are still subject to copyright.