CafeSaxophone Forum Rules, privacy and safety

General Rules​

General Rules | Marketing Rules | Yardsale (Classifieds) Rules

The rules below have been in place for many years, we urge all members to read them, in spite of the fact that you don't like reading T & Cs. neither do I, but in this case they really do help to keep the forum a nice place. Sorry.

• You may not use Cafesaxophone for illegal activities (as defined under any national or international laws), whether it is directly illegal, or promotion of or supporting/condoning/encouraging illegal activities. Please note that this forum is available to all ages, sexes, races, religions, orientations etc. You may not post anything offensive, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, abusive, harassing, aggressive, pornographic, insulting or obscene. From January 2025 this now extends to anything covered by the UK Online Safety Act 2023.
• Any objections to other members behaviour should be made in confidence to moderators via the report button, not publically on the forums.
• Certain offensive words are automatically replaced with asterisks. Do not try to get around this by deliberately mis-spelling, using spaces, abbreviations or special characters.
• No political or religious discussions, or references in avatars, signatures or profile info.This may include anything which appears to be or could encourage or incite such posts or topics that may have become politicised in different territories due to recent or recently controversial legislation such as gun law, hunting, and climate change denial. No discussion of holocaust denial. 2020 update: this now includes COVID related politicised topics such as discussing the efficacy or not of medical authority recommendations including masks, vaccinations and treatments/cures.
• The following may be removed or edited by admin:
  • one-word or short meaningless posts, redundant posts such as “PM sent”
  • duplicate posts
  • email addresses, phone numbers (whether it is your own or anyone else’s), the contents of private correspondence without permission (Emails, Pms etc.)
  • ALL CAPITALS or special characters (e.g. asterisks, chevrons etc.), especially in the subject header to draw attention to your posts.
• You may not join under more than one username (aka sockpuppet). If you have done this by accident please contact admin.
• You may not edit your posts in such a way as to make other posts appear nonsensical, e.g once your post has been quoted. Unless it is to fix a typo. It is especially bad to delete the first post of a thread, or edit quotes of other members.
• If you remove an audio file on another site that your post here links to, you must inform us so we can remove the link or thread so as to not inconvenience other members. If you post any links to your own files hosted elsewhere, you must inform admin if you remove those files and so cause dead links in your messages
• If you are contacted by a moderator in regard to any perceived breach of rules or use of the forum, you must respond before making any further posts.

Guidelines & Etiquette​

• Above all please be polite. It’s fine to disagree and to point out when you think somebody is wrong, but please do so with respect and not in a rude, snide, snarky, aggressive, accusatory, or confrontational manner.
• If you want to delete or edit your posts after the initial time to do so has lapsed, then you should do this by contacting an admin. The same applies to discussion of moderator action such as post/thread deletions, disciplinary decisions, account suspensions etc.
• If possible posts should be written in the English language (which may include native dialects such as UK, US, Australian etc). You may post in other languages providing you also include an English translation.
• Please take some time to see if a question you have has already been asked. If you have something new to add to that discussion please do so in the thread rather than starting a whole new thread on the same thing.
• Please use thread titles that are descriptive of the topic, this helps with searches and the likelihood of getting the best responses. No emojis in thread titles, it just looks a mess in the thread list. Please don’t be offended if we edit thread titles that do not comply, or move off topic content.
• If you want to leave our community, please do not make a big deal out of it and storm off in a hissy fit (aka YAGE - Yet Another Grand Exit).

Copyrights & Ownership of Contents/data/media​

• Your post must be original text, ie not published anywhere else on the net and not copied and pasted apart from very small excerpts used as quotes/references. You may not embed audio/video files from another site unless that site specifically and legally allows linking or embedding, e.g. Youtube.
• You grant us the non-exclusive right to retain, move, edit or delete any content you post on Cafésaxophone (e.g. text, music, images, video etc.). We also have the right to republish or quote that content on our other sites or on social media, provided that we credit the authorship. You will retain the overall copyright outside of these terms.
• You may not post, upload, link to or offer to share (whether free or paid for) copies of any copyright material. This includes
  • articles
  • lyrics
  • recordings
  • images
  • video
  • sheet music with any melodic notation (just chord sequences are OK)
• For more information please see the copyright guidelines thread here
• Note that ultimately we (Cafésaxophone) could potentially be held legally liable for any infringements of copyright included in members' posts so we respectfully ask you to make your best endeavours to check before posting. If you are in doubt about something you want to post please contact us

Marketing (inc. Educational resources and sites, retailers, promoters, manufacturers, endorsers/affilliate brands)​

Endorsers

Note that this term includes both official and "unofficial" endorsers. If you were given a free item or discounted item outside of a regular sale, then you need to disclose that when discussing/reviewing that product or posting videos.

Affiliate brands

Cafesaxophone relies on affiliate income (commission on sales) from certain brands. From time to time we may promote these via discount coupons.

• Do not post any business or educational marketing material without prior permission, apart from single used items which can be offered for sale in the “Yard Sale” section (see below). Any replies you make in which you mention your products must be completely on topic, e.g. answering questions, and should not include any sales information. The above applies whether you have a direct interest in the business or indirect as an affiliate or endorsing artist
• Members wishing to sell commercially (vendors) should arrange a commercial account upgrade. Contact us for details.
• You may not promote any product or service in which you have an interest without first discussing with admin. e.g. masquerading as a “happy customer” (shill). This also applies to promoting of, or soliciting registration at, a competing forum without first discussing with admin.
• All vendors must have a public customer support physical address and telephone number
• You may not mention or link to any competing affiliate schemes/coupons for the same brand. See here for affiliates
• Any marketing which is considered to be off topic or goes beyond useful information in the context of a thread will be removed.
• Multiple posts which appear to be gratuitous marketing or repeated recommendation of the same product may be viewed as spam
• Manufacturers’ Product Announcements should be made in the appropriate forum and should be original content, not copied and pasted ads. You should contact admin before posting.
• Links: You can link to your own (non-commercial) website, social media etc. in your profile, signature or posts, but we appreciate appropriate link from that site to cafesaxophone.com. Any such links must be on a home page or page directly linked in your main navigation. Links to commercial must be with admin permission and must reciprocate as advised by admin.
• Your username cannot be a website URL or an email address
• Do not solicit members via Direct Message for business purposes, unless they have expressed an interest specifically via the forum. Anyone receiving such solicitations should report to admin.

Yardsale (Classifieds)​

The buyer pays the seller directly. The seller pays a 5% (or optionally more) contribution to the fundraising* based on the advertised value or the value of any offer accepted (voluntary maximum £150/$200). For trades or part exchanges the amount is based on the estimated monetary value.

* For wanted ads, the purchaser pays the contribution.

Fees are payable only when a transaction is successful.

• The Yardsale (classifieds section) is not intended for use by people joining the forum purely to advertise item (for sale or wanted) , so members must have at least 40 posts and have been a member for 2 months. However new members may post classifieds if they either
  • upgrade their account with an annual subscription. This is for access without needing the 40 posts. The contribution after a successful sale still applies.
  • or pay the 5% contribution on the initial listing price in advance then a listing will be allowed.
• No soliciting of sales/trades or advertising outside the Yardsale (e.g. on other forums in the Café, via DM or signature). You may link to a Yardsale ad in from another thread provided it is in answer to a relevant question.
• Please don't ask buyers to use the Paypal Personal (Friends & Family) option for transactions. Apart from contravening Paypal policy and being possibly fraudulent, the normal Paypal protection is not included. Always take any fees into account with the price.
• For all sales completed we ask for a contribution to our Cafesaxophone fundraising. We suggest minimum 5%, but you are free of course to donate more if you wish. Please use the YARDSALE button at the bottom of the page
• Payments should be made within one week of buyer confirming safe receipt of item. Please advise Jeanette if this will not be possible. Failure to pay in a timely manner may result in exclusion from the yard sale and other listings being removed.
• Public discussion/debate regarding the asking price or accuracy of description is not allowed. Report the post if you think it is inaccurate or discuss with the seller privately.
• No Off Topic posts unless the seller specifically allows this.
• Items you have for sale outside the Cafe (e.g. eBay, Reverb) should not be posted in the Yardsale, but in the ‘Your Ebay Auctions’ section
• No product announcements, event promotion or business advertising. The Yardsale is for one-off private sales of used items, not for advertising a product range.
• Sellers must provide an accurate detailed description of any items offered for sale or exchange.
• No counterfeit or stolen items.
• No sales of any software, media files, e-books etc. unless the licence or T&C attached to them explicitly allows this.
• No gratuitous bumping of your posts within any two week period (e.g. "still for sale," "sale pending"). Posting to mention price reductions > 2% are fine.
• When an item is sold, you should mark it as sold by editing the thread and changing the title prefix.
• All sales are conducted between the seller & buyer at their own risk. No warranty, liability or responsibility is accepted by CafeSaxophone for transactions conducted. Any problems/disputes are the sole responsibility of the buyer/seller concerned.
• You may only offer for sale or exchange goods which you own, or have the owner’s permission to trade on their behalf. If you are selling on behalf of someone else you must disclose this in the ad.
• When an advert has been placed, failure to respond to enquiry posts on the thread or via DM may result in the advert being removed.
• Auctions are occasionally allowed for lots of several items when 100% is a paid to Cafe, but please ask first.

Any breaking of these rules could lead to automatically being suspended or banned from the forum with no warning.

Although the administrators and moderators of Cafe Saxophone Discussion will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All content expresses the views of the individual author of the content (forum messages, resources, profile etc.) and not the owners of Cafe Saxophone who may not be held responsible or liable for any damages resulting from advice given by individual members or content authors, or from any material linked to.

The owners of Cafe Saxophone Discussion reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason with or without notice.

 

[Pete Thomas]

(Draft) Addendum to CafeSaxophone rules in the light of the Online Safety Act 2023​

In the context of the UK Online Safety Regulations, "illegal content" and "potential harm to users, especially children" refer to specific types of content and behaviors that we will address to protect users, particularly vulnerable individuals such as children.

Illegal Content​

This refers to content that directly violates the law. It includes, but is not limited to:

1. Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM): Any form of content that depicts or promotes the sexual abuse or exploitation of children.
2. Terrorist Content: Content promoting terrorism, including terrorist attacks, extremist ideologies, and recruitment materials for terrorist groups.
3. Hate Speech: Content that promotes violence or discrimination based on characteristics such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
4. Fraudulent and Scamming Content: Content intended to deceive individuals for financial gain, such as phishing schemes, fraudulent offers, and fake product promotions.
5. Intimate Image Abuse: Content involving the sharing or distribution of intimate images or videos without consent, often referred to as "revenge porn."
6. Incitement to Violence: Any content that promotes or encourages violence, self-harm, or criminal activity.

The full list is here:

Categories of priority illegal content

1. Terrorism
2. Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA)

a. Grooming​

b. Image-based Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)​

c. CSAM URLs​

3. Hate
4. Harassment, stalking, threats and abuse
5. Controlling or coercive behaviour
6. Intimate image abuse
7. Extreme pornography
8. Sexual exploitation of adults
9. Human trafficking
10. Unlawful immigration
11. Fraud and financial offences
12. Proceeds of crime
13. Drugs and psychoactive substances
14. Firearms, knives and other weapons
15. Encouraging or assisting suicide
16. Foreign interference
17. Animal cruelty

Under the Online Safety Regulations, platforms are required to take measures to prevent such illegal content from being shared, and must have systems in place for users to report and remove it promptly.

Potential Harm to Users, Especially Children​

This refers to content or behaviors that may not necessarily be illegal but still pose significant risks to users, particularly children. These may include:

1. Cyberbullying and Harassment: Online bullying or harassment, which can lead to emotional distress, depression, or even self-harm, particularly in young people.
2. Exposure to Harmful or Disturbing Content: Content that could have a negative psychological effect on children, such as graphic violence, self-harm tutorials, or explicit material not related to sexual abuse but still harmful to a child's mental or emotional well-being.
3. Misinformation and Disinformation: False or misleading content, especially around sensitive topics like health, that may lead children to make dangerous decisions or develop incorrect beliefs. This can include anything that may go against national or government safety advice in regard to pandemics.
4. Addiction and Excessive Use: Platforms that encourage excessive screen time or addiction to certain types of content, such as gaming or social media, which can interfere with a child's development, education, and well-being.
5. Predatory Behavior: Online grooming or manipulation by adults trying to exploit or abuse children. This may include predatory messaging, inappropriate content, or online activities aimed at developing a relationship with a minor for harmful purposes.

Draft risk assessment​

To address illegal content and minimize harm, especially to children, we carry out the following measures:

• Identify and Block Illegal Content:
  • All posts by new members are flagged as requiring moderation before being made public. This helps us to identify users who have not joined with a "legitimate interest" in the forum topic.
  • The level of activity on the forum is such that we can can ensure safe content using:
    • human moderators (with DBS checks) to detect and prevent the sharing of illegal or harmful content.
    • A high moderator to active user ratio.
    • our report system which allows any registered user to report content which infringes either the Cafesaxophone regulations or contains any illegal or harmful content. Reports are sent via email notifications and so are monitored several times a day and ensure any such content is removed in a timely manner.
  • To date there have been zero instances of any harmful material as described in the act.
  • We regularly monitor uploaded file attachments to Direct Messages (aka DMs or PMs) but moderators do not monitor the text or linked content therein, unless there is a specific reason to do so (e.g. suspected abuse, illegal or harmful use of the system). However our report system extends to Direct Messages so any participant in a DM may flag DM content via the report system.
• Implement Age Verification:
  • Members are already required to declare their age range (13 to 17, or over 18) at the time of registering.
  • Minors have no permissions to either send or receive direct messages.
  • All content posted or uploaded to the forum must be suitable for all age groups, hence there is no need for any age restricted areas.

By taking these actions, we minimize the risks associated with illegal content and protect users, particularly vulnerable groups such as children, from harm. We consider the risk associated with all 17 categories of the illegal content to be negligible.

29/12/2024

 

[Pete Thomas]

Privacy​

Your privacy is critically important to us. Cafesaxophone ("we") will uphold some fundamental principles:

Your Personal Information​

• You control whether your personal information in your profile is displayed publically
• We don’t share your personal information with anyone except in exceptional circumstances to comply with the law or protect our rights. See below Exceptional circumstances
• We don’t store personal information provided by you to us on our servers unless required for the on-going operation of our services, e.g. records of financial transactions. These are required by any business for the purposes of accounting to tax authorities.
• IP addresses may be held temporarily for the purpose of identifying abuse of forum rules (e.g. duplicate accounts). These are never made public.

What about GDPR rights?​

See our GDPR policy here

Why do we need your email address?​

The forum has a system of notifications, whereby new content is notified via email.

Why do we need your location?​

Locations are purely for other members' interest. They are optional and can be approximate. You do not need to supply your house address!

Do we need your name?​

You are under no obligation to use your real name, when setting up your account you provide a username, or nickname, which can be anything you like.

How other members view your details​

You can set which information is displayed publically in your Account Privacy Settings

Does anyone else have access to the data?​

Emails sent from the site are made via an email SMTP service provider, Postmark. You can see their privacy policy here.

The provider of website hosting and technical server support is MattwServices. They ensure the site (its database and files on their servers) is properly secured against any kind of attack or hacking. You can see their privacy policy here

Advertising​

From time to time we may show ads to help fund the site, usually only to guests not members and these are always quite minimal.

Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this site

Google's use of the advertising cookie enables it and its partners to serve ads to based on their visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet. The Personal Data collected are Tracker, Usage Data, as stated in their Privacy & Terms

Users may opt out of the use of the advertising cookie for interest-based advertising in their Cookie preferences

Alternatively you can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for interest-based advertising by visiting aboutads.info

Cookies​

If you continue to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies. See our cookie policy

Forums​

Messages you post in forums are potentially viewable by anyone with the exception of the Café supporters only forum. These can only be seen by admins and other supporters.

Direct Messages (DMs)​

Member may communicate with one or more other members via direct messages (DMs). They are similar to what other forums and social media refer to as private messages.

Note that we do not call them Private Messages as this could be misleading. It is misleading on other forums who lead you to believe they are actually private. On any forum, they are never totally private.

In practice, a DM on cafe Saxophone is a conversations between two or more members that are not visible to others. According to our rules members may not share content of DMs on the public CaféSaxophone forum.

Although moderators and admins do not monitor text content of DMs (and therefore do not moderate them), any images uploaded are viewable and may be monitored from time to time in line with our obligations under the Online Safety Act 2023. Any images deemed to be illegal or harmful will be removed. All members have the right to complain or appeal against any such removal.

Please also bear in mind that it is possible for a member to report an abusive, offensive or illegal DM to moderators, in which case the moderator will be able to see the reported part of themessage.

NB: Like all other forums and social media it is technically possible for server administrators to access DMs, which would only happen under exceptional circumstances.

Exceptional Circumstances​

For example:

• Requests from law enforcement agencies with the appropriate warrants.
• Any action needed to be taken by admin to ensure the legality and security of the forum, for example if there are good grounds to suspect fraudulent or other illegal activity.

Please note that this is standard for any forum or social media site. Our policy is to not access personal conversations or allow any third party access unless exceptional circumstances require it. However you are advised to be aware that nothing you say in DMs on this forum, or other forums is truly confidential in terms of absolute privacy.

If you don't agree with this part of the privacy policy, please consider using alternative forms of personal communication between yourself and other members, such as encrypted email, postal service or telephone. Also bear in mind we are not advising that any of these will give you any more actual privateness.

For this reason we do not actually call them Private Messages or Private Conversations – although they do function in the same way as "PMs" on any other forum software or social network, with one main difference: this is that you have control over whether other participants are invited into the conversation. Hence it can be more of a conversation between several people rather than a message to one person.

We do not allow the public posting of conversations between yourself and other members. However, CaféSaxophone can not be held responsible if another member publishes or alludes to something you say in a conversation. Notwithstanding, we advise you to make it clear (and ask the the participants to to accept) in the conversation when you mention something confidential.

Moreover please be aware members can report to moderators any conversations which are deemed to be spam, illegal, harrassing or otherwise against forum policy.

 

[Pete Thomas]

GDPR regulations:​

We follow all EU/UK GDPR policies.

Personal Data​

You may request a download of all personal data we may hold including:

• names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses
• identification numbers like Social Security, passport, or driver’s license numbers
• location data such as GPS coordinates or IP addresses
• health-related or healthcare information
• political opinions, religious beliefs, or membership in trade unions
• any other information you make entered in your user account profile (however you are always able to view and edit that)

Note that we can readily supply any of the above that may be held in our member account database. If any of the above is something you posted in UGC (User Generated Content = threads or Direct Messages) then you are responsible for helping us to locate it. However we recommend that the best thing may be to not post such personal information in the first place.

• If we receive a request for any of the above, we may ask you to verify your identity before acting on the relevant request; this is to ensure that your data is protected and kept secure. If you created an online account with us, you are able to modify and update your own personal information by logging into your user account.
• If you are not satisfied with our response or you believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office

Privacy​

See our privacy policy and cookie information

Account closure​

We hate to see you go so we do request that you contact us with your reasons if appropriate, especially if we have done something or the forum itself is at fault. If you are concerned about a moderation issue we are always happy to discuss that. Ideally we would like to sort out any issues.

If you are feeling bullied or harassed, then we can take that up with other members. If other members are annoying you, then you may wish to consider the ignore feature. Or maybe you just need a break from online activity, in which case we'd first recommend you keep your account and just take a break. But if, after considering those, and you still want to close your account then of course we respect that.

You may request an account closure which can be either

• Closed. All that remains will be your username associated with any messages you posted - but to all intents and purposes is closed. You will not be able to post, view any of the members only areas, send or receive Direct Messages or maintain a user account profile. All personal data is removed.
• Fully closed and anonymised. As above but your username will be anonymised (e.g. Closed Account 1234). If your original name was quoted in messages by someone else then such quotes will remain.

Please note that as per the terms and conditions you signed up to, we will usually keep all the messages you have posted on the forum. Deletion of all of a member's posts often leads to threads that are disjointed or make no sense without them. If any posts contain any personal data as outlined above then under your GDPR rights these posts can be deleted or edited and we can do our best to locate them, however the responsibility of locating such data will rest with you.