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Forums Guidelines

These are our General Forums Guidelines, our Tips for Kids are here and our Parental Guidelines are here.

The Forums service (“Forums”) gives the Orange community a place to meet, discuss and share ideas. As in a real community, users of Forums are asked to respect others.

Forums are monitored. We will take appropriate action against postings and users that breach our Forums Rules.

Here are the main guidelines we suggest for using forums:

Post on-topic

Keeping on-topic makes forums easier to follow and more constructive to use, so please keep your posts relevant to the topic being discussed.

Orange may delete posts that appear irrelevant to the discussion in which they’re posted.

Keep your personal information safe

Please don’t be afraid of building a Profile as it enriches discussions and lets other users know who’s “behind the post”, giving context to your opinion. However, information in your Profile is intended to give other users a background to your posting, rather than specific personal information.

We recommend that you do not give out your name, the address or phone number of your home, work or school.

Forums are public. So if you do disclose personal information online, it could be collected and used by third parties to send you unsolicited materials.

Orange employees and Forums monitors will never request such details online.

Use caution if supplying your email address

As well as the obvious dangers of giving out your phone number or address, please be wary of giving out your email address.

 If you do give out your email address, don’t open emails from people you don’t know. In particular, do not open emails with attachments from people you don’t know, as these could potentially be carrying viruses or other harmful programs.

Meeting people

Please be careful about meeting other Forums users. When you are online, it is very easy for people to pretend to be someone they’re not.

If you do decide to meet another Forums user in person, please follow these guidelines:

Under 18s:

1. Always ask your parent(s) or guardian(s) first.
2. Ask your parent(s) to go with you.
3. Always meet in a public place of your choice.

Over 18s:

1. Get a friend to accompany you.
2. Always tell someone you trust about where, when, and who you are meeting. 3. Always meet in a public place of your choice.

Receiving unpleasant or uncomfortable messages

If you’ve received an unpleasant message, or one that makes you feel uncomfortable, do not reply to it. You may prefer to block the user so that you do not have to see any of their messages in the future. You can do this by clicking on `ignore this author` in the options menu at the bottom of a particular post.

If you feel it should be reported, email us by clicking the Report Violation button, which is also in the options menu at the bottom of each message (see the ‘Abuse Online’ section below).

Abuse online

Abuse online is very rare, but the Orange Community team is here to help if a problem like this occurs through the use of Forums.

If another Forums user seriously threatens you via Forums, click on the Options menu at the bottom of the post, select Report Violation and complete the online form.

We take abuse on any of our community services very seriously and will look into each and every case that is sent to us.

For further details on reporting abuse, visit our abuse page.

Further assistance

The Netsmart rules are further guidelines for using online community services by the charity, NCH. Check out our guide to using content filters and parental control software to create a safer online environment for you and your children.