Introduction
Content on the TelSoc website including journal articles, newsletters, presentations, histories, blogs, images and other media are intended for general publication to fulfil the aims of the Society relating to telecommunications and the digital economy.
These guidelines are to assist authors and commentators in ensuring that contributions are relevant, of good quality and meet appropriate community standards.
Disclaimer
The content on the website does not necessarily represent the views of TelSoc, nor its Board, nor its members. Opportunities are provided in most cases for members or others to publish comments on the content. Content and comments are subject to deletion without notice if they do not comply with these guidelines.
Consequences of publication
A feature of publication on the web is that search engines, libraries and other bodies index our material, take copies, create archives and extend publication, potentially in perpetuity. In this respect they improve the accessibility of our material and make it available for future generations.
For example, Google indexes our website on a daily basis. Other sites such as Archive.org and PANDORA take periodic snapshots of our website creating published archives of it as it changes over time.
Content guidelines
The Society encourages contributions and debate on issues of relevance to telecommunications and the digital economy. However, it is pointed out that offensiveness, bias, polemic, irrelevancy and lack of precision weaken arguments and degrade the discussion. The use of "loaded" words should be avoided. The Wikipedia content policies provide useful background reading for authors, particularly the Manual of style - Words to watch.
This is not to discourage creative writing but to ensure that your arguments are most convincing for an informed and professional audience.
Privacy
Authors and editors should be familiar with the Privacy Policy of the Society and ensure compliance. In particular, personal contact information for any living person should not be published including residential addresses, email addresses and phone numbers. An author may publish his or her own email address in a public profile. Email addresses will be automatically obfuscated to avoid spambots.
Permission
Permission needs to be obtained from any and all rights holders to publish material which is subject to copyright or other publication rights.
Acknowledgements
Whether or not permission is required, all rights holders, contributors and sources of material and information should be acknowledged.
Respect
In the words of Voltaire, "To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth." Whilst we might quibble with the word "only" we should subject our work to this test before we release it for publication. The reputation of our Society depends significantly upon the integrity of our work and our respectfulness towards all members of our wider community.
Copyright
This is a summary of the TelSoc copyright policy.
Authors of other content on the site may claim copyright by including a copyright notice within their content.
Where copyright is not claimed, the default licence is Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia Licence.
Content moderation
Content which significantly breaches these guidelines maybe edited in consultation with the author or removed in its entirity if repeated breaches occur.
There is a level of automatic moderation by an external service which is essentially aimed at removing spam but it will also reject posts which are irrelevant or offensive.
Contributors' consent
This document is drawn to the attention of all contributors to TelSoc publications and it is assumed that by contributing they understand the nature and intent of our publications and give their permission for publication and inclusion on the website.