Terms and Conditions

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Community Rules & Etiquette and Privacy Guidelines

Thank you for being part of the vibrant and active online community at Building Designers Association of Australia “BDAA”. To ‘build’ and ‘sustain’ the best possible experience for all members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.

By joining and using this community, hosted by the BDAA, you agree that you have read and will follow these rules and guidelines. You also agree to reserve discussions and shared files and content to that best suited to the medium and to subjects that concern the building design and building sustainability industry. This is the ideal platform to solicit the advice of your peers in the building design and sustainability industry, benefit from their experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation. Questions should be directed to our community manager via the Contact Us link on this site.

Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue among professional designers and thermal performance assessor, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate membership in this community for anyone who violates these rules.


The Rules
  • Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the building designer or assessor making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer guests and members; there’s no such thing as a stupid question, especially in an industry and a built landscape where things are ever changing.

  • Respect the purpose of the community. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals in your building design or thermal performance assessor work, instead of products or services that you provide in the building industry. If you’ve found a product or service helpful, especially one provided by our industry partners, please share your experience with the group in a respectful way.

  • Use caution when discussing products. Information posted on the discussion groups and in the libraries is available for all to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.

  • All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited. Do not post anything that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you. Also to this point, please remember the respectful and family-like atmosphere of the BDAA.

  • Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator. This is especially true when it comes to designs and plans.

  • When posting items in our collaborative environment, please indicate if the item is not available for reuse. It’s also advisable to contact the owner of any material if you would like to reuse it. Again, this is essential when it comes to plans and designs.

  • Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities, this could be a community that concerns a specific style of building or design, a certain segment of the building sustainability industry. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise.


Discussion Group Etiquette

  • State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject. Specify the type of building design or industry topic that the message concerns.

  • Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the en­­tire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link in every message.

  • Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” to the group. Instead, use the web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your settings.


The Legal Stuff

This site is provided as a service for the members of Building Designers Association of Australia “BDAA”.  The BDAA is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. We disclaim all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by the BDAA or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the BDAA be liable for any special, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of any information posted on this site.

Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials.  Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. Do not post trade secrets, details of designs or TPA assessments unless full permission is given by all parties. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants the BDAA and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.

Messages should not be posted if they encourage or facilitate members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers. Conflicts between builders, assessors, designers, etc., should not be aired out in this forum.

Building Designers Association of Australia does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings and does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to the attention of the BDAA, the BDAA will take all appropriate action.

Building Designers Association of Australia reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.



Privacy Policy

Any personal information you provide to us including and similar to your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address, or your design company info, will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of our association except as noted below.

With Whom Do We Share the Personal Information We Collect Through This Site:

Our Service Providers
We will not share your personal information with companies (including our industry partners) that perform services on our behalf. Our service providers are required by contract to protect the confidentiality of the personal information we share with them and to use it only to provide specific services on our behalf.

Business Transfers
Your personal information may be transferred to another entity (either an affiliated entity or an unrelated third party) in connection with a merger, reorganisation, dissolution or similar corporate event. If such a transfer were ever to occur, the acquiring entity’s use of your personal information will still be subject to this Privacy Policy.

Government and Legal Disclosures
We may disclose the personal information we collect through this Site, when we, in good faith, believe disclosure is appropriate to comply with the law (or a court order or subpoena); to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; to enforce our Terms and Conditions or other agreements that govern your use of this Site; or to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or others.

External Sites
We are not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Cookies
A "cookie" is a small data text file that is placed in your browser and allows us to recognise you each time you visit this site (personalisation, etc). Cookies themselves do not contain any personal information, and we do not use cookies to collect personal information.


Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet
While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information. In addition other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through our site have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.  For any other information please contact us using the Contact Us page.