Adopted on July 28th, 2018.

Updated on January 8th, 2020.

This policy is characterized to keep up the discipline of all our public communities located at Facebook, WhatsApp and Mailing List. It describes the rules, regulations, guidelines and penalty’s in case of their violation. All these communities are intended to express questions and concerns related to technology. If any member abuses any of the following regulations, the administration will take actions as described below:

General Regulations:

The following Regulations are applicable on all our communities including Facebook Group, All WhatsApp Groups and Mailing List:

1. The use of profanity, derogatory statements, or any other form of insults are strictly prohibited. Penalty in case of violation is permanent ban from the group.

2. It is essential that every individual maintain a level of respect when making comments or giving suggestions, by upholding a positive outlook   and avoiding criticism. Penalty in case of violation is five days’ ban.

3. Everyone’s privacy is being given a serious consideration, therefore, sharing your own  or someone else’s any form of personally identifiable information that includes but not limited to phone number, email, identity numbers & password is strictly forbidden. In case of where sharing such information is mandatory, it should be done via Private Messages. In case of 3 consecutive violations, the member will be ban for one week.

4. Any type of advertisement whether relevant to technology or not, either your own entity or someone else’s is not allowed. This includes but not limited to Links of other groups, personal websites and/or YouTube channels. We do consider some special types of advertisements that you have to ask an administrator if your advertisement fits the specified criteria. In case of violation the penalty is ten days’ ban.

5. We ask that Input is kept at a minimal rate, and should exclude content that is not relevant towards discussion of technology. All members are humans that are not available 24/7 and are not full of solutions of every problem therefore in case of delayed response the reputation of queries should be avoided. In case of violation the penalty is three days’ ban.

6. In order to share any technical, informative and beneficial link/multimedia without the request of the other members, following conditions applied:

a) The short description of the item should be provided.

b) The description should be actual representation of the content, calls to action should be avoided. These include but not limited to Like, Share, Comment and Subscribe. Mentioning such things in description is considered as violation of point 4.

c) If you share the external content then you should also take part in the discussions of the community. Sharing content only and sitting silently is considered as violation.

d) Sharing of only two external items are allowed to each member per day. 

Violation will result 1-day ban.

7. All communications and sharing should be done in Official Language of the Community. Penalty on violation is 1 day ban after a warning. The Official Languages of all available Communities are defined below:

a) Facebook Group: English, Urdu, Hindi and Other Languages. For greater outreach of your message, it should be translated either by original correspondent or a fellow member when requested.

b) Mailing List: English only.

c) Main WhatsApp Groups (Blind Help Project & Blind Help Project Females): Urdu, Hindi and English. Due to strong domination of Urdu and Hindi in these communities, Non-Natives of these languages are advised to join the International Groups instead.

d) International WhatsApp Groups (BHP English 1st Edition, BHP English 2nd Edition & Blind Help Project English Females): English only.

8. No any member is allowed to block any of administrator and/or moderator of the community. The penalty in case of violation will be decided according to the nature of the case.

Platform Specific Regulations:

There are some certain regulations that are limited to specific platforms.

WhatsApp Group:

9. Everyone's privacy should be respected; therefore, private messages should only be exchange under approval first. Penalty will be decided depending on the case.

WhatsApp Female Groups:

10. Members of Female WhatsApp groups should insure the security of sensitive data including but not limited to voice messages and contact details of others and the data shouldn't be leaked from the group. The exact penalty will be decided by the administration as per cases but it can be up to 1-year ban.

Guidelines:

The following are the general guidelines for interacting in our community’s. These are not rules or laws but are formed to maintain a healthy, friendly and beneficial environment. It also does not refer to an absolute Not-to-Read list as excessive violation may lead to a severe penalty.

11. In order to consider the importance of time, it is to be guided that, every query and its response should be precise and comprehensive.

12. While putting any query, must mention the required information of related hardware (mobile phone/computer manufacturer and model) or software (application and version number) so that precise responses can be expected.

13. to maintain the discipline of platform, it is to be requested that, while delivering the comment on any topic, be careful about its relevancy. Otherwise create a new post or threat. It is applicable on mailing list and Facebook.

14. When one's desired content is available on the Official Website, downloading it from there is highly encouraged. Asking for a Third Party Link or direct File is suitable in some exceptional cases such as:

a) The member is an absolute newbie;

b) The downloading is restricted by some authorities and a solution is not available; OR

c) The download link on the site is broken.

For Moderators

Following are the regulations specific to Moderators. The penalties for Moderators are not fixed and will be decided on the basis of each case.

15. A Moderator should remain polite all the time in every situation such as while pointing someone out, describing rules or any other moderation related activity.

16. Moderator is not exceptional in sharing off-topic content and/or content in a language which is not the official language of that specific community.

17. A Moderator should not post Official Publications unless exclusively permitted.

18. A Moderator should try not to remain inactive for a longer period of time without reporting to Team.

Definitions:

The special terminologies used throughout this document are defined below and should always be interpreted in the right manner:

19. Administrator: The executive level personnel are known as the administrator.

20. Moderator: A person who is selected from within the community based on his/her performance and activities to moderate the community and maintain discipline is known as a Moderator. A Moderator is not an answering machine for every single query if he/she acts like this then it's his/her own good will and not the responsibility.

21. Member: The person who has joined a community to be benefited and benefit others is called a member.

22. Query: The Post/Message that a participant put to ask question, seek assistance or request for opinion may refer as Query.

23. Penalty: The punishment given to Rule Breaker is refers as penalty.

24. Rule Breaker: The person who has committed an activity against the defined rules.

25. Official Publication: An announcement, Update, NEWS or Celebration text officially from BHP is called Official Publication and can be verified by noticing its appearance on Official Channels

26. Official Channels: The Website, Facebook Page, Twitter Handle, Telegram Channel and YouTube Channel come in Official Channels of BHP.

27. Official Language: The Language allowed to be used in a Community.

28. External Content: Content not belonging to BHP i.e. The website, YouTube channel and Other future platforms or accounts owned by Blind Help Project.

For any suggestions, concerns, or further inquiries, please contact one of our authorized executives. The details can be found on our Contact Us page.

Blind Help Project (BHP) may revise this Community Policy for its communities at any time and an official notification will be issued, every user must read all of our official notifications to stay updated about the latest changes. By participating in our Communities you are agreeing to be bound by the then current version of this Community Policy.

We look forward to serving you, and hope that your participation and experience within the communities is beneficial!