Utilita Community Guidelines

Hi everyone and welcome to the community if it’s your first time here! I’m Rebecca, the Community Manager 😊

The Community is a place for anyone to get involved and there will always be a great mix of people. To make sure everyone gets the most out of the Community and feels good doing it, we’ve created some tips & guidelines below on how to be a great member. So, take a read of the below please and get involved!

It’s my job as your Community Manager to help ensure the Community is a welcoming place for all members. If you see something that goes against the guidelines below, please report it by using the “Report Inappropriate Content” link in the bottom-left corner of each post. We review flagged content and take appropriate action as needed

Here's our full guidelines

1. Please respect each other
New members and regular contributors alike - everyone has the right to post their views, as well as ask a question, regardless of their knowledge.

2. No personal info - Be safe online
The Community is a public website, so be careful
I want to make sure you’re always safe online, especially when discussing financial stuff. This Community is publicly accessible, so only share information here you would be happy to share publicly in the real world. Be safe and secure online
Your information will be treated in accordance with our Privacy Policy. This guideline accounts for the actions of Utilita staff members too. Please do not reference staff members by full name, or divulge any of their contact details without their permission.
About Live Chat (personal conversations): Please don't mention any chat advisors by their name and avoid copy-pasting the whole chat transcripts on here - instead, make a comment on the experience itself. If the transcript is absolutely needed in your feedback, post only the part you need (e.g. a few sentences).

3. Search first - You may find the answer you’re looking for
Use the search function before posting a question to see if you can find the answer to your question from previously-posted threads. We have a guide on the Community search function here.
3.1. If you still can’t find what you’re after, don’t be afraid to post a question! Asking questions is as much a part of contributing to the Community as answering them.

4. If someone helps you out with advice, say thanks!
It's lovely when members help each other here in the Community - and it's just as nice to say thanks when they do. Show some gratitude to helpful members, as it makes them feel great. You can also use the Like button to show appreciation and if you get an answer that solves your problem, use the Verified Answer button!

5. Be kind, respectful and supportive of others
We’re really proud at Utilita that this Community is a lovely place to spend time and chat with others - that’s because of all of you!
We all have bad days and sometimes that makes us a bit crabby with others, but always consider that there is someone else on the other side of what you say. Treat members here like you’d treat your friends in real life. That counts for the community team too.
5.1. Don’t hold other members up for negative judgement or belittle them if they get something wrong; we were all learners once! It’s a great opportunity for you to teach them about the Community and the help they are giving.
5.2. Be pleasant and constructive – no offensive, defamatory or abusive language.
5.3. No unlawful, libellous, damaging content please
5.4. No spam (repeated post/views that do not help a member in their thread).
5.5. Public naming and shaming of other members for whatever negative reason is disrespectful. Such posts will be edited or removed.
5.6. Please consider this guideline when you have conversations with each other in Private Messaging as well as on the public forum side.

6. It's a family-friendly Community
The team and I run the Community with the view that anyone should be able to use it, so whenever you write something out, think to yourself…..would this make it into a 12A movie? If not, probably best to leave it out of your post. This also goes for talking about anything illegal, for obvious reasons.
6.1. Please don’t post information that is inaccurate or intentionally damaging to someone. This includes but is not limited to links or information to websites or servers that contain viruses, inhibitive malware etc.

7. Usernames
Inappropriate usernames will need to be changed please. If this does not happen, we’ll unfortunately need to restrict your access until you create a more suitable username.
7.1. This includes obscene, defamatory or abusive, libellous, damaging, injurious, foul, swearing, racist language, advertising of goods, services and websites.
7.2. Should a permanent suspension occur, it will not affect the energy service you may have with Utilita.
7.3 Please do not use the company name of Utilita in your username, as well as a username that appears to be critical of other companies. If so, you may be asked to choose an alternative username by the community team.
7.4 That goes for avatars and profile pics too ?

8. The Community is self-moderating - Please help us by flagging anything you feel needs looking at
If you see something that you think needs to be addressed, feel free to report it so that it can be looked at. This is done when members believe someone isn’t following the guidelines. Members do this by using the “Report Inappropriate Content” link in the bottom-left corner of each post.
8.1. If you have reported something, there is no need to reply on the thread in question that you have done so. The report is enough and the moderation/admin team will pick it up.

9. Only post if you should
Pointless posts are do not offer value or contribute to a discussion, and deviate from discussions. If a member is asking for advice, before you reply, make sure you read the previous replies first and understand what the original poster is asking. Try and make sure your replies are helpful and relevant to that thread. If you have a discussion point that is related, try to make sure it is still relevant.

10. Stay on topic to help everyone
Please try to stick to the topic, and start a new thread if there is something unrelated you’d like to discuss. If a thread starts to head off-topic, a member of the Community staff may move the comments/thread somewhere more appropriate. Remember that we have a whole section for off-topic content here[link] in case your topic/comment doesn’t fit into any other category.

11. Advertising & Promotion
11.1. Please don’t advertise goods/services for sale. Other websites are specifically set up for this task, are much better at it and have the staff to support disputes. Advertising means posting links to products in threads out of context, as well as creating threads to advertise a specific product.
11.2. Please do not use this Community to advertise or promote other communities or groups, publicly or via Private Messages. If in doubt, please contact a member of the Community management team with the full URL you intend to post.

12. Proprietary rights
Please do not submit anything that infringes trademarks, copyrights or any other proprietary rights of any person or company.
12.1. Please don’t post information that is inaccurate or intentionally damaging to someone. This includes but is not limited to links or information to websites or servers that contain viruses, inhibitive malware etc.

13. Impersonating Utilita staff and other Utilita Community members
Please do not impersonate Utilita staff or other Utilita Community members in any way.

14. If we feel that you breach our guidelines, we might need to talk to you
Myself and the community team will always attempt to reconcile any issues through discussion with you before a suspension is ever considered - but we will go down this route if/when we have to (it’s the last thing we’ll ever want to do). We’ll also need to remove anything from the public community if it's a guidelines breach.
14.1. Utilita may also need to take legal action wherever appropriate. We’d rather not do that, so please keep to the guidelines.
14.2. Creating an alternative account to circumvent moderation activity will not be tolerated.

15. Disputes
In the event of disputes or clarification on any of the guidelines the Community Management Team’s decision is final. We never take a decision lightly, so please respect our actions and these guidelines
15.1. If you wish to escalate any discussion or dispute you may have with a member of our Community team regarding the guidelines and their implementation, please ask for this to be raised with a Community Manager.
15.2. Please do not discuss moderation that has affected you on the public forum, as this is a matter to be dealt with individually with the Community team via private message.
15.3. If the community team sends you a private message to discuss community conduct, guideline issues or anything else, we'd really like to chat with you and see if we can find some middle-ground. Please respond to private messages from the community team. You may not always agree with our actions, but private messaging is there for us to explain why we do things, and is s for the greater good of the community.

16. Content
The majority of Content posted on the Utilita Community is created by members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated, are not ours. We are not responsible for any Content posted by members of the public on the Utilita Community or for the availability or Content of any third-party sites that are accessible through the Utilita Community. Any links to third-party websites from the Utilita Community do not amount to any endorsement of that site by us and any use of that site by you is at your own risk. Any content that needs to be removed as a breach of any guidelines will be done so by the Community staff team.

17. Updating of the guidelines
Please note these guidelines are subject to updates without notice. We urge members to check these guidelines on a regular basis.
Got a question about the guidelines? Send me a DM any time