Website Policies

 Updated - January 20, 2023

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

The following terms and conditions govern your use of this website.

Using the DPOA website (referred to as the site or website), and/or signing up for an account on the website, constitutes your agreement to the terms and conditions. If you do not agree with these terms and conditions, do not continue using the DPOA website.

Registration on the DPOA website is restricted to residents, and property owners of Downs on the Severn. Each household within the Downs is provided with a primary account. The primary account will have the right to participate in blogs, forums, and commenting, as well as the right to participate in any polls or votes conducted on the site. The profile of the primary account may be listed in the DPOA Directory. Residents may apply for additional accounts for household members. These additional accounts may participate in blogs, forums, and commenting, but will not have voting rights and will be listed in the directory with the primary account.

Some sections of the website are restricted to members only. The administrators of the website control which sections are restricted to members only. You must have a valid email address and must activate your membership by logging in to the site. You may need to be approved by an administrator, before your member account becomes active. You must be 18 years of age or older to register.

Your account is subject to removal / deactivation / suspension / etc. at anytime, without prior notice.

By posting information, files, data, etc. of any kind to the website, you agree that the content is yours, and is not infringing on any copyrights. If you believe that the DPOA website contains information, files, data, etc. that infringes on a copyright, please notify the administrator immediately.

The DPOA may revise or change the Terms and Conditions at any time without notice. When posted to the DPOA website, the changes will be considered effective. Your continued use of the site after any changes are made, will be considered acceptance of those changes.

Each account has the choice to opt out of the community directory. Please note that if you choose to be included in the community directory, your information will be displayed only on the restricted section of the website. However, the DPOA does not warrant the security of your personal information.

The DPOA may collect information while using this site, including, but not limited to, when you sign up for an account on the DPOA website. Our use of such information is explained in our Privacy Policy.

Site users are prohibited from posting any inappropriate content. Please carefully read the Comment Policy.

During your use of the DPOA website, you may be linked to third party website. You agree that the DPOA has no control over such website, and that your use of those website is subject to the terms and conditions, privacy policies, etc. of those website. You also agree that you will hold The DPOA harmless for content on those websites.

The DPOA is not responsible for the content of the DPOA website, as some content (such as comments and discussions) may be posted by registered users.

PRIVACY POLICY

The following privacy policy is used to inform users on how their personal information is used.

You must be 18 years or older to sign up for an account on the DPOA website.

Certain information may be collected during your use of the DPOA website, including, but not limited to:

• IP Address
• Operating System
• Browser Information
• Pages visited, visit duration, and other information about your visit

This information is used solely for development purposes to improve your experience on the DPOA website. It is our policy to not disclose this information to third parties, unless required by law.

Personal information may be collected when signing up for accounts. This information is used primarily for the community directory, but is also used to help the administrators when approving your account. It is our policy to not disclose this information to third parties, unless required by law.

If you have agreed to receive emails from the DPOA website administrators, you may receive emails from time to time. You can subscribe or un-subscribe from some website emails and set their frequency through your account settings on the website.

Cookies and/or session cookies may be used on the DPOA website, and are used to help improve your visits to DPOA website.

COMMENTS, POSTINGS AND EMAIL POLICY

The DPOA wants to encourage an open exchange of information and ideas. But, if you become a nuisance while using the site’s comment forms, forums, blogs, and/or email capabilities, we reserve the right (but assume no obligation) to remove your comment(s) and/or ban you from this website.

Offending comments include, but are not limited to:

1. Potentially libelous (slanderous)
2. Defamatory, abusive, obscene, racist, or otherwise hateful
3. Foul and/or vulgar language
4. Inappropriately sexual comments
5. Personal attacks or otherwise threatening
6. Illegal material or material that infringes on the rights of others
7. Commercial postings attempting to sell a product/item other than resident's personal property except as detailed below
8. Promoting political or religious agendas
9. Calling out or identifying specific individuals or households, whether by name, address, lot number, car makes or models, license plate numbers, or other identifying information, with whom you may have a grievance
10. Or any other material that infringes on the ability of others to enjoy the use of this website.

By participating in our comment forms, forums, blogs, and/or using the email capabilities, you agree not to post such material. Comments that are off-topic and are borderline removable will usually be removed; comments that are on-topic will be given more latitude. 

Residents may post information regarding a resident owned business or service, non-commercial items for sale, and personal services in the classified ads section of the website and may respond to resident requests for information about such businesses or services in the website forums. However, initiating multiple posts and sending advertising or solicitation emails to the communities is prohibited.

By participating in our comment forms, forums, blogs, and/or using the email capabilities, you agree not to have multiple personalities on our boards. Each reader may have only one log-in/screen name. If you would like to change your screen name you can do that in your "Edit Profile" page. Keep in mind, if you change your alias it will update all your blog entries with the new alias. Usage of multiple screen names will result in our removing your posting privileges under any screen name. We also reserve the right to pull postings from screen names which themselves might be considered objectionable or insulting to another person.

All references to “comments,” “posts,” “forums,” or “blogs” should be read to include the use of all email capabilities (Email The Community, Alert The Community, etc.) of the website for dissemination of similarly offending material.

Don't pretend to be someone else. Under no circumstances are our blog participants to knowingly use the name, identity or screen name of another person, whether that is another user on these particular comment forms/forums/blogs, a public figure, celebrity, elected official, etc.

You will not knowingly give out any personal information of other participants of these comment forms/forums/blogs or via the email capabilities of this website.

In our quest to provide diverse voices from the community and encourage an open dialogue, we assume as little control over comments and blogs as possible. The opinions expressed on these blogs and in reader posted comments are not necessarily the opinions of the DPOA, The DPOA Board, or any DPOA Committees or Working Groups.

It is important to know that we cannot and DO NOT review every single comment on our blogs. So, take what you find with a grain of salt. Please be aware that many people in online communities derive great pleasure from trying to upset others. We would encourage you to simply ignore these types of antagonists - usually such people will simply move on after they receive little attention.

We do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of any posting, regardless of whether the posting comes from a blogger or from a reader of the site. Responsibility for what is posted on our blogs lies with the relevant participant alone ... you alone are responsible for the material you post.

We expect that you will not use our blogs to violate anyone's rights in copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property.

By posting comments here, you are representing that you are the owner of the material, or are making your submission with the explicit consent of the owner. Submitting material that is the property of another without the specific consent of its owner is not only a violation of this user agreement, but may also subject you to legal liability for infringement of copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights.

Please be aware that once you post a comment to this site, you will no longer have control over it. We cannot feasibly manage requests for everything from a typo correction to removal of comments.

By using downsonthesevern.com in any manner, you agree to abide by the terms of this agreement.

We reserve the right to change this agreement at any time.