Rules, Etiquette, and Privacy Guidelines
Thank you for being part of the MIA Community. To ensure the best possible experience for all participants, we have established the below guidelines for participation.
By joining and using this community, you agree that you have read and will follow these rules and guidelines. You also agree to reserve discussions and shared files and content that are best suited to this medium. This is a great medium with which to solicit the advice of your peers, benefit from their experience, and participate in ongoing conversations. Questions should be directed to our membership team via the Contact Us page on this site.
Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. If you have questions, contact the membership team. To preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate access to this online community for anyone who violates these rules. The MIA monitors the site for inappropriate postings and may remove any posts it deems inappropriate.
The Rules
- Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to all participants; there’s no such thing as a “stupid question”.
- Respect the purpose of the community. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals instead of products or services that you provide. If you’ve found a product or service helpful, please share your experience with the group in a respectful way and be sure to specify your affiliation (or lack of affiliation) to the product or service.
- Participants are encouraged to cite sources when answering questions in a definitive manner. Information that has been posted and found to be factually inaccurate may be flagged for removal.
- Participants should conduct their own research after reviewing answers posted to the MIA Community.
- Do not post commercial messages in any thread, library, or other area where others will see it. Messages should not contain promotional material, special offers, product announcements, or solicitation for services or participation of any kind.
- 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 defamation and competition laws.
- Do not post, or solicit, any information regarding fees, rates, prices, or similar information. No comments may encourage or facilitate 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 about the following subjects are inappropriate and should not be posted: fees, 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.
- 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.
- Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator.
- 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. Do not share or post confidential information.
- Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate community. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise."
- Do not spam other members.
- The sharing of test answers or discussion of cheating will not be tolerated.
Discussion Group Etiquette
- State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows participants to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for participants to search the archives by subject.
- Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire community. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" option in every post.
- 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 unsubscribe yourself via your profile Community Notifications. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your contact details with MIA and your account will be updated.
- Use the Member Directory for professional networking purposes. Do not use the Member Directory to make unsolicited contact to describe or promote your business or services. Do not use the Member Directory to send bulk communications or generate e-blast lists.
Electioneering Guidelines
During MIA elections, members may share election-related content in community spaces. To keep discussions fair and respectful, please follow these guidelines:
- Be respectful. Keep your posts constructive and courteous. Personal attacks or aggressive language won’t be tolerated, will be removed and could lead to further action.
- Do not spam. Avoid posting the same message or promotional content more than once. Repetitive posts may be removed.
- Use official channels. Where provided, use designated threads or spaces for campaign-related posts. This helps keep the community organised and ensures equal visibility for all candidates. Do not spam unrelated posts with election-related content.
- Adhere to the campaign period. Electioneering is only permitted during the official campaign period as determined by the MIA. Posts made outside this timeframe may be removed.
- Be transparent. Clearly state who you’re supporting and why. Avoid misleading others, and do not post anonymously when electioneering — transparency helps ensure fair and informed engagement. Anonymous electioneering posts or anonymous posts relating to the election will be removed immediately.
- We may moderate. The MIA may reserves the right to edit or remove posts that break these rules or go against the Terms of Use.
The Legal Stuff
This site is provided as a service for the Migration Institute of Australia (MIA). The MIA 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 MIA or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the MIA 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. 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 MIA 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.
Any posts by any user in the MIA Community do not constitute legal advice and cannot be relied upon as such. The MIA does not accept any responsibility for liabilities arising as a result of reliance upon the information given. Posts may contain information that is intended only for the use of the author of the original post and should not be taken out of context.
The MIA 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 will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of our organization except as noted below.
With Whom Do We Share the Personal Information We Collect Through This Site:
Our Service Providers
We may share your personal information with companies (including our affiliates) that perform services on our behalf, for example, companies that help process credit card payments. 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, reorganization, 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 recognize you each time you visit this site (personalization, etc). Cookies themselves do not contain any personal information, and we do not use cookies to collect personal information. Cookies may also be used by 3rd party content providers such as newsfeeds.
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.
For more information, please review the public MIA Privacy Policy.