Community Rules and Guidelines

The Online Community is provided by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, in order to assist its members and others in sharing and exchanging views on current issues and matters of common interest. By joining the IET’s online community you accept and agree to comply with the rules and guidelines set out below when posting messages and contributing content.

  1. This online community is owned and operated by the IET. Users take part in the community by permission of the IET. That permission may be withdrawn at any time, at the sole discretion of the IET, and without further justification being necessary. In particular, forum posts and other content may be removed or accounts banned if, in the opinion of the moderators and/or Admins, this is in the best interests of technical and professional discussions in the forums.
  2. The IET online community is required to comply with US sanctions laws that restrict the use of our site in certain jurisdictions. Because of this, access to our online community is not available to users and members in any countries that are included on the US Sanction list. The IET reserves the right to remove content and/or disable access to the online community if and to the extent the IET have a reasonable suspicion that an individual may be breaching any US Sanction laws.
  3. The online community may not be used for the promotion of products and services of any kind, nor for recruitment advertising; potential advertisers are invited to contact our Advertising Department. However, this condition should not discourage users from suggesting a product that may assist a genuine enquirer who has raised a specific problem. In such circumstances, users should observe the custom among professional engineers of declaring any interest.
  4. Messages, whether posted by IET members or other users, should comply with the relevant sections of the IET’s rules of conduct. This includes, but is not limited to, those rules that concern objectiveness, concern for the reputation of others, declaration of interest, and the making of statements outside one’s area of professional expertise. In the context of a discussion forum, this stipulation is not intended to prevent the offering of informal suggestions, provided that it is clear on what basis these are made. Under no circumstances may defamatory statements be made in these forums. The use of swearing, or of offensive language or links, will not be permitted under any circumstances.
  5. Discussion postings are subject to the terms of the IET’s legal and copyright statement. Users are reminded that text, images and other information created by third parties will be subject to the laws of copyright, and that this includes material found elsewhere on the Internet. Messages posted to the discussion area must not include such material without the copyright owner’s permission, and links to other sites should comply with those sites’ conditions for such links. All sources should be acknowledged.
  6. Responsibility for content rests with the authors. The IET makes no warranty with respect to the validity of the information supplied in postings, and readers should make their own assessments before using such information. The views expressed by other users do not represent the IET’s views or values. The IET expressly excludes any responsibility for any loss or damage caused by or arising directly or indirectly in connection with any use or reliance on the contents of the IET online community, except to the extent that such responsibility cannot be excluded by law.
  7. The IET reserves the right to remove content at its discretion. In addition, content may be moved to another area of the online community if, in the view of the Admins and Moderators, it is more relevant to that area.
  8. Users must comply with all applicable laws and regulations and relevant IET policies including, without limitation, privacy laws, the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy, Harassment and Bullying policy, intellectual property laws and Plagiarism policy. Users may not use the IET online community in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect, for the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way, to upload terrorist content, or to knowingly transmit any data, or send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses or any other harmful programs. The IET reserves the right to remove content and/or disable access to the online community if and to the extent the IET have a reasonable suspicion that an individual may be breaching any applicable laws or regulations or IET policies.
  9. Where the IET online community contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided only for the information of users. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by the IET of those linked websites or information users may obtain from them.
  10. Please refer to our Privacy Statement to see how we handle personal information.
    The decisions of the Moderators are final, please do review and comply with notices sent by the Admins and Moderators concerning use of the community. If you have a question for the Admins please contact them via email community-online@theiet.org


IET Online Community do’s and don’ts

When you join the IET’s online community, you’re joining a community of Engineers and technicians from all over the world, sharing information, asking advice and learning from each other. Our online community is open to both IET members and non-members and anyone can join the community to get involved.

We want to encourage a professional, supportive and inclusive environment for all users of this community, therefore we ask everyone to abide by the guidelines below:

Please do:

  • Be professional and respect other people’s opinions, even if they are different to your own.
  • Use the community to ask questions, share experiences and opinions etc with fellow online community users.
  • Be sincere in your contributions. Post with purpose – to inspire, inform, enable or support fellow users.
  • The discussion area is intended for short postings in line with the purposes mentioned above. Substantial technical submissions should be sent to our editorial department, for possible inclusion in our publications, including E&T Magazine.
  • Share your knowledge. Help other users by sharing your knowledge and experiences.
  • Show your appreciation by liking and commenting on posts and content by others.
  • Be constructive in your interactions with fellow community users.
  • Use the ‘Flag to moderator’ feature to alert Community Admins to offensive and inappropriate content or contributors.
  • Check your privacy settings regularly and keep personal information private.


Please don’t:

  • submit a post with just a link to something or a thought with no context. We encourage you to start a conversation i.e. always make sure to explain why you’re sharing a link, image, or thought, and what other community members can learn.
  • use bad, insulting, or offensive language. Users of the community are here to help and support other users so please don’t engage in acts of bullying, harassment, or discrimination towards other users of the community.
  • post content or links to content containing nudity, swearing, offensive messages or gestures, depictions of violence, injury or scenes likely to cause distress.
  • divert the topic of an existing discussion thread. Please start a new topic if the discussion is wandering from the original post.
  • create multiple user accounts with the intention to impersonate, deceive or spam community users. Any user accounts set up with a temporary or disposable email address will be denied permission to contribute to the online community.
  • post personal and private information belonging to either yourself or others. The community is a public space, so please ensure that you don’t post phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, bank details or other personal/private information for everyone to see.
  • post advertising (including job adverts), spam or re-post the same content in multiple areas of the community. Moderators will remove any third party adverts, spam, or any posts considered inappropriate content for the community.
  • resubmit content which you know has been removed by the moderator team previously.
  • post photos, video or audio recordings of children or vulnerable adults without obtaining written permission from the parent, legal guardian, or in the case of school groups, permission from the relevant school authority – For further guidance please read the IET Policy on Safeguarding children and adults at risk
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