SCSSC car share messageboard

General info about the messageboard

Click here for the RULES relating to use of the messageboard

This page tells you everything you need to know about the SCSSC car share messageboard. Scroll down the page or use the following links to jump to a particular topic:

• General principles
• How it works
• Guidance on posting messages
• Guidance on arranging a car share
• Membership policy
• Privacy / anti-spam policy
• What to do if you have a problem
• Future enhancements?

Click here to return to the car share messageboard

General principles

The car share messageboard has been created by Stoke City Southern Supporters Club (SCSSC) members for the use and benefit of SCSSC members. Please bear this in mind when using it, and before giving us a hard time!

The objective of the messageboard is to make it easier for like-minded members to get together to arrange car sharing to Stoke City matches. SCSSC accepts no responsibility for any arrangements subsequently made, and in particular cannot be held liable with respect to broken promises or for any safety or security issues that may subsequently arise.

Users of the messageboard must comply with the rules, which can be found here.

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How it works

Anyone with access to the internet may view the messageboard, but only logged in subscribers will be able to:

• post new messages
• edit/delete own messages
• reply to other messages (more details below)
• amend own personal details

Optionally, subscribers may elect to receive immediate email notifications of all new messages posted by others, including any major edits of existing messages.

In addition, a copy of all messages, with contact details, will be sent to all SCSSC members with their SCSSC newsletter, issued approximately monthly.

Messages can be posted if you are offering a lift or looking for a lift. Requests/offers may be match specific or more general. At present, the messageboard does not differentiate between the different types of post with the most recently posted/edited messages appearing at the top of the list. Expired single match requests will not be shown.

When clicking on 'Contact this person', a screen appears with telephone details of that person, and a form for composing a message that will be sent by email. The sender will receive a copy of the email sent. Once initial contact has been made, members are free to communicate as they wish.

To become a subscriber/member of the messageboard, you need register online. After registration, you will be able to post/edit/delete your own messages immediately, but will have to wait for Admin to review and upgrade your status before you will be allowed to contact others. This may take a few days. Our policy on who can become a subscriber/member is given below.

Administrators have the ability to edit/delete any message and they can also edit the personal details, including membership status, of any member.

In order to monitor usage and to provide a basic level of security, activity on the messageboard is tracked. Admin have access to the results of this monitoring which includes a log of new registrations, logins, messages added/edited/deleted and records of when contact emails have bee sent (but not the contents of the emails themselves).

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Guidance on posting messages

You can post messages for the following:

• offering lifts to others
• asking for a lift from someone else
• requests for single matches, or particular groups of matches
• general requests covering the whole season
• seeing if anyone else is making the same regular train journey as you.

Some tips:

• say where you are travelling from, and where you may be prepared to pick up from
• if it is a general notice, make it clear whether you are likely to be going to all matches, or just home/away, midweek/weekend, etc
• if you tend to go earlier than normal, e.g. to go to the pub, then it is a good idea to say so
• for single or defined match requests, please set the expiry date for the message as the date of the last applicable match - the message will automatically be stopped from displaying after this date - it helps us avoid clutter
• please delete your obsolete messages, e.g. you have changed you plans, or your car is now full
• keep it short.

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Guidance on arranging a car share

IMPORTANT - you are under no obligation to accept a share with anyone you contact, or who contacts you. If you feel unsure or uncomfortable for any reason then please decline. Having said that, please do not mess fellow members around unnecessarily. Treat others how you would want to be treated yourself. If you arrange share but it does not work out then just say so (politely). Do not feel that you are obliged to continue with the arrangement. Chances are the other party may feel the same way.

If you are accepting a lift from someone else, be reasonable and flexible - the driver is doing you a favour - don't forget this!

If you arrange to meet up - please arrive on time! We suggest exchanging mobile numbers before meeting for the first time, just in case anything goes wrong.

Remember where you are parked - especially if you are in a car park - it may be a lot fuller when you get back!

Petrol money - this is down to you to sort out. All we would say is that if you have been given a lift you should be offering to pay your share of petrol money whether it has been previously discussed or not, i.e. always assume that you will be paying your way - don't wait to be asked.

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Messageboard membership policy

Current SCSSC members will be given full membership once details have been verified against our membership database (allow a few days for this to happen).

Southern based Stokies who are not yet members but wish to join SCSSC, or are in the process of doing so, will initially be given provisional membership which is the same as full membership except that it is time limited and subject to review. This will be upgraded once SCSSC membership is confirmed. We will allow plenty of time for this. Membership application forms are available elsewhere on this website.

Messageboard membership will cease when you leave SCSSC. However, at the beginning of each season, we will allow a reasonable amount of time for members to confirm their renewal.

Other non members will only be given membership of the messageboard at the discretion of Admin, and normally this will only be as a `guest' for a fixed time period. An example is where a someone is temporarily based down south for a match or two, or overseas visitors.

Why are we limiting use to SCSSC members only? There are a few reasons...

• Whilst SCSSC accepts no liability for any personal safety/security problems that may arise involving trips arranged via the messageboard, by limiting usage to (mainly) members we are doing the best we can to reduce the likelihood of such problems arising. We would hope that this gives potential users some degree of confidence when making contact with other who may be complete strangers!
• The SCSSC website is simply constructed and hosted relatively cheaply. If we opened up its use to the rest of the SCFC world there is a danger that it could become overloaded and we would run into problems with maintenance, reliability and bandwidth (which costs money!)
• We want to encourage membership of our club to strengthen it! A lot of time and effort has gone into creating and maintaining this messageboard. One of the motivations for putting in this effort was that by doing so we are improving the service offered to club members, hopefully making the club more attractive to join.
• Finally, perhaps most importantly, it is what our membership voted for (at our 2008 AGM).

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Privacy / anti-spam policy

All information submitted during registration is stored in a database hosted on the web, but only Site Admin and the webmaster can access this. Normal users will not be able to get to it, unless they can figure out the relevant passwords. This is a secure as we can reasonably make it, but obviously we cannot guarantee 100% security, i.e. experienced and determined hackers can usually circumvent such systems. Your details are also sent by an auto-generated email to Site Admin upon registration. Given that we only ask for limited information about you, we reckon that security of your details should not really be an issue for you anyway.

To make things as secure as reasonable practicable, we ask for repeated entry of your password during some processes, such as use of the contact form and when changing your personal details. Its a bit more hassle - but it provides much better security.

Email addresses posted on websites, even messageboards, are likely to be picked up by web-trawling 'robots' and will end up being mercilessly spammed. We should know - it has happened to us in the past. To avoid this happening to you, we do not put email addresses on the messageboard, and we have created the 'contact' facility. The only time your email address will appear on this website will be when you preview a message to someone else. Given that you will have to give two passwords to get to this page, we reckon this should be safe from the spam robots. We have adopted the same system for our 'contact form' elsewhere on the website, and it works - it has been going nearly two years and we are still clear of spam!

Obviously once your email address goes to someone else (via the contact form) we cannot control what happens after that, e.g. if that person has some spyware on their pc then you could be at risk of being put on a spammers list. There is nothing we can do about that!

To further reduce the risk of spam, we strongly recommend that you provide us with 'disposable' email addresses, i.e. not you main address, but a special address that you can easily change should you start receiving spam. Most home internet packages allow you to set up and create such 'disposable' addresses. If you are using a work email address, you may not have the choice and you obviously need to be more careful.

If you wish, you can ask us to provide you with a ...@scssc.co.uk email address which you could use as your 'disposable' email address. Contact Site Admin for more details.

In summary, we have done our very best to set up the messageboard and system in a way that minimises the risk of your details getting into the wrong hands. However, as with all such systems we cannot guarantee complete security. If after reading this you are still concerned - don't join!

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What to do if you have a problem

If it is a technical problem, please contact Admin. Please note that Admin will be a fellow SCSSC member. We have day jobs and our own lives to lead, i.e. we cannot monitor this board 24/7. We will look at the problem as soon as we can, but bear with us - it may take a few days.

If you have had bad experience on a journey arranged through this board, i.e. safety or security issue or been badly messed around in some way, such that you would like to warn others about sharing with that particular person, then please contact Admin (in confidence). Please DO NOT use the messageboard to post any such warnings yourself. Obviously each case will need to be considered on its merits and we make no promises about this, but if we agree that someone is out of order we will consider taking appropriate action.

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Future improvements?

One likely enhancement is allowing subscribers who have forgotten their login details to have them emailed back to them straight away on request.

If the messageboard becomes very popular, we will probably split it into more than one board, e.g. one for 'season' requests, and another for specific match requests.

We are open to other suggestions - contact admin.

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Click here for the RULES relating to use of the messageboard

Click here to go to the car share messageboard

Click here to LOGIN (existing subscriber)

Click here to REGISTER as a new subscriber