COMMUNITY GUIDELINES
Welcome
Madeira Community exists to help people connect, share knowledge, ask questions, support one another, and build a useful community around life on Madeira Island.
These Guidelines explain how we expect members to behave. They are designed to keep discussions helpful, respectful, and enjoyable for everyone.
By participating in Madeira Community, you agree to follow these Guidelines, our Terms of Service, and all applicable laws. The Platform is intended for individuals who are at least 16 years old.
1. Be Respectful
Treat other members with respect, even when you disagree. Healthy discussion and different opinions are welcome. Personal attacks are not.
Do not: insult, harass, bully, or intimidate other members; engage in hate speech or discrimination; threaten, stalk, or target individuals; deliberately provoke conflicts or personal disputes.
Remember: Discuss ideas. Do not attack people.
2. Keep Discussions Constructive
Madeira Community is intended for useful and meaningful discussion.
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Please stay reasonably on topic and contribute information, experiences, or questions that help others.
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Use clear and descriptive titles when creating topics and search before creating duplicate topics.
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Moderators may merge, move, rename, or reorganize topics to keep information accessible.
3. No Spam
Spam is not welcome. Examples include repetitive posting, mass posting of identical content, excessive promotional links, artificial engagement, referral-link abuse, or low-quality automated content. Spam may be removed without notice.
4. Business Accounts & Self-Promotion
Businesses are welcome on Madeira Community. However, community participation comes before advertising.
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Business Accounts may: answer questions related to their expertise, participate in discussions, maintain a business profile, and share useful information.
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Business Accounts may not: hijack discussions for promotion, repeatedly advertise in unrelated topics, send unsolicited sales messages, create fake reviews, or use multiple accounts to promote themselves.
5. Reviews & Recommendations
We encourage honest feedback to help the community make informed choices.
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Transparency: If you have a professional, financial, family, or other material connection to a business, service provider, product, or organization you are discussing or reviewing, you must disclose this relationship clearly.
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Fairness: Reviews should be based on genuine personal experiences. Deliberately false statements, fabricated reviews, coordinated review campaigns, or malicious attempts to damage a person’s or business’s reputation are prohibited.
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Negative Reviews: Negative reviews are allowed, including statements such as “I do not recommend this business”, if they are based on a genuine personal experience and expressed as personal opinion. However, Users must not make unsupported accusations of fraud, theft, criminal activity, illegal conduct, fake documents, corruption, or other serious wrongdoing. Such claims may be removed, restricted, or require supporting information.
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Evidence: In cases involving serious allegations (such as fraud, illegal activity, safety concerns, or professional misconduct), moderators may request supporting information or temporarily restrict discussion until sufficient information is available.
6. Private Messages (PMs)
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General Freedom: Private messages are generally not routinely reviewed by human moderators for language, profanity, personal opinions, or communication style.
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Safety & Abuse: However, private messages remain subject to Platform safety systems, abuse-prevention measures, and applicable laws.
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Prohibited Conduct: Harassment, threats, spam, fraud, illegal activity, non-consensual abuse, impersonation, blackmail, or other serious violations conducted through private messages may result in moderation action, including account suspension or termination.
7. Political Discussions
Madeira Community is a social and informative platform. Please keep political topics civil and relevant to Madeira Island. Moderators reserve the right to close threads that devolve into inflammatory, extremist, or purely disruptive political arguments.
8. Local Classifieds
Classified ads should be posted in the designated sections only. Be clear about details, and exercise caution. The Platform is not responsible for the outcome of transactions. Scams and deceptive offers may result in immediate removal and account suspension or termination.
Illegal or restricted goods and services are not allowed, including weapons, drugs, counterfeit or stolen goods, fake documents, illegal employment, sexual services, adult or pornographic content, and misleading guarantees of official outcomes such as visas, residency, AIMA approvals, or tax results. A fuller list is set out in our Terms of Service.
9. Adult, Pornographic & Sexual Content
Pornographic content, explicit sexual images or videos, sexual solicitation, escort services, prostitution, non-consensual intimate content, sexual exploitation, and sexually explicit advertisements are not allowed on Madeira Community.
Any content that sexualizes, exploits, or endangers minors, or that involves a minor in any sexual, suggestive, exploitative, or inappropriate context, is strictly prohibited. Such content will be removed immediately and reported to the competent authorities.
Educational, medical, legal, or safety-related discussion of sexual topics may be allowed if it is non-explicit, respectful, and relevant to the community.
10. Moderator Decisions
Moderators are here to help maintain a safe, constructive, and useful community.
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Moderators may interpret and apply these Guidelines in good faith to situations not explicitly covered by the written rules.
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If you disagree with a moderator action, please use the designated appeal or contact channel rather than arguing publicly within discussion threads.
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Constructive questions and appeals are welcome. Repeated hostility, harassment, abuse, or attempts to undermine moderation processes may result in enforcement action.
11. Use of AI-generated Content
We welcome helpful content generated with the aid of AI, provided it is accurate, relevant, and transparent. Do not use AI to generate low-quality spam or spread misinformation. Ensure AI-generated advice regarding local regulations is double-checked for accuracy.
12. Reporting Problems
If you see something that violates our Guidelines, please use the “Report” button rather than engaging with the rule-breaker. Misusing reporting tools to harass others is a violation of these Guidelines.
13. Contact Information
Need help or want to appeal a decision?
- Email: admin@madeira.community
These Guidelines form part of, and should be read together with, our Terms of Service, Privacy, Cookies & Data Protection Policy, and Advertising, Promotions & Commercial Use Policy.