By submitting a post to Comedy Soup (i.e. by contributing text, images or audio visual material) you confirm your acceptance of the house rules and the Terms of Use. Comedy Soup reserves the right to change the house rules from time to time by publishing any amendments on site. You are responsible for regularly reviewing the house rules and by submitting a post you confirm your acceptance of any changes.

Your posts

Please keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant. We're committed to providing an atmosphere in which constructive and mature dialogue takes place. Therefore:

• No flaming. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable comments are not acceptable.
• No spamming or flooding. Don't post the same contribution more than once.
  
• No advertising. We can only accept contributions that are your own opinion. We will remove posts where we suspect a vested interest.
• No foreign languages. Posts containing languages other than English may be removed. Other users should be able to understand your comments and submissions and therefore contributions with suspected hidden meanings may also be removed.
  
• No impersonation. Adopting an inappropriate user name (one that is vulgar, offensive etc) is also unacceptable.
  
• Be careful with including email addresses and instant messaging numbers, you may receive a lot of unwanted messages. Please do not include anyone else's personal details. We recommend you set up a new email account specifically and post the address in the form "name at bbc.co.uk" to avoid automated spamming. We will remove any postal addresses or telephone numbers unless it is publicly available e.g. a ticket line number or event venue.
  
• Only include suitable URLs in your recommendations. Links to websites we consider unsuitable will be removed. If you are considering including a URL, please make sure that it adds value and interest to the subject of your recommendation. Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, or sites which may offend our users.
  
• Please don't abuse the complaints system. The complaints button exists so that users can alert us to content that breaks the house rules i.e. offensive material, not typos and spelling mistakes. If a user repeatedly abuses the complaints button we may suspend their account.
  
• Please don't post for suspended users. Anyone who posts on behalf of a suspended user may also have their account suspended. If we suspect that an account has been opened or is used by a banned user, the holder of the account may be asked to prove their identity. Failure to do so may result in the account being suspended.
• No harassment. The BBC welcomes feedback, both positive and negative, about our programmes and services but please make sure your comments are in line with the above House Rules. Repeatedly posting personal or offensive comments about individual members of the public or people who work for the BBC may be considered harassment. We reserve the right to remove such messages and take action against those responsible.

Copyright

Please take care to read and understand the "Contributions to bbc.co.uk" and "Community Rules" sections of the Terms of Use.

Only make posts to Comedy Soup which are your own original work and do not violate, plagiarise, or infringe the rights of any third party - including copyright, performance rights, image rights, publicity rights, design rights, trade marks, trade secrets, privacy, or other proprietary rights.

If your post includes material from third parties you will need to obtain permission from the owner(s) of the rights for it to be submitted to Comedy Soup and used in accordance with the Terms of Use and these House Rules.

You may find it easier to use content from the Comedy Soup Asset Library in your post. The rights in these Assets are owned by the BBC so you do not need to obtain permission to use, copy, edit, alter and adapt them for your post. However, you may not make any other use of the Assets unless it is for your own personal, non-commercial use.

Find out more about copyright and about using and clearing third party material here.

By contributing to Comedy Soup you grant us non-exclusive rights to publish on any media.

The law

You may not post any defamatory or illegal material of any nature. Posting a message with the intention of committing an illegal act is strictly prohibited.

Under 16s

This site is intended for over 16s only, so we regret that you cannot register to create personal space or post work to the site under that age.

Antisocial behaviour on Comedy Soup

Comedy Soup members are expected to act in a community-spirited way. It is unacceptable to behave in an antisocial manner on Comedy Soup.

If a Comedy Soup member feels that someone is behaving in an antisocial manner, they should use the 'complaint' button to alert the Editors.

If you break the rules

If you fail to abide by these House Rules and/or the BBC Terms of Use, you will be formally warned by email. Not having a current email address registered with Comedy Soup will not be seen as an adequate excuse for not knowing that you have been breaking the house rules.

• For the first offence you will receive an official warning from the Comedy Soup Editors.
• A second offence will mean that your account is suspended for seven days.
• A third offence will mean a suspension period of one month.
  
• A fourth offence will result in your account being closed permanently.

The BBC reserves the right not to make use of, or to delete any posting or account, at any time, for any reason.