Your Story - House Rules

The BBC World Service wants you to tell us Your Story. Send us your photos, video, text and ideas for stories, whether it's a news story or a story close to your heart that you think we should be reporting on. We're looking for budding citizen journalists to report for us, so you could see your idea broadcast on-air and on this website.

The Your Story website is a place to showcase your stories, to share your experiences and views with other people around the world.

WHAT YOU DO
• Send us Your Story as text, sound/audio, photos or video
• Submit Your Story by attaching the file and clicking "Submit"
• Keep in touch with the website - add us to your favourites

EXAMPLES OF WHAT WE WANT
• Ricardo Andrade lives in one of the most notoriously dangerous places in the world, the City of God favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He told us what it was like to live there and lose his friends to gang warfare. His Story is a young person's perspective of growing up in a violent city.

• Sarah Muthanna, a trainee doctor, had to leave her home city of Baghdad because of the escalating violence. She returned a year later to complete her studies and told us what it was like to go back and rebuild her life. Sarah's Story is a remarkable insight of life in post-war Iraq.

• Paige Gold is a lawyer in Los Angeles, California who works with female inmates at the correctional facility there. She reports on how women were losing touch with their families because they could not afford to phone home. Her Story explores the impact of life "inside" for women.

WHAT WE DO
• We will get in touch with you if your story needs developing
• We can work with some of you to get your story on-air
• We will get in touch if we think you could be one of our citizen journalists

CODE OF CONDUCT
In order to make the Your Story project work, a few house rules are necessary so that we get content that doesn't harm or distress anyone. All BBC content follows strict rules. Here is the Your Story code of conduct:-

*Users cannot upload to the website, or distribute or otherwise publish through it, anything that is libellous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, invasive of another's privacy, or harms minors in any way;

* Similarly, users cannot upload to the website, or distribute or otherwise publish through it, anything that harasses, degrades, intimidates or is hateful toward an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, or disability.

*Users should not use abusive, vulgar, or otherwise offensive language constituting a personal attack or with malicious intent.

*Users should not say they are/pretend to be professional reporters. Users should not say they are working professionally for the BBC, though they should say to others they record that they will offer content to the BBC.

*Users must not risk their personal safety or that of others in order to gather material for submission to the BBC.

*Please, no flaming or trolling. Flaming means posting something angry and mean-spirited - the online equivalent of losing your temper. Trolls say deliberately provocative things just to stir up trouble. This is not polite, so please do not do it.

*Only include suitable URLs in your contributions. Links to unsuitable websites will be removed, so if you are considering contributing something that contains a URL, please make sure that it adds value and interest to what you're writing.

*Users must not spread false information, nor should they submit articles based on groundless assumptions or predictions.

*Users should not damage the reputation of others by composing articles that infringe on personal privacy.

* Users should only use legitimate methods to gather information, and clearly inform their sources that they intend to cover a story.

*If using any external contributions, users must get consent from the individual(s) by recording consent of the people featured, stating "this may be broadcast on the BBC". This will demonstrate that the subject realises that the contribution is likely to be submitted for broadcasting.

* Users should not use their position for personal gain or profit.

* Users must not exaggerate or distort facts on behalf of themselves or any organization to which they belong.

* Users must be prepared to apologise fully and promptly for coverage that is wrong or otherwise inappropriate.

* Users must not impersonate any person or entity, or include personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent.

* Users must not infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party, or make available content that they do not have a right to make available under any law

* Users must not advertise any illegal services, or the sale of any items - the sale of which is prohibited or restricted by applicable law.

* Users must not submit content that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment.

COPYRIGHT
If you submit an image or audio, you do so in accordance with the BBC's Terms and Conditions. In contributing to BBC World Service you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way that we want, and in any media worldwide. This may include the transmission of the material by our overseas partners; these are all reputable foreign news broadcasters who are prohibited from altering the material in any way or making it available to other UK broadcasters or to the print media.

For full details of the BBC's terms and conditions please click here.