The VisualPlace blog is a pre-moderated forum. This means that when you submit a comment, it will not be immediately visible to other users.

About Moderation

Pre-moderation means that when you submit a comment, it will not be immediately visible to other users.

Prior to going live, all comments will be checked by the moderator to ensure they meet the blog rules (see below).

Comments that do not meet the blog rules will be completely disallowed.

This forum is managed by the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development (DIIRD) and will be moderated from 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday.

Every effort will be made to approve comments promptly, however, we do ask you to be patient.

Blog Rules

Before participating in this blog, you should read the following rules and terms and conditions. These rules are designed to create a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone.

Comments submitted to the VisualPlace blog must:

• Keep on topic
•  Not contain any swear words or any abusive, discriminatory or hateful content
•  Not harass, threaten, defame, intimidate or embarrass any person
•  Not disclose commercially sensitive or confidential information
•  Not impersonate any person or communicate as that person (spoofing)
•  Not contain advertising material, blatant or suspected stealth advertising or unsolicited material (spamming)
•  Not bump messages (posting to a thread solely to ensure that the thread remains high on the post list)
•  Not “vacuum” a mailing list (attempt to gain access to the names on a list for other purposes)
•  Be polite and respectful of another person’s view
•  Be lawful and not infringe the rights of any person

Comments submitted to the VisualPlace blog in breach of these Rules will be automatically deleted, at Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development’s discretion.

Terms and Conditions

DIIRD makes no representations or warranties of any kind, expressed or implied, including warranties of accuracy, in regards to any material published on the VisualPlace blog.

Contributors agree that DIIRD and the State of Victoria are not responsible for any user comments posted to the VisualPlace blog and that the posting of a comment to the VisualPlace blog does not indicate any authorisation, endorsement, support, sanction or agreement by DIIRD of the content of any comment.

Contributors understand and agree that if DIIRD, its affiliates, or users of the VisualPlace blog provide information and advice of any kind any use of such advice or any other information is solely at their own risk and DIIRD and or the State of Victoria will not be liable or responsible for access to and use by any person of this information or any other information or material on the VisualPlace blog.

Each Contributor indemnifies DIIRD and the State of Victoria against all loss, legal fees, damages and other expenses incurred or potentially incurred as a result of the Contributor’s breach of these Rules and Terms and Conditions and the submission of any content to the VisualPlace blog.

DIIRD retains the right to deregister any member whose behaviour does not meet the Rules and Terms and Conditions.

DIIRD and/or the State will retain a copy of the comments as required by public records laws and may be obliged to disclose the comments under freedom of information or other relevant laws even if the comments are no longer available via the blog website.

The Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development may vary the Rules and Terms and Conditions from time to time.

Contributors should review the Rules and Terms and Conditions regularly to ensure they are aware of any changes.

The purpose of VisualPlace is to show the value of an interactive GIS-enabled service for the visualisation of location based government information.

The Proof of Concept will run for a period of 6 months from December 2009.

To help drive improvements to VisualPlace and to inform the evaluation process, we invite you to join the VisualPlace blog and actively participate in shaping the future Government use of GIS-enabled tools.

Please use the blog to make any suggestions for new datasets, functionality improvements or even ideas for interesting data combinations