Forum rules

1. Who runs the forum and what it is

The forum is operated by Dotsphere s.r.o., company ID 19632983, with its registered office at Korunní 2569/108, Vinohrady, 101 00 Praha 10 (“Carnado” or “we”). Posts are written by users. Carnado does not commission or write them and does not check them before publication. A post expresses the opinion and experience of the person who wrote it, not the opinion of Carnado.

These rules supplement Carnado’s Terms of use. Anything not covered here is governed by the Terms.

2. Who can post

Anyone can read. Anyone with a Carnado account, a confirmed e-mail address and a chosen nickname can post. The nickname is public; your name and e-mail are not shown with your posts. One person, one account.

By submitting your first post, you confirm that you have read these rules and agree to them.

3. What belongs on the forum

Write in a language others will understand. Start threads in the right category, with a title that says what they are about.

• Your own experiences, questions and advice about cars, buying, selling, servicing and importing them, and the paperwork.
• Factual criticism and praise, as long as they are based on what you experienced or verified yourself.
• Links that help answer a question (a listing, a guide, an official source). New accounts can include one link per post, others at most three.

4. What does not belong on the forum

• Insults, threats, humiliation, hate speech based on origin, gender, religion, orientation and the like.
• False claims about people and companies. Distinguish between what you know (a fact) and what you think (an opinion). “The dealer hid an accident from me, I have it on the garage invoice” is a fact you are responsible for. “I felt they were hiding something” is an opinion.
• Other people’s personal data: employees’ names, phone numbers, e-mails, addresses, photos of people, number plates linked to a person, contract numbers. We automatically hide phone numbers and e-mails in the text, but you are responsible for the rest.
• Advertising, car listings, recruitment, affiliate links, repeated links to your own website. Sell your own car through a listing, not on the forum.
• Content you do not have the right to share: copied articles, other people’s photos, texts from other forums.
• Spam, multiple accounts, voting for yourself from other accounts, mass reporting without reason.
• Anything illegal: instructions for tampering with odometers or emissions, selling stolen parts, forged documents.

5. Special rules for experiences with car dealers and sellers

The Car dealers and sellers category is for people who have actually dealt with the dealer. The following also applies:

• Write only about your own experience (purchase, viewing, sale, complaint). Not “I heard”, not on behalf of a friend.
• Name the dealer as it is actually called and say when you dealt with them (month and year is enough). Not the salesperson’s name, not their photo.
• Describe what happened and keep it separate from your own assessment. Only make specific claims (rolled-back odometer, hidden accident, deposit not returned) if you can back them up should the dealer disagree.
• The dealer has the right to respond to the post (see section 8). Their response stays with your post.
• People who work for the dealer or for its competitors do not post here. Such a post is unfair competition and we will delete it. We do not verify experiences with dealers; they are users’ personal experiences.
• Carnado is not a judge. If the dealer responds to a post and the author does not back up their claim, we may hide the post. Removal of a post cannot be bought; neither the Dealer plan nor any payment has any influence on moderation.

6. What Carnado does with posts (moderation)

• Posts are published immediately. We only check them afterwards, based on reports and at random.
• When three different users report a post, it is hidden automatically until we review it. This hiding is done automatically; the final decision is always made by a person.
• We hide or delete a post that breaks the rules or the law. We send the author an e-mail with the reason and how they can respond (section 7).
• Repeated or serious breaches mean a ban from posting on the forum and, in extreme cases, blocking of the Carnado account.
• We may lock a thread, move it to another category, rename it or merge it with another one. Pinned threads labelled “Official guide” are written by the Carnado team.
• We keep records of moderation decisions and reports so that we can show what we did and why.

7. Disagree with a decision?

Write to ahoj@carnado.eu within 6 months with a link to the post and the reason why you think the decision is wrong. We usually reply within 14 days. Your objection is assessed by a different person from the one who made the first decision, if our size allows it. You can also turn to the courts.

8. Right of reply

If the forum is writing about you or your company, you can:

• Reply in the thread. Create an account, choose a nickname (the company name is fine) and reply directly under the post. Say that you represent the dealer.
• Ask for a statement to be published. If you do not want to create an account, send your statement through the Report content form and tick “I am the person or company the content is about”. We will publish the statement next to the post with a label and the date, unless the statement itself breaks the rules.
• Ask for a correction or removal. If a post contains a false statement of fact, personal data of your staff or insults, send a report. Say what exactly is untrue and, if you can, provide evidence.

We do not remove the opinion and rating of a customer who actually dealt with you, even if it is harsh. We assess the difference between “never again, terrible service” (an opinion, it stays) and “they sell cars with clocked odometers” (a statement of fact, it must be provable) for each report.

9. Your posts and your rights to them

Your post is yours. By publishing it, you grant Carnado a free, non-exclusive right, unlimited in time and territory, to display it on the forum, in previews on listings and car pages, in search, in e-mails about new replies and in digests, including in shortened form, and to adjust its formatting. Carnado does not sell posts or pass them on to other services.

You can delete your own post. If someone has replied to it, a “deleted” note stays in its place so the thread still makes sense. After you close your account, your posts stay on the forum without your nickname, labelled “Deleted account”. If you want those deleted too, write to ahoj@carnado.eu; we will comply unless the legitimate interest of the other participants in the thread prevents it.

10. Liability

The person who wrote a post is responsible for its content. Carnado is not liable for whether advice from the forum works, whether a dealer review is true, or for any damage you suffer by acting on a post. Always check a car yourself or with an expert before buying it.

11. Points, levels and badges

Points show how much you help others. They come mainly from what other people valued, not from writing as such. Only you see your exact points, on your own profile; next to your nickname others see your level and at most one badge.

• Helpful from another member: 5 points (at most 3 times from one member in 30 days, at most 100 points a day in total).
• The asker accepts your answer as the solution: 15 points, and the asker gets 2 points for closing the question.
• First reply from someone else in your thread: 2 points.
• New thread: 1 point (at most 3 a day, official guides earn nothing). A reply of at least 40 characters in someone else's thread: 1 point (at most 10 a day).
• Deleted or hidden post: its points are gone. Breaking the rules costs 10 points, spam 25 points.

Votes from new accounts and from accounts linked to each other (same mailbox, network or referral) do not count. Two accounts marking each other Helpful get spotted and lose the points. The Helpful count shown on the post stays the same.

There are eight levels, from Learner Driver to Road Legend, at 25, 100, 300, 750, 1,500, 3,000 and 6,000 points. From Seasoned Driver on, the limits of an established account apply (more posts, 3 links) without waiting; from Workshop Master on, your reports count for more. Points cannot be bought or swapped for credits and do not change the order of ads.

Badges are for specific things: Helping hand (10 Helpful), Adviser (50), Guru (200), Solver (10 accepted answers), Importer or Make expert (most helpful answers about one make in 6 months).

12. Changes to the rules

We may change these rules. We will announce any significant change on the forum and by e-mail to those who follow threads. The date of the last change is shown at the top.