Drink Tank

House rules and community standards

Drink Tank is an open platform for discussion and debate, owned and shaped by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE), and community members.

We respect everyone’s right to express their thoughts and opinions, and we encourage readers to contribute to public discourse through our comments section and social media accounts.

We take our responsibilities seriously and strive to ensure it is a civil and constructive debate. Please help us to create an enlightened and intelligent discussion by keeping in mind the following guidelines.

Be nice to others and keep it clean

Don’t be unpleasant. Please make sure your comments are civil and polite at all times.

We acknowledge criticism of the articles we publish or opinions expressed, but will not allow any misrepresentation of FARE, Drink Tank, our contributors or the organisations they represent to be published on our website.

We welcome debate and dissent, and at times you may find yourself in disagreement with someone on Drink Tank. Keep in mind that it’s safer, more polite, and more persuasive to respond to a person’s comments, rather than attacking them personally. Any form of persistent trolling or mindless abuse will not be tolerated.

We understand that readers may feel strongly about the issues being debated, but we will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening. Please respect other people’s views and beliefs and consider your impact on others when making your contribution.

Keep it relevant

Please keep your comments relevant to the discussion at hand.

We will distinguish between constructive, focused arguments that contribute intelligently to the debate, and otherwise inflammatory or irrelevant comments.

Comments that stray too far off topic, are largely repetitive, or do not add anything to the debate will not be published.

Own your own words

You are responsible and liable for your own posts. FARE and Drink Tank are not the publisher or author of the words posted by members, and neither FARE nor Drink Tank is liable for material posted by members.

We do however, reserve the right to remove any content that is legally questionable. This includes potentially libellous or defamatory material, or any content that is potentially in breach of copyright.

Comments that contain links to unsuitable material will not be published.

Do not impersonate others in the comments section, or post any personal details (such as phone numbers, postal or email addresses) that could inadvertently identify a subject or put someone in danger.

Respect the role of the moderators

All comments on the Drink Tank site are moderated by staff before being published. The moderators’ role is to help facilitate your discussion.

We will, when necessary, remove user posts if something breaches our house rules. This includes conversations taking place on the Drink Tank and FARE websites and social media channels.

On occasion, instead of refusing a comment made on a Drink Tank post that doesn’t meet our community standards, we will opt to redact the offending extract or word. In these instances, the following declaration will be added to the user comment to describe the action taken by the forum moderators “[This comment has been removed/edited by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards and Drink Tank house rules]”.

Any contributions that could be reasonably considered obscene, offensive, defamatory, threatening, harassing, racist, sexist, homophobic, discriminator, hateful, will not be allowed.

We also remove posts that are obviously commercial or deemed as spam. Comments that advertise, promote or solicit any goods or services will not be accepted.

Remember, moderators are there to help, so don’t be afraid to ask.


If you have questions or suggestions about the Drink Tank house rules and community standards, please get in touch.

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