Terms of Use

1. About YAKK4

YAKK4.com ("YAKK4", "we", "us") is a community for Australian civil construction: Where the industry talks. These terms govern your use of the website and community. By creating an account or using YAKK4, you agree to these terms and the published Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

2. Eligibility and accounts

The proposed age rule, awaiting the operator's approval, is that users must be at least 18 years old.

Provide an email address you control, keep your password secure, and tell us promptly if your account is compromised. Email verification is required before posting. Public profiles use usernames; a real name is optional. Do not impersonate another person, employer or organisation. You are responsible for activity you authorise through your account.

3. Community participation

Starting communities are General Civil Construction, Earthmoving and Plant, Safety and Site Management, Projects, Contracts and Costs, Technology, Software and AI, Careers, Skills and Training, and Materials, Suppliers and Equipment. Administrators create communities. Community-specific rules supplement these terms.

You may share text, questions and images, reply to discussions, vote up or down, and save posts. A post may contain no more than four images. Additional upload restrictions will be displayed before upload once approved.

4. Content standards

Do not:

• Harass, threaten, discriminate against, dox or abuse others.
• Publish unlawful, defamatory, deliberately misleading or infringing content.
• Share confidential project information, client records, personal contact details, site security information or identifiable images without the necessary authority or consent.
• Post content you do not own or have permission to share.
• Encourage dangerous practices, bypass safety controls or describe unlawful activity as acceptable.
• Send spam, manipulate votes, impersonate users, evade moderation or compromise the service.
• Publish advertising or unsolicited commercial promotions without our permission.

Critique ideas and practices respectfully. Describe your own experience accurately; do not present allegations as established facts. Remove sensitive information from site photos before sharing.

5. No professional or safety advice

Posts are members' opinions, not advice from YAKK4. We do not verify every contributor's qualifications, employer, claims or content. Do not rely on a discussion for engineering design, surveying, plumbing, legal compliance or worksite safety decisions. Consult appropriately qualified professionals and follow applicable laws, standards, permits and site procedures. Do not use YAKK4 to report an emergency; contact the relevant emergency service.

6. Your content and permission to display it

You retain ownership of your content. You confirm you have the rights and permissions needed to publish it.

By submitting content, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, format and display it to operate YAKK4, including displaying it in feeds, search results and sharing previews. This does not authorise us to sell your content or use it in unrelated advertising.

You may request removal of your content. Removed content may temporarily remain in backups or be retained where reasonably necessary for security, disputes or legal obligations, as explained in the Privacy Policy. Copies made by others, search engines or independent websites may remain outside our control.

7. Public visibility

Published community posts, comments and public profile fields may be visible to anyone and indexed by search engines. Do not publish information you want kept private. Your account email is not a public profile field.

8. Reporting and moderation

You may report content and block users through the available controls. Reports are reviewed by authorised moderators or administrators, and are not publicly displayed. Blocking is not a guarantee that public content cannot be viewed outside your account.

We may remove content, lock discussions, restrict features, suspend or terminate accounts where reasonably necessary to enforce rules, protect users or comply with law. Where practical and safe, we will explain the action. You may request review through the published moderation contact. We retain records of moderation actions for accountability.

9. Availability and security

We take reasonable steps to protect and maintain YAKK4, but cannot promise uninterrupted access or that all content will be accurate, safe or available indefinitely. Do not attempt unauthorised access, scraping that disrupts the service, credential theft or interference with other users.

10. Liability and Australian consumer rights

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded, including under the Australian Consumer Law.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for losses caused by reliance on member content, unauthorised third-party conduct or interruptions outside our reasonable control. Any further limitation of liability should be settled by an Australian lawyer before publication; this draft does not impose a blanket exclusion of our own legal responsibilities.

11. Closing your account

Contact account support to request account closure and discuss removal of your content. Closure does not automatically erase content quoted or copied by others or records we must reasonably retain. We will explain the available deletion options and relevant retention arrangements.

12. Changes and governing law

We may update these terms and will publish the revised effective date. For material changes we will give reasonable notice; changes do not retrospectively remove non-excludable rights. Stop using the service if you do not agree to the revised terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of an Australian state or territory to be confirmed, subject to mandatory laws and rights that apply to you.