TOUCHSTONE RESEARCH COMMUNITY RULES AND GUIDELINES
This is a private online community panel where members share their opinions. We want to learn from you, share thoughts and ideas, and gather feedback.
Below are the online community conduct rules and guidelines-please read them before posting in the community. Our moderators are here to help, so if you have any questions about what is allowed, feel free to ask one of them or contact us directly at [email protected]. When joining the community you are agreeing to all rules included below, the site Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. These rules also apply to your communication with the staff and moderators. If you see something that you think may violate our guidelines, please help us by emailing us at [email protected]. We have a team that reviews these reports and works as quickly as possible to remove content that doesn’t meet our guidelines.
These rules apply to all communities and projects. We reserve the right to remove any content, for any reason, at any time.
GENERAL CONDUCT
DO NOT GIVE OUT PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOURSELF OR ANYONE ELSE EVER.
Personal information, includes, but is not limited to, real name, email address, street address, credit or debit card numbers, account passwords, place of employment, relatives, or other information not publicly disclosed. You should not post this type of information about yourself or anyone else.
DO NOT ASK ANYONE FOR PERSONAL INFORMATION EVER.
Don’t ask anyone their full name, address, phone number, or email address or ask them to post anything else that has any personal identifying information.
Do Not Tell Anyone Your Password
Do not tell anyone your password to the community. NOTE: No moderator or staff member from the community, will ever ask you for your password. If someone asks for your password DON’T give it to them. If someone asks for your password, please let us know.
Before Posting
Before beginning a new discussion, please look through the threads and make sure that another community member hasn’t already started a thread on your topic. Also, please make sure that you add your thread or post in the appropriate topic or thread.
Don’t be Rude or Disrespectful
Please be polite and respectful to other community members and remember that others may not always share your point of view. Although you may not share a member’s opinion or enthusiasm on a particular topic, please be respectful of their opinion. We encourage you to exchange opinions as long as everyone stays respectful. Attempts to drive off a member because they have a differing opinion will not be tolerated.
It is fine if you do not like something and you want to let us know this, in fact, we encourage this, but please do so in a respectful and constructive manner. If you treat others the way you would want to be treated we can create a positive experience for everyone.
Please be respectful to members, staff and moderators. If you post with respect, you will be respected.
No Personal Attacks or Harassment.
We encourage you to post your opinion, but you aren’t permitted to insult, harass, or intimidate other members for expressing theirs. Do not post content that demeans, or marginalizes, is abusive, harassing or personally attacks others.
No Derogatory Content or Hate Speech.
Do not post content that depicts another person’s race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or other status in a patently derogatory manner.
No Use of Profanity, Obscenities, or Other Inappropriate Content.
Do not post any profane, vulgar, abusive, hateful, sexually explicit, or indecent language or images, including text, video, pictures, audio, etc.
No Content that Violates Any Laws, Unauthorized Copyrighted Material, Advocates Illegal Activity, etc.
Do not post anything that violates any law, advocates illegal activity, or infringes upon the intellectual property or other right of any entity or person. Do not post statements that are libelous or otherwise defamatory. Do not suggest, encourage, boast about, or discuss your participation in any illegal activity.
No Hateful Conduct.
You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.
No Suicide or Self-harm Content.
You may not promote or encourage suicide or self-harm.
No Off-Topic Content or False Information
Do not post content that does not pertain to community topics, or information that is false or misleading. Please ensure that your content is relevant and will prove useful to other members taking part as well as the moderators. This will help to build a better community.
No Advertising or Solicitation of Goods or Services
Do not use the community to engage in commercial activities, including, but not limited to, advertising, promoting or soliciting, funds for goods or services. Do not post pyramid schemes or chain letters.
No Multiple Messages or Other Disruptive Posting or Activity. No Spamming.
Please don’t post the same message more than once in the same thread or another thread. It is considered spamming and those who consistently do so will be removed from the community.
No Hijacking Threads
Please don’t hijack threads – it is bad etiquette because it isn’t fair to the originator of the thread, since many members are reluctant to interrupt an ongoing conversation. Examples of hijacking a thread are: 1) abruptly posting a message that is completely off topic to the original thread post; or 2) two or more members begin chatting in a separate person conversation in a thread.
Please be sure to post in English
No Self-Promotion
This can take the form of advertisements for your professional services, products etc. or repeated promotion of other websites/blogs/networks etc. Do not post pyramid schemes or chain letters.
No impersonation of others
Do not impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent your identity or your affiliation to any person or entity
THREADS & POSTS
If you see any post or content you feel violates any of the above rules, please let us know.
The community staff or moderators may remove any post or any thread or remove any member from the community for any reason. In most cases we will not remove threads or posts unless a community rule is broken or the thread is having a negative impact on the community. The question the moderation team asks when deciding whether to delete a post or thread is: Is it mean-spirited or malicious? If the answer is Yes, it comes down. If a member establishes a pattern of mean-spirited posts, their account will come down.
If one of your posts is deleted, it is usually because you have violated a forum rule and the deletion is a warning. If you establish a pattern of violations, your account will be permanently blocked.
The following are examples of posts that will be removed (at our discretion), it is not intended to be all-inclusive:
- Posts that are harassing or antagonistic in nature.
- Posts intended solely to annoy or offend other posters.
- Ranting, raging or whining posts i.e. comments like: “I hate this”, “The new X sucks.” without any constructive feedback or explanation as to what the issue is: what specifically do you dislike and why, what are your suggestions.
- Posts that have been reported by multiple members.
- Posts that are derogatory or hateful in nature.
- Posts that contain profanity.
- Posts that contain vulgar or offensive material.
- Posts that advertise a business or services.
- “Vote for me” posts, or any post soliciting votes to win a contest or sweepstakes.
- Fundraising posts, or any post soliciting money or contributions from other members.
- Posts that attempt to recruit members to a competitor site.
- Posts containing malicious links to competitor sites or petition pages.
In certain circumstances, it may become necessary for entire threads to be closed. For example, the following topics may be closed (at our discretion):
- Topics that duplicate the content of a thread that has been posted on within the last three months.
- Topics that have veered significantly off-topic.
- Topics that contain multiple harassing, offensive, or attacking posts.
- Topics related to political, ethical, moral, or religious debates that become nasty or are likely to become nasty.
- Topics related to controversial issues such as role playing likely to generate extreme viewpoints and disagreement or debates that become or are likely to become nasty.
- Topics that are not relevant to the purpose of the community.
- Topics that have been reported by multiple members.
These rules and guidelines apply to member contributions and to any part of the community/panel (forums, blogs, member generated polls, chat, etc.). We may work with law enforcement, including when we believe that there’s risk of physical harm or threat to public safety.
