Transition Cornwall Network

Community guidelines

Our aim on the Transition Cornwall Network website is to provide a collaborative space for those involved in Transition and Climate Friendly Initiatives in Cornwall. We have created the following set of Community guidelines to foster an environment of shared values, mutual respect and trust.

These community rules are to be considered in line with general 'netiquette principles', which outline generally agreed terms of communication conduct over the internet, and our terms and conditions: the legal information and moderation process.

These guidelines apply to all user contributions published on the site, including uploaded files. We reserve the right to remove any material which does not adhere to these guidelines, or take further action if required (see below)
. This all sounds a bit serious, but it's like all 'rules' - you don't need them until you need them, and when you need them, they need to be clear for everyone's sake.

• You are responsible for any content you post. Where it relates to an existing discussion topic or article, ensure that it is relevant and will prove useful to other members taking part
• Keep the content of discussions on the topic of the subject posted
• You are responsible for copyright infringement in your messages. Please do not post copyrighted material in your messages unless you yourself hold the copyright or have received permission from the author.
• Please be polite and respectful towards other members of the community, and remember that others may not always share your point of view. Disruptive, offensive or abusive behaviour will not be tolerated. We call this 'nonsense' and you can see the 'Report This' links on all user content. This is a sensitive area and we reserve the right to take action if requested by a community member: remember: your debating style may seem 'excitable' to you but intimidating to others. Any such postings may be removed.
• Please do not use our site for self-promotion. This can take the form of advertisements for your professional services, products etc. or repeated promotion of other websites/blogs/networks etc. Where a direct link is available to source material, this should always be provided. We welcome collaboration with other networks but not a series of links to them without direct relevance to the discussion (e.g. repeated linking from comments). If you have a reasonable cause for promotion or would like to be sponsored in some form, please get in touch before sharing your excitement with the rest of the community.
• Please consider other users at all times when using the interactive spaces on the site. Behaviour that deters other members from engaging with the community is considered offensive. Allow other members to contribute and do not dominate interactions. This is identified by repeatedly answering your own articles or comments, or being recognised as always the last person to comment on things, or the person who comments on everything - you know what we mean.
• Please do not use this site to air your grievances. As a service that supports a large, diverse and emergent movement, we are aware that people have differences of opinion in their groups; this is uncomfortable for everyone and we totally empathise. We suggest you maintain your cool and seek help (try looking for a local facilitator on the Transition Network website). However this is not the place to bring those issues; we will not accept any 'naming of names', or making obvious (even if anonymous) references to people, initiatives or actions. It won't help the situation and does upset the other users.
• Please do not use the site to spam people. We actively encourage our users, initiatives and projects to display contact information prominently on their profile page. This is so that people can get in touch with eachother to discuss specific issues. It is not there for anyone to send the same message to multiple initiatives, people, or projects. There are other ways of making announcements on the site. Sending the same message to multiple recipients via the contact function is considered nonsense and will be handled accordingly.
• Please remember that many site visitors may not be native English speakers; keep your language simple and clear for their sake.
• And seriously - repeated use of the site to make defamatory or commercial postings, offensive behaviour towards other users, or any illegal activities) may result in a user being banned from future participation in the community and their ISP informed. It's just nonsense, and you know it.

The no nonsense principle:

In order to keep the flow of ‘content’ moving through the system with very limited resources and deep trust in the movement, we are taking a ‘post-moderation’ approach – ie we will let anything through the system (events, projects, comments etc.) without it having to be checked. Otherwise things go too slow.

We are aware that this offers a risk that some nonsense will get through, but we are installing some handy ‘moderation’ tools (e.g. ‘Report this’ links) to keep an eye on the site as it grows.

We strive to be sensitive, emotional, kind and all that. However, where toughness is required, toughness will be the name of the game. We have been online facilitating for many years now, and our negotiation stance on obvious nonsense is pretty much ‘no nonsense’. Irrelevant or spammy or otherwise undesirable events or other content will be removed with very little discussion. We all know it's nonsense, so let's not beat around the bush.

In the unfortunate event of any member abusing the community in any of the ways above, we reserve the right to remove or edit postings. The author (of the article to which the comments are made) and commenter will be notified by the site administrator or moderator. If members continue to behave in an unsuitable manner, they are liable to being barred from the community for two weeks. When they come back after this barring, if they continue to behave in this way, they will banned forever.

Let's hope we never need to refer to these guidelines.

These Community Guidelines are based on those published by the Transition Network on their website and used with permission, and with thanks to Transition Network.