User Guidelines for Mentoring Forums

Participation in the Mentoring Forums constitutes agreement to the following guidelines, which apply to posts, user profile information, private messages, signatures, any other content on this site, and participation in general. Please read these guidelines prior to creating a user account or posting content to the site. You may also wish to read our Frequently Asked Questions for additional information about using this site.

Mentoring Forums staff reserve the right to notify users of guideline violations, as well as the right to edit, move, and delete any posts that are deemed to be inappropriate. All questions about the guidelines and use of the site should be directed to Forums Administrator Michael Garringer via private Forum message or at Michael.Garringer@educationnorthwest.org (or by phone at 503-275-9647)

The Mentoring Forums Guidelines fall into four major categories: Posting and Content, User Accounts and Profiles, Reporting Violations, and our Privacy Policy.

POSTING AND CONTENT

The Mentoring Forums website is a place where youth mentoring professionals can post questions and information about running a youth mentoring program and strategies for effectively mentoring young people. As such, we expect that the conversations on this site will focus on youth mentoring and related topics. Discussion on non-mentoring topics is not permitted.

Examples of appropriate postings include:

• Questions about best practices for running a mentoring program
• Announcements of new funding opportunities
• Requests for advice on how to handle an issue in a mentoring relationship
• Examples of materials your program has used successfully in administering your program.
• Announcements of conferences of interest to the mentoring field.

Examples of inappropriate postings include:

• Solicitations for volunteer mentors
• Advertisements for services or products of any kind
• Political discussions
• Personal attacks
• Copyright protected information

Please post in the appropriate forum categories. As you can see on the Mentoring Forums homepage, we have several preset categories of forum topics. Topics outside these suggested areas can be posted to the “Miscellaneous Mentoring and Youth Development Topics” section. If you feel that a new category of discussion is warranted, please contact Forums Administrator Michael Garringer via private message or at Michael.Garringer@educationnorthwest.org.

Please check to see if your question or post topic has already been addressed before posting. This can be done via the search feature at the top of every page. Redundant questions and discussions will either be removed or moved to an appropriate location.

Do not post copyrighted materials (articles, videos, audio, etc.) that you do not have permission to reproduce or distribute. For text articles, most of the time you may quote a small portion of the article (usually no more than 1/5 or 1/6) and you must link to the source (if online) or provide the source (if offline). Posting the entire article, even with the source, constitutes copyright infringement. This is not the place to illegally trade or distribute copyrighted media (or those with questionable copyright status).

Cross-posting is not allowed and will result in the removal of one or more posts. Cross-posting is defined as posting the same information in two or more locations. When posting your topic, please try to post it in the most appropriate place within the organizational structure of our community. Identical topics posted in the same or different forums will be removed.

Advertisements are not allowed. Generally speaking, posts made specifically for the promotion of a website, product, or service are considered advertising or, at least, posts made that unnecessarily send people to a website that you are in some way affiliated with. It does not matter if it is a commercial website, a personal website, a nonprofit website, etc.

Vulgar language and inappropriate material are not allowed and will be removed. Abbreviations, self censoring, and attempts to circumvent the word censoring feature of the community software also violate this guideline. If your post contains a word that is censored by the software, you must remove that word or the post will be removed. If you feel that the censor is acting in error, please contact us.

Respect your fellow members. Please refrain from inflammatory and defamatory comments as well as flaming, taunting, and general disrespect. Do not put down opinions or advice given by others. If you don't agree with something, say why - respectfully. Refrain from uninvited remarks about typos, duplicate posts, posting styles, etc.

Political and religious discussions are not allowed. You can discuss the role of government in funding and supporting mentoring programs, but overtly political discussions are disallowed. Likewise, strong political and religious sentiments should be kept out of profiles, signatures, and other content.

Posts about the Mentoring Forums site itself (such as asking about a user feature or asking why a post was removed) are not allowed. If you have a problem, you may make a complaint to the Forum Administrator directly (either by sending a private Forum message to Michael Garringer or by emailing Michael.Garringer@educationnorthwest.org) and not publicly in the forums. Creating threads or posts that question or reference administrative decisions or potential administrative decisions, such as post removals and thread closures, is not permitted. If you have questions about any aspect of the site, please contact the Forums Administrator at Michael.Garringer@educationnorthwest.org or 503-275-9647.

Posts that discuss illegal activities, transactions, or websites such as warez, cracks, etc. will be removed. This includes the posting of information that you have obtained illegally.

As this is an English-speaking community, we require that posted content be in the English language, so that it can be well received and properly monitored.

We know that people will leave our community from time to time and to that end, we do not delete accounts, posts, or other content posted on our community. All content is granted to us with perpetual electronic publishing rights because any content posted on this community becomes a part of the community, even if you no longer are. You may request an item to be removed at any time, but our staff will decide when and if to remove content. If you wish to no longer be identified with our community, we will be glad to close your account and alter your profile information to remove all identifying characteristics. After account closure, you will no longer be able to participate in this community and this action is not reversible.

Whenever you are participating in this community, please keep in mind that we strive to create a fun, friendly, professional, and inviting atmosphere. So, please have fun and enjoy the conversation!

USER ACCOUNTS AND PROFILES

Each user is allowed to create only one account. If you would like to change your username, please contact the Forums Administrator via private message or at Michael.Garringer@educationnorthwest.org.

Automated account creation, participation, and content scraping (taking content form this site for posting on another) is not permitted.

Avatars (small pictures that accompany your profile) are not in use on this site. We do allow personalized signatures, although these are restricted to 4 lines of content and cannot contain any advertising or other content that violates our User Guidelines. The text in the signature may be customized by the BBCode in use on the forums. It is recommended that you stick with readable fonts and colors and that the size is not too large. You may mention websites and ventures that you are in some way related to, as long as they are otherwise appropriate for this community.

Do not post personal, real-life information, such as home addresses and home phone numbers.

Private messaging among forum users is allowed. This valuable service allows forum users to engage in professional networking and information sharing that is not visible to every site user. However, the content of private messages is subject to the same stipulations as other posted content. Private messages that violate our guidelines or that are deemed inappropriate in any other way will be removed and violators risk having their accounts deleted.

Mentoring Forums staff only access private messages if we are alerted to inappropriate behavior by a forum user. Please see our Privacy Policy below for more information about our handling of private user information.

Our staff reserves the right to ban users and delete user accounts for any action deemed serious enough to warrant such action. These guidelines are subject to change at any time without notice.

REPORTING VIOLATIONS

Because of the live nature of the discussions on this community, it is not possible for us to review and/or confirm the accuracy or validity of a message before it is posted. If you believe that someone has violated our User Guidelines or you have spotted content that may otherwise require attention, please send a private message to Administrator Michael Garringer (or email Michael.Garringer@educationnorthwest.org) with a link to the content and a brief description of what you believe is wrong. Notification is voluntary and anonymous, but in no case should a user respond to a situation personally, thereby aggravating the situation further. Responding to a violation in an inflammatory manner is a violation in itself and will result in appropriate action.

PRIVACY POLICY

The content of the Mentoring Forums is governed by the general privacy policy of our host organization, Education Northwest. This policy can be viewed here on the Education Northwest website.

QUESTIONS?

Do you have a question about our User Guidelines or anything else? Do you have a suggestion? Do you want to offer some feedback? Or are you experiencing some trouble with the site? Well, no matter what it is, please do not hesitate to send us a private message or email us and we will be glad to help in any way that we can.

Thank you for visiting and participating in the Mentoring Forums. We hope you find this site to be very useful to you professionally and that it informs the important work you do with our nation’s youth.

Sincerely,

Mike Garringer (Forum Administrator) and the rest of our team.