ODwire.org Code of Conduct

[AdminWolf]

Because the community has grown so large, we have developed the "ODwire.org Bill of Rights & Responsibilities" and "Code of Conduct" for site members.

We hope these guidelines will give you a sense of the type of community we're trying to build, inspire more people to get involved and most importantly, have fun when using the site.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to post to this thread.
Thanks
Adam

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ODwire.org Bill of Rights and Responsibilities

Member Rights
• Each member has the right to express his or her opinion.
• Each member has the right to be treated with respect.
• Each member has the right to post messages on the site without fear of unreasonable censorship by ODwire.org staff.
• Each member has the right to participate without fear of harassment.
• Each member has the right to be forgiven.
• Each member has the right to protest ODwire.org staff decisions and actions.

Member Responsibilities
• Every member has the responsibility to adhere to the Code of Conduct.
• Every member has the responsibility to help ensure that other community members are adhering to the Code of Conduct.


ODwire.org Staff Rights
• ODwire.org Staff and Volunteer Moderators have the right to edit or remove posts to the site that are in violation of Member Responsibilities or the ODwire.org Terms of Service.
• ODwire.org Staff have the right to ban Members who are in violation of their Member Responsibilities or ODwire.org Terms of Service.


ODwire.org Staff Responsibilities
• ODwire.org Staff have the responsibility to maintain a friendly and safe environment for our Members and Sponsors.
• ODwire.org Staff have the responsibility to ensure that discussions are posted to the proper forums.
• ODwire.org Staff have the responsibility to monitor all posts to ensure that Members are meeting their Responsibilities.
• ODwire.org Staff have the responsibility to ensure a transparent environment; that all advertising or sponsorship relationships are clearly and obviously disclosed.
• ODwire.org Staff have the responsibility to work out conflicts between members before banning or taking more drastic action.



Code of Conduct
(Thanks to Patrick Shorter, OD for helping develop the verbiage for the COC.)

We strive to make ODwire.org a friendly home for Eye Care Practitioners on the web.

Please take a few minutes to review our Code of Conduct below. While we realize that the vast majority of our members in this professional forum are mature and self-guided enough to recognize that most of these rules are common sense, in order to be as fair and impartial in those instances where remediation may be necessary, these guidelines will help all involved.

Having concrete guidelines for basic behaviors and consequences to violations will ensure that our community continues to be inclusive and informative.

1. Maintain good fellowship and professionalism: It is expected that you will conduct yourself in an appropriately professional manner while posting on this forum. This means, there should be no name calling, unnecessarily sarcastic or argumentative actions, cursing or other boorish behavior. You should behave towards one another as if you were face-to-face at a professional meeting.
2. Unethical or Illegal Content: Any discussion that even appears to endorse, condone, encourage or provide "how to" instruction on unethical or illegal activities is strictly prohibited, and will be locked or deleted immediately. Respect copyright laws: Do not repost posts or threads from ODwire.org to other web sites without our express consent. Conversely, don't wholesale cut-and-paste content from other sites in excess of your rights under Fair Use.
3. Use your real name when registering: This is to ensure that our members can be certain of each other's identity, which will foster professional and respectful discourse, and help us eliminate accounts that should not be allowed access to the forums.
4. Conflict Resolution: It is understood that disagreements will occur between members, and that at times discussions may become heated. However, we expect members to resolve personal conflicts as much as possible without moderator intervention. Remember to attack issues, not each other, and sometimes agree to disagree.
5. Disclosure: Each member is required to disclose ANY personal or professional relationship with vendors or other companies that they choose to review or offer an opinion on their products or services.
6. Reporting of Issues: We expect our members to help monitor the site. Violations of this Code of Conduct, technical difficulties or other issues that concern our members should be brought to the attention of the moderators and administrators immediately.
7. References: Whenever possible, all posts should be factual in nature, not speculative. Always make your best efforts to back up claims with links to references, and avoid rumor mongering.
8. No Unauthorized Advertising or Soliciting: If you wish to advertise products or services, please contact the administrator to become a site sponsor.
9. Posting guidelines:

• 
  ODwire.org takes pride and a vibrant and lively discussion on our posts. In order to insure that, we ask all our readers to adhere to the following commenting rules:
• Keep all comment threads on topic. This includes the main comments of the post and all sub-threads within that post’s comments.
• Will not post comments that contain spam, malware, Trojans or any other items harmful to the community. Failure to comply with this rule is grounds for an immediate ban.
• Will not engage in racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism or other intolerance.
• Not post comments that are obscene, hateful, threatening or wishing acts of violence against other.
• Will not engage in “flame-baiting” or trolling.
• Will opt to ignore users before engaging in any of the above.
• Keep all discussions civil. Everyone has a right to disagree, but do so respectfully and refrain from name calling.
• Give proper attribution to all copied content and keep said copied work to a maximum of three paragraphs
• Will not repost the same content numerous times.
• Understand that the ODwire.org staff reserves the right to edit or delete any comment for the purpose of compliance with the TOS and/or privacy policy, content and clarity. We also reserve the right to edit content for any reason not stated above.
• Do not abuse the “anonymous” posting, this should be used solely when revealing your identity could cause you serious distress or trouble.
• Please make every effort to keep threads "On Topic". If a side discussion develops that is important or noteworthy, please post a separate thread. We reserve the right to move posts to a different thread if the topic drifts off-course.

By following the above guidelines, you can expect to find ODwire.org to be a fun and informative place to interact with your fellow professionals, industry representatives and paraoptometric colleagues, where censorship is not encouraged.

Failure to abide by these simple guidelines may result in punitive actions. Possible actions may include:

• Modification or deletion of posts
• Temporary or permanent bans
• Other actions deemed necessary by administrators or moderators

Members may protest moderator or administrator decisions, as long as they are done respectfully. If you feel like we are not doing something well, or have done something wrong, please bring that to our attention along with any solutions you think may help resolve the issue.