About us

The moderators of the TWC Ning wish for users to maintain a reasonable tone and style to encourage engagement on a wide variety of viewpoints.

We offer 10 simple guidelines which we expect all participants in the community to abide by.

1. We welcome debate and dissent, but personal attacks against authors or other users, persistent trolling of authors or the community at large, and all other types of targeted abuse will not be tolerated. The key to maintaining the site as an inviting space is to focus on engagement and intelligent discussion of topics.
2. We acknowledge criticism but will not allow misrepresentation of any members of the site or information they may post. For the sake of robust engagement and discussion, please distinguish between constructive arguments and smear tactics.
3. We understand that people often feel strongly about issues, but we reserve the right to remove any content that others may find overtly offensive or threatening. Please respect other people’s views and beliefs. Consider your impact on others when making your contribution.
4. We reserve the right to redirect or curtail conversations which descend into flame wars based on ingrained partisanship or generalizations. We don’t want to stop people discussing topics they are enthusiastic about, but we do ask users to find ways of sharing their views that do not result in divisive, threatening, or toxic interactions with others.
5. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, or contributions that could be interpreted as such. This includes harsh joking as well as overt hate speech. We recognize the difference between criticizing a particular government, organization, community, or belief and attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or age.
6. We will remove any content that may put us in legal jeopardy. Potentially libelous, or defamatory, or copyright-infringing postings will be deleted. Memes and copyrighted material used under the fair use doctrine are allowed, as long as their purpose is for community education instead of circumventing copyright. For instance, posting a raw version of the movie The Social Network for download is copyright infringement, while posting an annotated version that points out moments of technical communication for purposes of training and/or satire is fair use.
7. We will remove any off-topic commercial posts and spam. Our aim is that this site should provide a space for people to interact and engage with each other. We actively discourage commercial entities passing themselves off as individuals in order to post advertising material or links. This may also apply to people or organizations who frequently post propaganda or external links without adding substantively to the quality of the discussion. Members of the community who wish to provide commercial opportunities to the community (such as internships, technical communication-related services, and new tools) may do so as long as the messages do not become disruptive to the normal flow of community speech. In other words: you can say when it makes sense, but don’t shoehorn your thing into places where it doesn’t fit.
8. Keep it relevant. Intentionally derailing a conversation or conversations for personal or commercial reasons is detrimental to the community. See guidelines 4 and 7.
9. Be aware that you may be misunderstood. Please try to be clear about what you are saying and expect that people may understand your contribution differently than you intended. Remember that text isn’t always a great medium for conversation: tone of voice, sarcasm, and humor don’t always come across when using words on a screen. If you intend to use sarcasm, marking it with the word [sarcasm] or /s will help people understand your intended tone.
10. The conversation belongs to everybody. We want this to be a welcoming space for engagement and discussion, and we expect participants to help us achieve this by notifying us of potential problems and helping each other to keep conversations inviting and appropriate.
    
    If you spot something problematic in community interaction areas, please report it. When we all take responsibility for maintaining an appropriate and constructive environment, the interaction is improved and everyone benefits.

Removal of Content

On this site, moderators do not actively approve each comment before it is posted. Instead, we rely on members to self-monitor and to report violations to us for further action.

We will, when necessary, remove user postings or comments if a contribution is perceived as breaching the community guidelines set out above. Moderators will respond in a timely manner to user flagging of potential guideline violations.

The moderators will ask users to remove offending material when it is identified by the community or moderators and confirmed by a moderator or moderators to be in violation of the guidelines. If the user will not delete the comment or comments, moderators reserve the right to delete content that defies the guidlines. Continued violations can result in interventions including and up to a user ban.

Not all user flags will result in removal of a post. We will not edit user posts to change the meaning, spelling, or anything else intended by the user. Even if only part of a comment or posting is perceived as breaching the community guidelines, the whole post will be removed. When  a comment or post is removed for any of the reasons noted in the guidelines, it is sometimes necessary to delete subsequent messages which refer to explicitly or quote from the original (removed) comment. If you have questions about why a post of yours was deleted and have not received a prior explanation, please contact a moderator for explanation.

If you wish to report a violation of guidelines, email:

• Stephen Carradini at sacarrad@asu.edu
• Barbara D’Angelo at bdangelo@asu.edu
• Andy Mara at F.Mara@asu.edu

Summary

In short:

- If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should have no problems.
- Don’t be unpleasant. Demonstrate and share the intelligence, wisdom and humor we know you possess.
- Take some responsibility for the quality of the conversations in which you’re participating. Help make this an intelligent place for discussion and it will be.

Overall, we reserve the right to take steps or implement measures including and potentially beyond those listed here to benefit the whole community of the TWC community participants. The Ning community will be informed if any new steps or measures are identified as being necessary.

The views expressed in community areas of this site do not represent the official views of ASU, CISA, or TWC, regardless of the user’s professional affiliation.