SCPMI

Community Guidelines

SCPMI is a community of practice for procurement and supply chain.Within it are communities organized by sector and by discipline, and in time communities created by members.

These guidelines apply across all of them.

01.

IDENTITY

Members post under their own name.

Participation is attributed. Members use their real name, role and employer. There are no anonymous accounts and no pseudonyms.Every question and every answer carries the name of the person who wrote it.

02.

COMMERCIAL PARTICIPATION

Vendors are welcome. Selling is not.

Solution providers, consultants and technology vendors are members like anyone else. Describe what you do. Answer a question about your own product if someone asks one.

Do not use the community as a sales channel, and do not direct members to an external funnel. Content that exists mainly to promote a commercial offer is removed.

03.

CONFIDENTIALITY AND COMPETITION

What not to post.

  • Confidential information belonging to your employer, a client or a supplier.
  • Anything defamatory about an organization or an individual, and anything relating to a live commercial dispute.
  • Specific pricing, bid values or tendering intentions. In a community of buyers these carry competition risk, and they are moderated accordingly.

04.

CONDUCT

Disagree with the argument, not the person.

Harassment, abuse, discrimination and personal attacks are not permitted. Disagreement on substance is expected and welcome.

05.

AI-GENERATED CONTENT

Disclose it.

Where a contribution is substantially generated by an automated tool, say so. You remain responsible for its accuracy either way.

06.

MEMBER-CREATED COMMUNITIES

If you create one, you maintain it.

Members will be able to create communities around a location, a technology, a problem or a piece of work. State what the community is for, keep discussion within that scope, and apply these guidelines within it.

Community leadership is professional service. It carries no fee and no authority outside the community itself. Communities that become inactive are closed.

07.

CONTRIBUTING WELL

Answer with enough detail to act on.

  • Describe what you did, including what did not work.
  • Search before asking. If the answer exists, link to it.
  • Attribute ideas that are not your own.

08.

MODERATION

Tools flag. People decide.

Content may be reviewed by automated tools to identify what needs attention. No action is taken against a member's account on an automated assessment alone. A person reviews it first.

Where content is removed or an account restricted, the member is told what happened and why, and may appeal. Appeals are decided by someone with no involvement in the original decision.

09.

REPORTING

How to report something.

Any member can report content or conduct through the confidential reporting form in the community. Reports reach only the person designated to receive them, and may be made anonymously.

The reporter is not identified to the person reported. Members who report in good faith are protected, and retaliation is itself a breach.

10.

THE CODE OF ETHICS

What sits beneath these guidelines.

These guidelines govern conduct in the community. The SCPMI Code of Ethics governs professional conduct, and applies to every member, every credential holder, everyone acting for the Institute, and the Institute itself.

Three provisions are directly relevant here.

  • Credentials are described accurately. Claiming a credential not held, or one that has lapsed, is a breach.
  • Interests are declared. Where you have a commercial interest in the advice you are giving, state it.
  • Conduct is defensible. Anything you would not want disclosed is not appropriate here.