Community Guidelines

The community is the reason most members join. It works because practitioners bring real problems and get answers from people who have faced them.

That only holds if the room stays worth being in. These guidelines are how it stays worth being in.

They apply to every part of the community: industry communities, communities of practice, direct messages, profiles, events and anything else the Institute operates.

• 1.1 Participation is verified and attributed. You post as yourself, using your real name and your real professional identity.
• 1.2 There is no anonymous posting. A question carries the name of the person asking it and an answer carries the name of the person answering.
• 1.3 You do not impersonate anyone, misstate your role or employer, or operate more than one account.
• 1.4 Where the Institute itself posts, it does so openly as the Institute.

• 2.1 Solution providers, consultants and technology vendors are welcome as professionals. Many are practitioners themselves.
• 2.2 The norm is simple. Come as a practitioner, not as a pitch.
• 2.3 A discussion that turns into a sales call is moderated out. So is a pattern of contributions that exists mainly to route members toward a commercial offer.
• 2.4 You may say what you do and who you work for. You may answer a question about your own product where someone asks it. You may not use the community principally as a channel to sell.
• 2.5 Recruiting members into a mailing list, a private group or an off-platform funnel is not permitted.

Answer as though the person asking has to act on it tomorrow.

Say what you actually did, including what did not work. A practitioner willing to describe a failure is worth more than a polished case study.

Disagree with the argument, not the person.

Search before asking. Then ask anyway if the answer is not there.

Credit the people whose ideas you are using.

• 4.1 Harassment, abuse, threats, or conduct that would make a reasonable professional unwilling to participate.
• 4.2 Discrimination or demeaning content relating to race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.
• 4.3 Disclosing confidential information belonging to your employer, a client or a supplier. If you would not say it in a room with your general counsel, do not post it.
• 4.4 Naming a supplier, an employer or an individual in a way that is defamatory or that discloses a commercial dispute.
• 4.5 Sharing anything that infringes copyright, including reproducing a gated report rather than summarizing it and linking to the source.
• 4.6 Discussing pricing, tendering or commercial terms in a way that could amount to anti-competitive coordination. This is a real risk in a community of buyers, and it is taken seriously.
• 4.7 Spam, repetitive posting, artificially inflating engagement, or manipulating rankings and votes.
• 4.8 Sharing personal data about someone who has not consented.
• 4.9 Passing off machine-generated content as your own work without saying so. Where a contribution is substantially produced by an automated tool, say so. You remain responsible for its accuracy either way.

• 5.1 Content may be triaged by automated systems against these guidelines, to identify what needs a human to look at it.
• 5.2 No decision adverse to a member is taken by automated means alone. Where something is flagged, a qualified person reviews it before any action is taken.
• 5.3 Moderation actions available: leaving content in place; adding context; removing content; restricting an account; suspending an account; and ending membership.
• 5.4 Where content is removed or an account restricted, the member is told what happened and why.
• 5.5 The Institute may remove content without a report where these guidelines are plainly breached.

• 6.1 Any member may report content or conduct, using the reporting route in the community.
• 6.2 Reports are treated confidentially. The person reported is not told who reported them, unless disclosure is unavoidable in order to deal with the matter fairly.
• 6.3 A member who reports something in good faith is protected. Retaliation against them is itself a breach of these guidelines.
• 6.4 Serious matters are handled under the Reporting, Investigation and Discipline Policy.

• 7.1 A member may appeal a moderation decision by writing to the Institute within twenty-eight days.
• 7.2 An appeal is decided by someone who had no part in the original decision.
• 7.3 The outcome is given in writing, with reasons.

• 8.1 Some communities are led by volunteer members. Community leadership is professional service rather than organizational status.
• 8.2 Community leaders act within these guidelines and within the Volunteer and Community Leader Terms, and carry the same obligations of conduct and confidentiality as anyone acting for the Institute.

What you post remains yours. By posting it, you grant the Institute the license set out in the Membership Terms, which allows it to be hosted, shown, translated, summarized and used to improve the community.

The Institute is not obliged to publish, keep or continue to display anything.

• 10.1 These guidelines are applied by the Institute, whose judgment on whether something falls within them is the Institute's to make, exercised reasonably.
• 10.2 They are not exhaustive. Conduct that damages the community may be moderated whether or not it is described here.

• A.1 The Institute may amend this document. A change that is not material takes effect when it is published.
• A.2 Where a change is material, the Institute gives thirty days' notice by email or by notification within the service before it takes effect. The Institute determines, acting reasonably, whether a change is material.
• A.3 Continued use of the Institute's services after the effective date is acceptance of the change. Where the law requires fresh consent, the Institute asks for it, and processing carried out before the change remains valid.
• A.4 Rights already granted to the Institute in respect of content already contributed are not affected by a later change.
• A.5 Every version is numbered, dated and archived. The version in force is published on the website. A previous version is available on request.