Draft Members Agreement

[COBOLdinosaur]

I have now drafted a members agreement.  Please note this is a general members agreement for use at signup by regular members.  It does not have a lot of rules in it.  The rules will be a seperate detailed document.  It also it not the complete agreement for Mentors.  The rights and privileges of Mentors will be outlined in a seperate Mentors Charter which I am still working on.  If there are minor changes to this we can do them as ammendments.  If there are big pieces that need to be added, it is probably best to add them as seperate proposals after we have this part done.

The way the site currently presents the agreement is unacceptable so I will have to redo the page anyway; so we can play with it as much a necessary.  Also there is no link to it.  I will add one to the common footer so it is accessible from any page.  

The age question will still follow the agreement on the page, and there will be links to both the Mentors Charter and the Rules at the bottom of the page.





The Site Builders created this place to be a place of learning, knowledge, and the exchange of ideas.  This is a professional site, and professional conduct is required at all times.

You are required under this agreement to read and understand the rules of the site. Failure to know the rules is not acceptable as a defense for a violation of them.  Rules violations constitute professional misconduct. We do not suspend for violations on this site.  In most cases account are terminated on the first offense; and will only be re-instated based on a formal request from a Mentor; with strict conditions attached.

This site is governed through domocratic processes based on the Mentors Charter. The Mentors Charter governs the relationship between the site and the Mentors, and is the members agreement for mentors.  The members agreement for for non-Mentors is the rules document and the clauses following in this document.

By accepting this agreement:
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• You agree to abide by all site rules and respect the Mentors Charter.
• You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented or any other material that may violate any applicable laws.
• You agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should they see fit.
• You agree that the Mentors have the right to post critical evaluations of content posted in their area of expertise without being subjected to abusive responses.
• You agree that any content you post from other sources will not be in violation of copyright and you will accurately acknowledge the ownership or source of such material.
• You agree that you will not post any link for the purpose of promotion; that contains pirated, stolen, or illegal content; that contain pornography; that contains hate literature; or is a site in competition with Experts Round Table[/list:o][/color]

[Huntress]

The groundwork has been laid.  Fine job!  Succinct and to the point.

[keneso]

Item 6
I woul specify the racial and ideological to the hate part, plus the "any other material that may violate any applicable laws" to sum and cover it all up.

Item 4
I would put it like this:
You agree that the Mentors may, when required,  post critical evaluations of content posted in their area of expertise, without being subjected to abusive responses.

Or something along those lines, as giving the right to be critical, may have a negative connotation.

[CrYpTiC_MauleR]

You agree that you will not post any link for the purpose of promotion; that contains pirated, stolen, or illegal content; that contain pornography; that contains hate literature; or is a site in competition with Experts Round Table

So lets says someone posted a link to TOS to a PAQ to help someone answer a question. Would that be considered the above or will it be excluded since it is being used to aid the seeker in the question. Of course it could be a sneaky attempt at advertising too O.O

[COBOLdinosaur]

Item 6
I woul specify the racial and ideological to the hate part, plus the "any other material that may violate any applicable laws" to sum and cover it all up.

If you specify categories it can be interpreted that other categories are okay. Wit out specific indication it means any kind of hate literature.  I think non-violation of the law is covered by item 2 and by including "illegal content" as apart of the list of things a link can't have.

Item 4
I would put it like this:
You agree that the Mentors may, when required, post critical evaluations of content posted in their area of expertise, without being subjected to abusive responses.

Or something along those lines, as giving the right to be critical, may have a negative connotation.

I have seen an awful lot of flame exchanges that start off with "what gives you the right to criticize my {fill in the blank}".  On ERT I would like the anser to be the MA. If you soften it you end up with the situation we see on TOS where their experts are accused of causing flaming when all they are doing is giving their honest opinion.  As far as I am concerned any Mentor who is willing to share their expertise and help others on a voluntary basis has earned the right to issue a critical evaluation; and the MA should support that in clear terms.

So lets says someone posted a link to TOS to a PAQ to help someone answer a question. Would that be considered the above or will it be excluded since it is being used to aid the seeker in the question. Of course it could be a sneaky attempt at advertising too O.O

You have to make a distinction between linking to a competing site and content on a competing site.  Posting a link to a thread on any site that helps a member is not violating anything but just posting a link to a competing site would be a violation. The problem with some "pay for view" sites is that it may not always be possible for a user to get to the content without signing up.  In those cases it might be better to cut an paste the applicable content and post the thread link to acknowledge the source.

[Daydreams]

This is wonderful!

I would change a few minor things as far as grammar, and I would remove:

 "..without being subjected to abusive responses. " from #4 as it is redundant to #2 concerning abusive material.

Here is a version with some edits:



The Site Builders created this site as a place of learning, knowledge, and the exchange of ideas. This is a professional site, and professional conduct is required at all times.

You are required under this agreement to read and understand the rules of the site. Failure to know the rules is not acceptable as a defense for a violation of them. Rules violations constitute professional misconduct. Professional misconduct by any member may result in the member's account being terminated on the first offense. The account may only be reinstated based on a formal request from a Mentor, with strict conditions applied to such reinstatement.

This site is governed through democratic processes based on the Mentors Charter. The Mentors Charter governs the relationship between the site and the Mentors, and is the Members Agreement for Mentors. The Members Agreement for non-Mentors is the Rules document and the clauses following in this document.

By accepting this agreement:


   1. You agree to abide by all site rules and respect the Mentors Charter.
   2. You agree not to post abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented material, or any other material that may violate any applicable laws.
   3. You agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time.
   4. You agree that the Mentors have the right to post critical evaluations of content posted in their area of expertise.
   5. You agree that any content you post from other sources will not be in violation of copyright. You will accurately reference the ownership or source of material if it is permissible to post such content.
   6. You agree that you will not post any link for the purpose of promotion or financial gain; that contains pirated, stolen, or other illegal content; that contains pornography; that contains hate-content; or is a site in competition with Experts Round Table.

<edit: corrected misspelling of "democratic" and removed the extra "for">

[Huntress]

The Members Agreement for for non-Mentors is the Rules document and the clauses following in this document.

You might want to take out that second "for" too, thusly-->The Members Agreement for non-Mentors is the Rules document and the clauses following in this document.

[COBOLdinosaur]

Okay for the vote we will use the edited alternative from Dd, with the edit from Huntress, and the mord moderator must now be replaced with editor.  The last change is because we no longer have moderators, I change it across the forunm last night to editor.

So guess this is now an unmoderted forum; but it is edited.
 :wink:

[Daydreams]

ou might want to take out that second "for" too

Yes Huntress! You have a good eye!

The last change is because we no longer have moderators, I change it across the forunm last night to editor.

So guess this is now an unmoderted forum; but it is edited.

I imagine that you don't want to use the term "moderator", because of the association with TOS, but it is a descriptive term, and we can redefine what it means.

Someone who manages threads does more than editing. They need to analyze content to see if it fits with the Charter, approve images (if need be) etc. Moderator is a familiar term to those who participate in forums, so I am not sure why we would need to change it.

[COBOLdinosaur]

Much of what we call moderating will be done by the Mentors as part of managing their classroom.  The Editors will be reponsible for content, organization of material, and conversion to other forms rather than the traditional policing role of moderators.  The editors need extended tool capabilities to do the job, and those sort of tools are packaged within PHPBB for moderators.  There are three options:
[list=1]

• Create a new set of tools for editors and add the programming necessary the recognize the new grouping.  
• Give the editors the permissions and title of moderator which then has the effect of a title that does not accuarately describe role.
• Change moderator to editor.
[/list:o]

So I selected 3.

Does that mean that Editors will never do any of things that a moderator would do?  No, I would expect that when there is a problem and the Mentors for a topic are not around, that an editor would take action.  It is simply a matter of a title that is more descriptive of the primary role.  If titles on TOS has any bearig on it, we would also need to get rid of admin.  I certainly would not have Site Admin as my title if I had those kind of feelings.  

Admin and moderator are the commonly used terms on most sites because they describe role.  Editor if infrequently used because there are very few sites with an editor role.  If we find we have a need for a police force in the future we can add programming to allow both editors and moderators.

[Daydreams]

Much of what we call moderating will be done by the Mentors as part of managing their classroom. The Editors will be reponsible for content, organization of material, and conversion to other forms rather than the traditional policing role of moderators.

Thanks! This makes the title/role more clear. I agree it's a good idea.

[CrYpTiC_MauleR]

Good idea with the moderator, any other terms that outright imply 'power' should also be changed to a more friendlier term. Less TOS like then =o)

[Huntress]

Editor is perfect.

[coral1]

for the vote we will use the edited alternative from Dd ... with the edit from Huntress, and the word moderator must now be replaced with editor

Yeah, ... Right!     :scratch:   [-o<

[COBOLdinosaur]

Think of it as a challenge.  Florida is the place they love voting challenges isn't it?   :shock: