TigerNet Discussion Group User Etiquette Guidelines

The Alumni Council's volunteer Technology Advisory Committee has drawn up the following guidelines for participants in TigerNet Discussion Groups. There are also new TigerNet Discussion Group Disciplinary Procedures.

TigerNet Discussion Groups provide forums for sharing ideas, thoughts, experiences, and opinions. We ask that you carefully read and follow the guidelines below; your ongoing participation in TigerNet is contingent upon this. Violators will be warned, while repeat offenders will lose privileges or be banned permanently from TigerNet.

• Be courteous. Discussion should be courteous even when disagreement may be vigorous. Respond to the subject and not to the person, using the same courtesy you would show when speaking face-to-face with someone. Flames, insults, and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

• Be kind. TigerNet members should be able to post without having their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics questioned by others. Members who post in a manner that makes other members unwelcome or who conduct themselves in a manner that undermines the TigerNet community will lose privileges.

• Think before you post. Be aware that what you write on TigerNet is archived and is searchable. Think before you post.

• Respect private communications and copyrighted material. Please do not post copyrighted material on TigerNet. Fair use allows brief excerpts, e.g., a sentence or two, from copyrighted material for the purposes of review and commentary but please do not post extensive excerpts from any source. In such cases, posting a link to the original content may be appropriate. Also, please do not quote the text of private communications without permission; such material may be paraphrased (if not privileged or confidential) but should not be reproduced verbatim on TigerNet. Similarly, postings from TigerNet should not be reposted elsewhere without the permission of all of the original authors.

• Stay on topic. The topic area of each TigerNet Discussion Group is described in its charter. Post only information appropriate for a group’s topic. Commercial posts, repetitive posts, abusive posts, cross-posting to multiple groups, posts using names other than your own, excessively long posts, obscenities, chain letters, viruses and spam are not allowed.

If you see posts that you think may violate these guidelines, please notify the moderators of that Discussion Group and, if necessary, the Associate Director of Web and Technical Services at the Alumni Council. For information on a group’s topic or to contact its moderators, please go to the Discussion Group page and click on the appropriate group.