OASBO collaborate Community Code of Conduct
Community Rules & Etiquette – effective 2/1/19
Thank you for being part of Ohio Association of School Business Official’s (OASBO) collaborate community. To ensure the best possible experience for all members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.
By joining and using collaborate, you agree you have read and will follow these rules and guidelines. You also agree to reserve discussions, shared files and content best suited to the medium. This is a great medium with which to solicit the advice of your peers, benefit from their experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation.
Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. Questions should be directed to our communications team via the Contact Us link on this site. In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate collaborate accounts for members who violate these rules.
Rules for All Members
- Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer SBOs, and remember, you were once in their shoes.
- Respect the purpose of the collaborate community. Use it to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals.
- Use caution when discussing people and products. Information posted on the discussion groups and in the libraries is available for all to see, and comments are subject to defamation and antitrust laws.
- Don't post commercial, fundraising, or promotional messages on any discussion list, resource library entry, or other area where others might see it. Contact people directly with product and service information if you believe it would help them.
- Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator.
- Don’t post political messages.
- All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited. Do not post anything you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you.
- Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. Do not spam several lists or libraries with the same message. All messages must add to the body of knowledge. OASBO reserves the right to reject any message for any reason.
- Your messages are not private. Do not post confidential, private, or legally privileged information, including information that may compromise the integrity of any business or financial process.
Additional Rules for Corporate Members
- Corporate members are prohibited from using the network to communicate about their company’s products or services.
- Corporate members may not post or distribute files detailing company products and services.
- OASBO reserves the right to remove any postings or other content that is not consistent with the Code of Conduct or otherwise not in the best interest of the association.
- If a member asks a specific question about a product, corporate members may respond directly to the member privately, not via the posted discussion thread.
Discussion Group Etiquette
- State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
- Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link in every message.
- Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” to the group. Instead, use the web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your settings.
The Legal Stuff
This site is provided as a service for the members of the Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO). OASBO is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. We disclaim all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by OASBO or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall OASBO be liable for any special, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of any information posted on this site.
Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials. Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants OASBO and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.
Messages should not be posted if they encourage or facilitate members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.
OASBO does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings and does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to the attention of OASBO, we will take all appropriate action.
Participation in OASBO’s collaborate community may result in the creation of “records” under Ohio Revised Code Section 149.011(G) that constitute “public records” under Ohio Revised Code Section 149.43(A)(1). Ohio school district users are responsible for compliance with the Ohio Public Records Act, and should consult their own legal advisors in connection therewith. In the case of any question or controversy, the OASBO reserves the right to seek its own legal counsel, and will, of course, comply with any order of a court of competent jurisdiction.
OASBO has set user profile preferences to prevent others from accessing your user contact information. These preferences can be revised and changed by individual users at their own risk of releasing contact information to all members. OASBO will be collecting and storing data from this site pertaining to log-on usage, discussion groups, document postings, and e-group conversations.
You agree that you are responsible for all statements made, and acts or omissions that occur, on your account while your password is being used. If you believe someone has used your password or account without your authorization, you must notify OASBO immediately. OASBO reserves the right to access and disclose any information, including, without limitation, user names of accounts and other information, to comply with applicable laws and lawful government requests.
OASBO may change these rules at any time. You can review the most current version of these rules by clicking on the "Code of Conduct" section under the Network tab of the web page. You are responsible for checking these rules periodically for changes. If you continue to use the site after OASBO posts changes to these rules, you are signifying your acceptance of the new terms.
To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless OASBO and its affiliates and other subsidiaries, and its respective employees, contractors, officers, directors, and agents from all liabilities, claims, and expenses, including attorney's fees that arise from your use or misuse of the site or from any breach of these rules. OASBO reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which event you will cooperate with the association in asserting any available defenses.
OASBO reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.
OASBO’s Privacy Policy is located here: https://oasbo-ohio.org/privacy-policy
Policy for Member Community Violations
The collaborate code of conduct should not be seen as all-inclusive, but rather to give our members a general idea of the guidelines one should follow when participating in an online community. In order to preserve a climate that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, OASBO reserves the right to suspend, remove content, or terminate participation on all lists for members who violate these rules.
Taking action against one of our members, particularly in regard to removing an account, is something we would like to avoid, but realistically may have to happen in order to protect the quality of service we strive to provide to our members. This restriction is not intended to limit in any way the professional networking and educational advantages of collaborate.
When unsure whether content is consistent with these policies, please err on the side of caution and do not post the content. If there are any questions on what content is appropriate to post, please contact our communications department via the Contact Us page.
Possible disciplinary actions for Code of Conduct violations:
- An email, private message or phone call is made to the member which explains the violation that occurred.
- The member may be subject to removal from collaborate, based upon the extent of the violation.
- The member’s collaborate account may be put into a 30-day moderation queue, where messages from his/her account are reviewed by the community manager before they are posted online.
- After 30-day moderation period, if no further violations have occurred, the member may be taken out of moderation queue.
- OASBO reserves the right to edit or delete a post. However, OASBO generally will not edit or delete posts for members, unless there has been a severe violation of the collaborate Community Rules/Etiquette (as mentioned).
Appeal process
A member may not appeal his/her moderation reprimand. A member may appeal his/her removal from a collaborate community by contacting the OASBO communications team in writing via communications@oasbo-ohio.org.
Final decisions will be reviewed and decided upon by a panel of peers.
Appeals should include the following pieces of information:
- First name
- Last name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Full disclosure of any previous violations
- Why you feel the community removal should be overturned, include any relevant or supporting evidence.
For any further questions or comments, please contact our communications team via the Contact Us link.