Community guidelines
1. ‘Request to start a community’ form
- Title: The community title identifies your community and helps define its purpose to members.
* Tip: Make sure to give your community a short and precise title which will help distinguish it from other communities.
- Description: Enter a short description(1 line) for the community. This description will be used to present the community in the directory.
- Mission Statement: The community description is key for conveying to all portal members what the essence of your community is. You can use bullets, add links to important links and place images if needed. Keep it short and precise, you have up to 300 words to do so.
- Privacy Preferences: You can set the community up with two different privacy options:
o Public/open community: Any portal member can join the community
o Private/closed community: Only members invited by the facilitator can join (useful mainly for communities associated with specific organizations and projects).
- Logo: You can add a 60 X 60 pixel image to your community description.
- Location: This field will help you focus your community around a specific location.
- Key Tags: Enter up to 8 keywords which define your community. These will help user locate it in the community directory as well as provide help to better define its objectives and area of discussion.
- Website title and Website URL: Enter a website title and URL in case the community is related to an existing organization or initiative which already has a web site.
- Contact email Address: This email address will be made public with the community and will serve as the community mail box for members to contact.
*TIP: It is preferable that you provide an email which has few limitations on message size and which can be associated with the organization you are working for (Try and avoid web mail services such as yahoo, hotmail, gmail etc.).
Most of the administration tasks for the community facilitator are done through the community menu.
Inviting New Members to Join
- Once your community is set up, you can start inviting new members to join your community by using the ‘Invite to Community’ tool. Enter a comma separated list of email addresses in the invitation box (at the bottom of the screen), and send them an invitation.
Deleting members from the community
- You can delete members from your community (in case they post content of commercial nature, SPAM or any other content which does not comply with the community rules of conduct) by using your ‘Manage members’ tool in the community main page. Simply click on the ‘Remove Membership’ link next to the users name
Appointing peers as facilitators
- In a similar manner you can appoint other members of the community to join you as facilitators and share the administrative burden of managing the community. To do so click on the ‘Create admin’ link next to the members name. A community can have an unlimited number of facilitators. Be advised that all facilitators have equal rights, once set as a facilitator any user can post and delete content from the community and delete members so make sure the facilitators you appoint are trust worthy and share the expertise required in the area of interest.
Sending a message to all the community members
- You can send an email message to all the community members in order to announce news or animate the community by clicking on the send a message link. Your message will automatically be sent to the email of all community members. Make sure that messages you send to community members are not of any type of commercial nature or which do not create bias in any manner so that members do not perceive them as spam (junk mail).
Managing content in your community
- As a facilitator you are able to add any piece of content which is on the portal to your community. When looking at any content on erscharter.eu you will notice that a new box appears on the bottom right hand side of the page: ‘Add / Remove Community’ (see image below). In this box you will see a list of all the communities you facilitate. Clicking on a community check box and then ‘Add’ will automatically add the item you see on your
Removing content from a community
- In order to delete content from your community simply follow the same steps yet instead of adding the content click on the ‘Remove’ button.
Editing community details
If you wish to edit the community details you can do so by clicking on the community ‘Edit’ button, just underneath the community title (next to the ‘view’ button). Clicking on this button will lead you once again to the communities editing form where you can change the mission statement, location, add tags etc.
Once the community is set up and ready for publishing you can make it public on the portal yourself by clicking on the ‘workflow’ tab, just underneath the community title (next to the edit button). Clicking on the workflow button you will reach a control screen where you have a “publish community” button. Changing the community status from ‘approved’ to ‘published’ and hitting the submit button.
Moderating a Community
Keep your community active!
Writing new blog posts and sharing documents with the community members is an excellent way of keeping your community members interested in the community. Other ways for keeping your community active are:
· Highlight only the most relevant content
· Promote RSS Feed subscription
· Encourage users to post to the community Blog and Gallery.
The community administration staff maintains the right to remove any inactive community which has had no activity for a substantial period of time.
In any case where the community has no activity it will be considered redundant and will therefore be removed from the portal.
Rules of Conduct
Welcome to the CHARTER Communities. In order to maintain a friendly and pleasant atmosphere on the portal we have implemented some basic rules of conduct, which may be updated by us from time to time without previous notice. All visitors who participate and use the communities and site facilities are expected to read and agree with these rules and policies and not to break any of them. Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with the portal’s policies:
Inappropriate Content
The following are deemed to constitute inappropriate content. Posting such content may result in account suspension or banning as well as the removal of the offending posts:
□ Posts or images of a defamatory, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane or threatening nature. This includes any messages or material ethnically, racially, religiously or sexually offensive, insulting or demeaning.
□ Posts or images that violate any laws or regulations.
□ Explicit advertising of products or services without our prior consent or the adequate context (i.e in the case of a thread discussing Tools & Technology). Advertising your company can be done through your Personal Profile.
□ Registering to solely post/endorse/promote for your own personal gain.
□ Discussion of illegal activities such as software and movie piracy and other intellectual property infringement.
□ Posting your or other people's personal contact information (i.e. telephone numbers, addresses etc) on any publicly viewable forums.
□ Anything else deemed inappropriate by us.
□ Links to any of the above.
□ Expected behaviour of members and suggestions for better posting
□ Keep all contributions within the appropriate community area of interest.
□ Use short, concise titles. When posting documents or blog entries, it is a good idea to use a short yet informative title, so it is not too long and other community members know what your thread is about.
□ Please make an effort to communicate yourself as clearly as possible.
□ Community members are welcome to post messages and announcements in any of the portal’s official languages (see our language policy)
□ Refrain from using foul or offensive language.
□ All content posted by users express the views of the author, and CHARTER will not be held responsible for any message.
□ Treat all other community members in a respectful and courteous manner at all times, even in the event of disagreements.
□ Visitors to the site who are not recognised Administrators, portal Staff Members or Community Facilitators with full credentials should not pose as the aforementioned ranks through the use of “administrator”, “staff member” or “facilitator” in their Member’s name, avatar or signature.
□ While these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.
Report a Rule Infraction
If you feel a fellow community member breaks the forum policies or rules of conduct, please report it to the community facilitator or directly to the portal staff.
Disciplinary Measures
We reserve the right to monitor the communities and delete any postings or members who don't adhere to these rules, our standard portal terms and conditions and our privacy policy. This includes postings that disrupt or interfere with our technical operations.
Furthermore, the community facilitators may choose to implement additional policies at their discretion for day-to-day matters which are not explicitly covered by the Official Rules of Conduct.
We reserve the right to close or ban, temporarily or permanently, any user’s account without previous notice as we deem necessary.
Should you feel you have been treated unfairly by us or a community facilitator, you may appeal directly to us. When contacting us, please provide the email address you used to sign up. We do not discuss the suspension of portal members with the general public.
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