SPE Connect Guidelines

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To ensure the best possible experience for all members, SPE has established basic guidelines for participation. Please take a moment to read these.

By joining and using SPE Connect, you agree that you have read and will follow these guidelines. Postings and messages will be deleted at SPE’s sole discretion if they are considered to be counter to the Terms of Service policy or these guidelines. 

Feel free to contact SPEConnect@spe.org if you have any questions about these guidelines.  

 Guidelines for Participation

- Be positive, constructive, and respectful. Defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited. Do not post anything that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you. 

- Avoid repetitive posts.

- Ensure your posts are relevant to the community and the discussion thread. 

- We encourage you to share your experiences with products and services that might compensate others if others can benefit, but we want to ensure that the perspectives shared within SPE Connect are as objective as possible. Be sure to specify your affiliation (or lack of affiliation) to the product or service. 

- Do not post directly commercial messages that do not contribute to the technical conversation.

- Use caution when discussing products and services. Information posted on the communities and in the libraries is available for members to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws. 

- Protect your employer’s interests

  • Do not post confidential information that is not approved for the public.
  • Include the following statement in your signature: “This post reflects a purely personal opinion & not that of the organization with which I am affiliated.”

- Posting logos or banners is an infringement of the owner's copyright and are prohibited. However, you can post a URL or hyperlink.

- Only SPE and other non-profits events and activities may be posted. Events from commercial companies are prohibited. Try to incorporate some content into the post, like a teaser article about an event topic, rather than a direct announcement.

- Remember that other participants have the right to reproduce postings from this site unless you specify otherwise. 

- Employment notices or requests for employment are strictly prohibited.

- If the community is working on a document for SPE purposes, material in that document may be distributed only to the authors, editors, reviewers, and SPE staff working on the project.

- Posting a listing of contact details of the members of any community is strictly prohibited and violates SPE’s Privacy Policy.

In response to concerns expressed by a number of members regarding some posts in SPE Connect communities that were outside of their stated purpose, the SPE Board recently reviewed this issue. Not only did these posts dilute the focus of the content, but some disregarded the SPE Connect Guidelines.

 In order to ensure all members can use the platform in the way it was intended and have a positive experience while doing so, the SPE Board of Directors has established a three-strike rule for SPE Connect. Under the new process, members who have not followed the SPE Connect Guidelines three times will no longer have access to the communities.  This type of rule is a best practice used by other associations with online communities.

 How does it work?

  • An SPE member flags a post they believe goes against the guidelines.
  • SPE staff receives the notification and sends the post to the relevant SPE member-leader and/or Board member to review and decide if the post is outside the community guidelines.
    • The review can take up to three business days.
  • If the post is determined to violate the guidelines, the author is emailed informing him/her that the post was removed with an explanation of why. Note: When a post is removed, any posts that are direct responses are also removed by default.
    • If this is the author’s second violation, they will be notified that a third violation will result in the loss of access to the SPE Connect communities.
    • If this is the author’s third violation, their access to SPE Connect will be terminated
  • If the post is deemed acceptable, a message is sent to the referring member that the post was reinstated along with an explanation of why.

 If you have any questions about the three-strike rule or the moderation process, please contact speconnect@spe.org.

 
Discussion Group Etiquette

- State concisely and clearly the topic of your post in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your post and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject. 

- Only send a message to the entire community when it contains information that everyone can benefit from. 

- Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals – not to the entire community.

- Do not send administrative messages, such as "remove me from the community“. Instead, visit the Technical Discipline page of your SPE.org profile to opt-out. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the community and rejoin under your new email address. Simply update your email address on the Contact Information page of your SPE.org profile.

- Have FUN!

 
Legal Matters

- Undergraduate/Masters students and members restricted by sanctions have read-only access to technical communities and technical sections. For more information on sanctions, visit our website here.

This site is provided as a service for the members of SPE. SPE is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. SPE disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by SPE or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall SPE 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 confidential data, intellectual property or other material owned or protected by copyright without the permission of the owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns material or the copyright to the material or has received permission from the owner. In addition, the posting party grants SPE 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.

SPE does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings. For technical communities, member-led Moderating Committees, and other select communities, SPE may initiate the removal of inappropriate postings. With regard to all SPE Connect features, if an inappropriate posting is brought to the attention of SPE, we will take all appropriate action.

Direct messages sent and received over the SPE Connect network are not accessible by SPE staff. However, they are stored on the server of the host platform in the same way that Google Mail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or any other email provider stores email. 

SPE reserves the right to reject any post for any reason and to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.

  
SPE Trademarks and License

The SPE name and logo and all SPE related trade names, design marks, tag lines and slogans are the Intellectual Property of SPE, and you may not use such without the prior written consent of SPE. All other product and service marks contained herein are the marks of their respective owners and may not be used without the prior written consent of such owners. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as granting to you or any user of this website any license to or ownership rights in any Intellectual Property or other legal right of SPE or any third party.

 
Intellectual Property Infringement Complaints

SPE prohibits the posting, display, transmission, sharing, emailing, embedding, making available, or otherwise use in this nature of content that infringes the Intellectual Property rights of another person or party. In the event that a third party provides SPE with a notification of any alleged Intellectual Property infringement, SPE may immediately remove such content and may block access to and cancel such user’s registration. In addition, in the event of an alleged copyright infringement, SPE shall act expeditiously in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and will take steps to have the allegedly infringing material removed or access to such blocked. 


Procedure for Submitting Notification of Alleged Copyright Infringement

It is SPE policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with the DMCA. With respect to copyright infringement, the DMCA requires SPE to have a designated agent to receive notices of alleged copyright infringement. For any content that you believe infringes your copyright, please send a written notice of alleged copyright infringement to SPE’s designated agent at the following address:


Copyright Agent for Notification of Claimed Infringement
SPE International
PO Box 833836
Richardson, TX 75080 USA

SPEConnect@spe.org

Your written notification of alleged copyright infringement should include the following information: Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or if multiple copyrighted works at the website are to be covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works; identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit SPE to locate the material on the website; information reasonably sufficient to permit SPE to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and an email address at which you may be contacted; a statement that you have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by you, your agent, or the law; and a statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.