Moderation Policy and Posting Guidelines: A Guide to Your Community

Hello GreatSchools Parents!

I have posted our moderation policy to give you a better understanding of how our boards are moderated.  Please feel free to post any feedback.  Thanks to everyone who helped craft these!

TJ

 GreatSchools Parent Community Moderation Policy and Posting Guidelines: A Guide to Your Community To be read and followed in conjunction with our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.  

 Many members of our community have taken the time to help craft these guidelines, and we would like to thank them for their contributions.  We’d love to hear your feedback—send us a note with your thoughts!

The purpose of this community is to give parents a place to connect, inspire, share and support. Some people come here for answers while some people come here to pay it forward. We moderate the community to promote a supportive culture and a safe environment.  

Posting Guidelines:  

Giving credit

We think it’s important to recognize our members for taking the time to write helpful and well-written posts, and we encourage you to do the same. One way to do this is with the five star rating system. All community members have a chance to give a star rating to posts in the advice, comments and answers areas.  

If you see a post that you find to be exceptionally helpful, please take the time to give that member some stars. Another way to recognize great posts is to submit a comment letting the author know you thought the post was great. We do expect our members to exhibit discretion when using the five-star ratings. Please don’t give another member one star simply because you don’t agree with them!   

GreatSchools recognizes members who contribute positively by giving awards for posting, getting five-star ratings and inviting your friends and family to join our community. Awards display on your profile for other members to see.  

Click here to learn more about our awards.

Anonymous posts The option to post anonymously exists as a way for our community members to be more comfortable asking tough questions.  Keep in mind, however, that posts that have a screen name attached to them are far more valuable to the community. By posting your question with your screen name, you are establishing a reputation.  

Respectful language Please use respectful language at all times. A good rule of thumb is to use your common sense. How would you phrase your response if you were face-to-face with someone?  

Posts that use disrespectful language may be edited or taken down at the discretion of the moderators.  

Types of posts that will be removed: ·        

• Abusive: this includes personal attacks, defamatory remarks, derogatory remarks         
• Slurs: racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise        
• Flame: these are posts with the sole purpose of provoking other members of the community or GreatSchools staff. Flame posts are unproductive and unwanted.         
• Attacks on each other’s children and parenting styles are absolutely, one-hundred-percent NOT tolerated. ·        
• Ads that have been posted outside of our Parent Marketplace group        
• Thread spamming (posting the same content in multiple threads)        
• Sharing of personal information such as email address, phone number and personal address. This is a safety and privacy issue. Please read more about this in our Community Guidelines.        
• Emergency situations, reporting of crimes, etc.: Rather than posting here, we strongly advise you to immediately alert the proper authorities.  

Private messages and friend requests You have the ability to request other members to be your community “friend” as a way to build connections and keep in touch with their community posts. We also have a private messaging system that you can use to carry on one-on-one conversations with your friends and other members. Please don’t use private messages as a way to spam or harass other community members.   

We also rely on you, our watchful community members, to help moderate the community.

We have provided you with a tool, also known as The Flag. It’s a link at the top right corner of each post that says “Report it.”  If a post is flagged by a certain number of community members, it will black out until a moderator has a chance to review it. If you click on the flag, make sure you provide an explanation as to why/how you think the particular post or member has violated our Community Guidelines, Terms of Use or any of the guidelines laid out in this Moderation Policy.  

How are moderating decisions made?

A team of moderators and GreatSchools staff reviews flagged posts and considers the objectives in the context of the guidelines here. We don’t make the decision to remove posts lightly – we want to encourage open and vigorous discussion – but we also want to make our community a place where people feel safe and respected.  

Posting Privilege Suspension

This is done on a case-by-case basis. There are a few reasons why posting privileges could be suspended.  These are:         

• Violating any of the guidelines outlined above       
• Continuously contributing non-productive content to further your own agenda         
• Violating our Terms of Use and/or Community Guidelines  

Thanks for working together to make our community a great place for parents to discuss what matters to them most about their children’s education. Welcome to the neighborhood!