Community Guidelines

Citizens, Policy Makers and Experts from all over the world come to Policymakr to make the world a better place, by planning for the future, seeking solutions for policy issues, and always acting in the public interest, and with due consideration for others.

The Projects on which we will be working at Policymakr reflect the diversity of a potential community of more than six billion people, who, once our Website has gained enough traction, will be  communicating across countries and cultures and in dozens of languages.

These Community Guidelines outline what is and is not allowed on Policymakr. They apply around the world to all types of content.

They’re guidelines—meaning they’re not designed to be comprehensive: for example, content that might not be considered hate speech may still be removed for violating our bullying policies.

This is a Civilized Place for Constructive Work

Please treat this Website with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.
These are not hard and fast rules, merely aids to the human judgment of our community. Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lighted place for civilized public debate.

Improve our Working Process

Help us make this a great place for collective work, by always seeking new ways to improve our flow of information in some way, however small. If you are not sure your contribution adds to the Project you are involved in, think over what you want to add and try again later.
The Projects discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the Projects and the people working on them, even if you disagree with some of what is being contributed.
One way to improve the workflow is by discovering existing, relevant contributions (yes, this can happen!). Please spend some time browsing the Projects here before contributing stuff to them, or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

  • Name-calling.
  • Ad hominem attacks.
  • Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
  • Knee-jerk contradiction.
  • Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

Your Participation Counts

The content of the Projects we work on here set the tone for everyone. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to participate in ways that make this Website an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.
Let’s try to leave our park better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this Website. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.
When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.
In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts in any way; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy exchange like rudeness:

  • Be civil. Don’t contribute any content that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
  • Keep it clean. Don’t contribute anything obscene or sexually explicit.
  • Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
  • Respect your Website. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the areas provided for you to work in.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your contribution was featured on the front page of the New York Times.
This is, in parts, a public place, and search engines index some of these pages. Keep the language, links, and images safe.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

  • Don’t start a Project in the wrong category.
  • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple Projects.
  • Don’t post no-content replies.
  • Don’t divert a Project by changing it midstream.
  • Don’t sign your contributions — every contribution to a Project already has your profile information attached to it.
  • Avoid contributing superficial comments like “+1” or “Agreed”. Rather than taking an existing Project in a radically different direction, consider suggesting a New Project.

Privately soliciting others for work, unless they have explicitly indicated they are open to this in their user profile, is not allowed.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

While working on Projects, and in the contributions you make to them, you may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission.  Where appropriate you may cite other material, but you should always disclose your sources and, where appropriate, ask for prior permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

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