Center the Human

“We’re people-centered problem solvers showing that it’s possible.”

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public library. Our shared community resource — a place to explore skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules, merely guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a safe and enriching place for community discourse.

Terms of Service

We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

What To Do When You Agree

Our community’s mission is clear and action-oriented members work hard to align on so much — make sure to let someone know if a post they’ve made really resonates with you!

Try one or all of these:

• Show love with the Like button
• Describe your appreciation and interest in a comment
• Use Reply as a Linked Topic to fork the idea in another direction
• Ask another community member to talk about it with you

What To Do When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it — remember to center the human. Invite the other person (or people) to share more about how their worldview shapes the perspective they’re offering; share yours in exchange.

Please avoid:

• Name-calling
• Ad hominem attacks
• Criticizing a post’s tone
• Knee-jerk contradiction

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave our community better than we found it.

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 topic in the wrong category.
• Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
• Don’t post no-content replies.
• Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
• Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Maintain Public Safety

Signs you or someone else is compromising the public safety of this environment include:

• Posting offensive, abusive, or hate speech; resisting acknowledging and refusing to stop offensive, abusive or hate speech when alerted.
• Posting anything obscene or sexually explicit.
• Disrespecting, harassing or ‘griefing’ anyone, impersonating people, or exposing their private and personal information.
• Posting spam or otherwise vandalizing the forum.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. How you choose to steward this space as a member is important.

When you notice a member compromising the integrity or the safety of our shared space, you do not have to obligate yourself to resolving the situation. Flag it first. As 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; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without 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.

Powered by You

This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.