Community Rules & Etiquette and Privacy Guidelines

Thank you for being part of our community. To ensure the best possible experience for all members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.

By joining and using this community, you agree that you have read and will follow these important rules and guidelines. Please take a moment to review them. Questions should be directed to our member services department via the Contact Us link on this site. In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate membership in this community for anyone who violate these rules or guidelines.

The Rules

• Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer guests and members; there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
• Respect the purpose of the community. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals instead of products or services that you provide. If you’ve found a product or service helpful, please share your experience with the group in a respectful way.
• Use caution when discussing products or services. Information posted on the discussion groups and in the libraries is available for all members of this community to see, and comments are subject to defamation and antitrust laws.
• All 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.
• Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and that you have properly attributed to the content creator.
• When posting items in our collaborative environment, please indicate if the item is not available for reuse or republication. It’s also advisable to contact the owner of any material if you would like to reuse it.
• Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise."

Enforcement Policy

We understand that people may inadvertently violate the rules, and we will not immediately ban someone from the community following a single violation. Rather, the Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community follows a graduated enforcement policy for these guidelines.

• First Violation: A written notice is sent to the member who violates the guidelines.
• Second Violation: A written notice is sent to the member who violates the guidelines. The individual’s community account is put into moderation for 30 days so that messages from his/her account are reviewed before they are posted online. The individual has a phone call with the organization's community manager.
• Third Violation: The member's community access is suspended for six months.

Discussion Group Etiquette

• State concisely and clearly the topic of your comment in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
• Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link that is available in every message.
• Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” to the group. Instead, use the web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your settings.

The Legal Stuff

This site is provided as a service for the members of Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community.  The Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community managers are not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. We disclaim all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by the Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community members or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community managers 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 defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials.  Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants the Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community managers and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.

The Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community managers may not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings and may not on their own undertake editorial control of postings. However, if the managers learn of any inappropriate posting through any means, they will take all appropriate action. may

The Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community managers reserve the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.

The Partnering for Vaccine Equity Learning Community site is a subdomain of the Urban Institute’s website (www.urban.org). The Terms of Service for the Urban Institute’s website can be found here.

Privacy Policy

Any personal information you provide to us including and similar to your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of our organization except as noted below.

With Whom Do We Share the Personal Information We Collect Through This Site:

Government and Legal Disclosures
We may disclose the personal information we collect through this Site, when we, in good faith, believe disclosure is appropriate to comply with the law (or a court order or subpoena); to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; to enforce our Terms and Conditions or other agreements that govern your use of this Site; or to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or others.

External Sites
We are not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Cookies
A "cookie" is a small data text file that is placed in your browser and allows us to recognize you each time you visit this site (personalization, etc). Cookies themselves do not contain any personal information, and we do not use cookies to collect personal information. Cookies may also be used by third-party content providers such as news-feeds.

Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet
While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information. In addition, other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through our site have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.  For any other information please contact us using the Contact Us page.