Rules

The OVC HELP for Victim Service Providers message board is a tool for constructive discussion on issues relating to promising practices, best practices, and victim issues.

A forum moderator screens all posts before they appear in the discussion. OVC reserves the right to remove any message or message segment and to terminate discussion on any topic that appears to be inappropriate and that falls outside the following guidelines:

• Conduct
• Privacy
• Spam
• Monitoring
• Format
• Copyrighted Material
• Age
• Contacting the Moderator
• Content Disclaimer
• Federal Employees

Conduct

Treat this forum as a place where you can learn from each other. Offensive, vulgar, threatening, or derogatory language is not allowed. Please avoid undue criticism or labeling of any individual, organization, or agency. All constructive criticism should be supported by appropriate reference citations (e.g., from a Web site, book, magazine, journal). The National Criminal Justice Reference Service database is one place you may want to search for reference materials

In addition, OVC reserves the right to suspend or terminate individuals from the forum at any time for inappropriate conduct.

Privacy

OVC does not rent, sell, or share personal information that resides on the Web forum, nor does OVC post participants’ e-mail addresses.

It is strictly prohibited for anyone to put a participant of this forum on a commercial or private e-mail list without first securing permission from that person in writing. Violators will be suspended or terminated from the forum.

Spam

Unauthorized or unsolicited posts, including advertising, promotional materials, “spamming,” or other forms of solicitation, are not allowed. Posts that include URLs or contact information as part of an event announcement or explanation of a promising practice or best practice within a program are acceptable, but posts submitted solely for the purpose of promoting a product or service will be rejected or censored. Likewise, posts that include questionnaires for private or commercial research projects also will be deleted.

Monitoring

OVC reserves the right to edit messages or refuse to post them should they be deemed inappropriate. Messages should be constructive and focused on sharing or obtaining information of use to victim service providers.

Format

English is the preferred language for posts. OVC will not translate your post into English.

Use standard capitalization and punctuation for ease of reading. Do not type your message in ALL CAPS. This is considered to be shouting and therefore poor etiquette.

Copyrighted Material

Do not post without prior approval of the author any material written or compiled by someone other than yourself. When posting approved information from another source, please cite the source’s full title, author, and year of publication for the benefit of all forum participants.

Age

All participants in this forum must be 18 years old or older.

Contacting the Moderator

All ideas, recommendations, and complaints should be directed to the forum moderator.

Content Disclaimer

Unless expressly stated, the views expressed in this forum are not to be construed as the opinions of OVC or the U.S. Department of Justice and are not to be taken as endorsed or adopted by these agencies. The goals and rules are subject to changes without notice, at OVC’s discretion. See also OVC's External Link Disclaimer.

Federal employees are welcome to participate in the OVC HELP for Victim Service Providers web forum. However, federal employees may not represent their agency in any discussion.