This is an official Qtooa policy. Last updated November 06, 2018.
Overview
A core Qtooa principle (“Be Respectful, Be Nice“) requires that people treat other people on the site with civility, respect, and consideration. Assume that others on the site are also trying to make it a great resource. Respect opposing or differing opinions, beliefs and conclusions. Try to listen to and understand others you may disagree with. Encourage others on the site to also be welcoming and respectful.
Attacking people or content
Personal attacks are not allowed on Qtooa, nor are disrespectful or insulting attacks directed at other people’s content. People should be civil and respectful in disagreement with others and should not (1) make attacks or otherwise disparage other people, (2) refer to other people’s content with insulting or disrespectful language, (3) harass others on the site or (4) advocate self-harm, even in a joking manner. These behaviors hurt the Qtooa community and deter users from helping to create a better resource.
Do your best to see the world from the perspective of the person who posted the question (the original poster [“OP”]) or answer. It is often not helpful to criticize or challenge the fundamental beliefs of the OP (in an answer) or answerer (in a comment). For example, in responding to the question “Is it OK to only go to church on Easter?”, the following answer would be considered disrespectful and is not allowed: “There is no God and religious rituals are a waste of time.” Use good judgement and be empathetic. Answers and comments that challenge the fundamental beliefs of an OP or answerer will be held to a very high standard re: Be Nice, Be Respectful.
Comment threads & how to disagree in comments
In general, comment threads on Qtooa are interactions among strangers. Given that another person on the site may be new to Qtooa and/or doesn’t know you, we require a higher level of politeness than other interactive platforms where users know one another and/or where more adversarial social norms are established and tolerated. A key goal of the Be Nice, Be Respectful policy is ensure that comments do not discourage or intimidate other people on Qtooa.
Disagreement and debate on Qtooa is encouraged and is often important to making the page more helpful. It is OK to disagree as long as your comments are civil, respectful, and polite, and as long as you give the impression of assuming good will on the part of the person you are disagreeing with. A good way of framing this test is: “If I am new to Qtooa and / or don’t know you, would it be reasonable for me to perceive your comment as hostile or disrespectful toward me or what I’ve written?” The answer should be no.
In multi-comment threads where there is significant disagreement among people, a person should stop commenting on the thread before creating the reasonable impression that they are harassing, attacking, and/or bullying another person.
Examples
Examples of behaviors that violate the “Be Respectful,Be Nice” policy include:
- Personal attacks, including hurtful, insulting, or hostile comments.
- Making unjustified accusations against other user(s).
- Engaging in a pattern of behaviour that constitutes harassment of a targeted person or persons, e.g., by making threats, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeated personal attacks, or posting personal information.
- Racial, sexual, homophobic, ageist, religious, political, ethnic, or other epithets directed against another contributor.
- Using someone’s affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views (this does not include pointing out a conflict of interest of relevance to the discussion at hand).
- Speculating on the real life identity of an anonymous user.
Harassment
Harassment is defined as offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to have the purpose of adversely affecting a targeted person or persons. The intended outcome may be to make using Qtooa unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, or to discourage them from editing and using the site. Examples of harassment include (but are not limited to): (1) making threats, (2) repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, (3) posting the personal information of another person, (4) using sexually explicit, profane, adversarial, or flirtatious language toward another person if such language would likely make the person uncomfortable.
Hate speech
Users are not allowed to post content or adopt a tone that would be interpreted by a reasonable observer as a form of hate speech, particularly toward a race, gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, political group, sexual orientation or another similar characteristic. Questions and question details about generalizations in these topics should be phrased as neutrally and respectfully as possible.
Retaliation is not OK
It is never OK to violate the Be Nice, Be Respectful policy, even in response to another person who has violated the policy.
Please note that the Be Nice, Be Respectful policy also pertains to content posted by users who no longer use Qtooa.
Racial and ethnic slurs
Using any of the words on Wikipedia’s list of ethnic slurs is not allowed in questions, answers, or comments, unless the purpose is to ask a sincere question about the usage/background of the word.
Messages
The Be Nice, Be Respectful policy applies to Messages on Qtooa.
Consequences
- Content that violates this policy may be reported to and removed by admins, and violations of this policy can result in a warning, comment blocking, an edit-block, or a ban.
- Depending on the severity of the Be Nice, Be Respectful violation, a user may be banned immediately (i.e., without waiting for content warnings or edit-blocks). People who appear to be using Qtooa for the primary purpose of harassing others may be banned without warning.
Block first before reporting violations
If you feel that another person is violating this policy with respect to you or your content, you should block them in addition to reporting them to moderation.
Banning users in terrorist groups
Qtooa will ban and delete all the content of any user who is a confirmed and/or declared member of any group on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations