Community Rules & Etiquette and Privacy Guidelines
Thank you for being part of the ASCP online community. To ensure the best possible experience for all community members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.
Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. If you have questions, contact the member services department. 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 violates these rules.
What is the ASCP Community?
The ASCP Community is an online community for ASCP members to engage in discussion and seek and receive feedback and resources from other professional peers in the pathology and clinical laboratory professions. ASCP encourages members to come prepared to share successes and challenges, provide constructive feedback, ask questions, and provide perspective in all manners related to the pathology and clinical laboratory professions. Members are asked to agree to follow these rules and etiquette to ensure the ASCP Community remains an open space to discuss issues and topics related to the pathology and clinical laboratory professions.
ASCP has many outlets for our members to provide information. We encourage you to select the correct outlet from our many offerings. The following are examples of other locations ASCP provides for various purposes:
Are you posting or seeking a job? Visit the ASCP Career Center at ascp.org/content/careers#
Do you have general questions or information about ASCP? Reach out to ASCP Customer Relations at 800-267-2727 or info@ascp.org or use the Live Chat option found on the Contact ASCP page at the ASCP Website.
Are you located outside the United States and have general questions? Reach out to ASCP Customer Relations at 312-767-1553.
Do you have a media inquiry? Reach out to communications@ascp.org
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The Rules
- Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. The discussions are meant to stimulate conversation not to create contention. Let others have their say, just as you may.
- Don't post commercial messages. Contact people directly with product and service information if you believe it would help them.
- Messages should not contain promotional material, special offers, job offers, product announcements, or solicitation for services. We reserve the right to remove such messages and potentially ban sources of those solicitations.
- Use caution when discussing products. Information posted on any platform is available for all to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.
- Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator.
- All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited and will be removed.
- Send your message only to the most appropriate platforms. This helps ensure your messages receive the best response by eliminating “noise.” Members may participate in multiple Communities, so posting to one or two Communities per message should reach all the members from whom you seek to get feedback.
- 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.
- Please note carefully all items listed in the disclaimer and legal rules below, particularly regarding the copyright ownership of information posted to the Community.
- Remember that we and other participants have the right to reproduce postings.
The following are general tips to help you maintain good etiquette when reproducing content.
- Be courteous. Ask participants for permission to republish their words elsewhere (especially if elsewhere would be a publicly viewable setting).
- When citing ASCP Community discussions, please include a link back to the original discussion or to the ASCP Community homepage.
- State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments 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 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 the new email address. Simply change your settings.
Community Etiquette
Transparency is very important in gaining trust in online relationships; therefore, be clear who you are and who you work for when posting on any platform. This means including your real name on your social media accounts along with disclosing your employer and using a profile picture of your likeness and not your company’s logo.
Decide which platform is best for your message. Simply sharing a link? Twitter might be the best. Sharing an article with your comments? LinkedIn might be better. Want to start conversations around a topic? That is best served in the ASCP Community.
The Legal Stuff
These social media pages, accounts, and sites are provided as a service of ASCP. ASCP is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on these sites by others. ASCP disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on these sites, whether posted by ASCP or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall ASCP 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 posting any information 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.
In addition, by posting material, you grant to ASCP and the members of this community the nonexclusive, worldwide, transferable right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material in any way and in any medium, including but not limited to print or electronic form.
Content should not be posted if it encourages or facilitates members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Content that encourages or facilitates an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.
ASCP does not actively monitor these sites for inappropriate postings and does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to ASCP's attention, ASCP will take all appropriate action.
ASCP reserves the right to block any users who do not abide by these guidelines.
ASCP's privacy policy is located here: https://www.ascp.org/content/docs/default-source/policy-statements/privacy-policy.pdf?sfvrsn=6