About

• Governance
• Terms of Use
• Getting Involved
• TF Resource Volunteers
• Project Background

Terms of Use - The Rules

The information below describes the required conduct, legal considerations, decision making, and discipline. The rules below apply to all portions of the TF Resource - topic pages, discussion pages, forums, mailing list, wikis, essays or blogs. It would be great to just say – “Play nice in the sand box’ – but unfortunately experience from other community webpages suggest that we have to be a bit more explicit.

Since development of the TF Resource is just getting started, the required conduct rules are simple and straight-forward:

• Be considerate and respectful. Modelers may not always agree, but that does not excuse poor behavior.
• Consensus and collaboration will be critical to create good solid technical information. The Committee is not interested in topics written and moderated by one person. The goal of the site is collaboration in order to bring in diverse opinions, ideas, and material. Volunteers should always be working with a team to develop a topic, working with upstream and downstream topics, and keeping in mind that the goal is to provide the best information for our community.
• There are many ways to develop travel forecasts. Alternative techniques and dissenting opinions are welcome, however all contributors must be respectful, refrain from debates, and maintain a civil tone in any communications. Contributors that cannot abide by these policies will be subject to discipline.
• If problems arise, consult with others, including other experts in the field, the moderators, and if necessary the executive board.
• The TF Resource is not a soap box, opinions can be shared an essay format.
• Not edit warring and no debates.
• If you would not say it face-to-face don’t put it on our site. If you are known as a very honest or blunt person, consider softening the language you use on the webpage. Being “honest or blunt” often does not come across well in text.
• No personal attacks.
• Don’t bite the newcomers.

Violating these rules of conduct can result in member’s role demotion. Remember, comments and contributions are displayed along with member’s real names, and the travel forecasting community is a small one. Contributions to this site reflect on the member and their employer – make sure both will be happy with the projected image.

Legal Considerations

• Copyright violations – as volunteers collect material for the TF Resource, careful considerations must be made to protect the copyrights of other agencies, organizations and individuals. A complete discussion of copyright considerations and forms to secure permission to use material is available at TKTKT . If you have any questions please contact the site staff.
• All the material written for the TF Resource is subject to Creative Commons Attributions - Share Alike, 2.0 Generic License (for more information see TKTKT).
• No contributor owns the material that they contribute, however the authorship of, contribution to, or editing of specific pages will be recognized.
• Any text written for the TF Resource is covered under the Creative Commons License. Volunteers do not retain ownership of the material they prepare for the Resource.

The following content is prohibited:

• Inappropriate personal opinions or content,
• Private information,
• Irrelevant content,
• Material that violates copyright,
• Defamatory or libelous language
• Political or policy issues - The Resource is focused on the development of travel forecasting tools and their application to community and decision maker questions. Discussion policy issues in the context of using forecasting tools to evaluate those policies will be permitted, however the Resource is not a place to discuss policies or politics. For example, although we are not going to debate the relative merits of Smart Growth policies we will discuss techniques to evaluate the effect of increased development densities, mixed land uses, and other specific aspects of Smart growth initiatives,
• pornography,
• fraudulent of misleading information,
• sexist comments or racial slurs, epithets, hate speech,
• threatening, harassing, abusive, insulting or obscene language,
• content intended to embarrass the volunteers or organizers of this Resource
• material promoting business or selling products,

Any prohibited language or entries will be deleted. Members will be contacted when submissions are deleted and will be required to work one-on-one with the TF Resource staff after the first violation. The second violation will result in demotion to a lower user role on the website. Demotions will be carefully considered and in consultation with the management sub-committee. Demotion in extreme cases may be permanent, but will more often be for a cool down period with a set of conditions for reinstatement.

Dispute resolution will be handled first through the management sub-committee and if necessary through the oversight committee. This process will only be undertaken in cases where reasonable people might see some merit in the argument for reinstatement.

The Standing Committee has developed and approved the following policies and procedures. Any necessary additions or updates will be developed and approved by the same committee. Decision making will be as transparent as possible but, in the interest of focusing energy on the important work of developing content, this project will not be a democracy – the committee will have the final say.