ACR Knowledge Exchange Community Guidelines

Welcome to the ACR Knowledge Exchange community! This forum is here to help you participate in consumer-related questions or discussions, whether basic or complex. We invite participation and strive to be expedient, courteous and helpful.

The ACR KE:

• A conversation among anyone interested in consumer behavior
• A resource for knowledge about all aspects of consumer behavior
• A dynamic forum stocked with new questions and discussions every day
• A network of people designed to help you

The ACR KE is not:

• A monologue or announcements board
• A static forum that rehashes the same issues every week
• A group of professionals who do students' homework
• A tool for companies to sell their products

To further illustrate, here are some guidelines designed to help newcomers learn how the ACR KE works.

Guidelines for Askers

1. If you have a general question or discussion issue, it may have been posted on the ACR KE before. So the first place to start may be to search our archives. Our archives begin in October 2004 with the launch of the ACR KE.
2. When you pose a question or initiate a discussion on the ACR KE for the first time, you might want to fill out a member profile form. This profile will help KE participants know who you are and what you do.
3. When writing questions, please provide sufficient backgound so that particiants can make relevant suggestions.
4. Please don't post a question and then abandon it. Engage in a dialogue with the other participants. Tell them what you think of their responses and reply to any questions they ask.

Guidelines for Answerers

1. The first time you participate in a question or discussion initiated by someone else, you might want to fill out a member profile form. This profile will help KE participants know who you are and what you do.
2. Feel free to answer a question by expressing the facts or ideas in your own words. If you want to copy someone else's writing word-for-word, keep it short (100 words) and please cite the source (provide a link).
3. In your post, you may invite the question/discussion initiator to contact you offline to find out more about your thoughts. But our primary purpose here is to share knowledge, so please also provide some value in your response. This way other readers benefit.
4. To keep the commercial statements unobtrusive, please do not post your phone number, email address or Web site in your answer. Instead, include those in your profile and invite people to click over to see them.
5. When you see questions that don't match our expectations, politely guide the Askers rather than ignoring or scolding them. It's important that new members feel welcome and understand how things work. Consider linking them to these guidelines to shortcut their learning.

Community Ethics

We expect everyone to treat each other with respect. The Moderator will delete any postings containing profanity, discriminatory slurs, threatening language or libelous statements. If you see something like this before the moderator does, please let him know.