BASIN ONLINE FORUM is a "virtual community." In any community, there are certain expectations of acceptable behavior among its members. BASIN is no exception. In order to ensure that participants feel comfortable here, we've established a few guidelines. Please abide by them when participating.

Your Identity

In the interests of open and honest conversation, we encourage you to register under your real name. In no event should you post messages under someone else's name. If management suspects an account is being used by someone who is not the authorized account holder, management may temporarily disable that account. In all such cases, management will contact the member as soon as feasible.

You must have a working e-mail address to register and participate. BASIN reserves the right to revoke access to patrons for posting with a false e-mail address.

Civility

BASIN does not screen postings before they appear in our conferences. In order to ensure that the ONLINE FORUM remains a welcoming and civil space for our patrons, however, please refrain from posting messages containing gratuitous personal attacks against other participants. Such an expectation does not mean that patrons cannot and do not disagree in a spirited, even heated manner, at times. Lively debate abounds in some conferences.

Nevertheless, there is a significant difference between disagreeing with an idea and attacking an individual. We ask all patrons to participate in a civil manner. We recognize that patrons have varied interpretations of civility and that the dynamic interaction of a diverse community of users will present subjective and challenging circumstances for management and editors. In this light, we ask for compliance with the specific requests made by our hosts.

Deliberate disruption will not be tolerated. We reserve the right to "hide" or delete posts of an abusive and disruptive nature and/or to revoke access to users who refuse to comply with requests by management and hosts.

The ONLINE FORUMS are tended by one or more editors. These editors may, in the community interest, "hide" or delete a posted comment. They will not edit it. Management does not impose explicit and precise rules on editors governing such deletions. We believe the effort to do so would undermine the freedom of editors to exercise creativity in managing their conferences.

Welcome to the BASIN ONLINE community. We hope you enjoy your time here!

Rules of the Road

These rules will help the participants work together as a group towards our common goal of making BASIN a more valuable source of environmental information. As with all Internet discussion groups, this site will encourage and enforce certain rules of behavior. In order to allow broad and productive communication, the discussion on this Web site maintains the following guidelines:

1. In your first message introduce yourself to the group. Tell us who you are and a sentence or two about your background and interests that bring you to the discussion.

2. When providing references be sure to include the URL and why it is valuable.

3. Participants are invited to maintain a collaborative problem-solving approach. We hope all participants learn more about existing needs, available resources and options for meeting these needs.

4. In order to maintain a collegial and productive discussion we encourage the following elements in our discussions:

* Limit your comments to the topics under discussion.

* Be concise. Avoid postings which are lengthy or repetitious.

* Recognize the ideas and opinions of other participants.

* Encourage others to participate.

* Avoid using loaded language and hyperbolic rhetoric.

* Avoid personal attacks on people inside or outside of this forum.

* Don't use this forum to sell your ideas or products.

* When responding to a previous post if you include the original edit your reply so you only include that portion of the original to which you are responding.

* Where possible try to make a single point with each post.

* If you feel another's post was off topic or inappropriate direct your comments to the editors (fire-flood-owner@csf.colorado.edu) not the general list.

* Do not post mail list commands to the mail list (i.e. requests to be removed, subscribed or to have your email address changed). Every post includes a pointer in the footer to help on how to manage your subscription.

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