MRA Insights Café Rules & Guidelines

in
Share this

Rules

The MRA Insights Café is for the exchange of professional information among MRA members. To benefit all MRA members, members violating these rules or the guidelines below may be unsubscribed by MRA.

Although MRA does not censor or screen individual messages, the following types of speech are not permitted.

  1. Personal attacks.
  2. Expletives.
  3. Unsolicited commercial appeals or promotions. However, the posting of commercial appeals or promotions in response to legitimate member inquiries is allowed as a member service. 
  4. "Sham spam" or fake postings designed to set-up or elicit a commercial appeal or promotion.
  5. Messages regarding commercial disputes. While the MRA Insights Café is an acceptable place for commentary on the general performance of vendors, it is not appropriate to initiate commentary regarding specific business or legal disagreements. One or two appropriately worded comments are within bounds; intemperate remarks or the simple repetition of the same criticisms will be regarded as a form of personal vendetta and the subscriber, once warned, can be removed from the MRA Insights Café. Members should privately resolve their business or legal disagreements.
  6. Discussion of prices or fees that you pay or charge the customers or suppliers with which you do business, the terms on which you do business with them or other third parties, or other competitively sensitive aspects of your individual business operations. It is also a violation of MRA policy to suggest what your or others' policies should or may be on these subjects.
  7. Commentary unrelated to research or marketing.
 

In addition, the following rules will be enforced:

  1. Do not republish the content of messages without permission of the message author and MRA.
  2. Announcements of available short-term and fill-in contract positions, or your availability for these types of roles, should be posted only on MRA’s JobTarget site – See “Careers” on the main menu bar.  
  3. Events should be noted in MRA’s Industry Calendar.
 

Guidelines

The following guidelines are intended help members communicate effectively and keep the MRA Insights Café as a valuable resource.

  1. Include your name, title and company at the bottom of your message. Signature files should not exceed 6 lines.
  2. Do not cross-post (i.e., send the same message to more than two groups). I would say do not cross post to more than 2 groups.
  3. Do not post copyrighted material in a discussion or as a resource unless you have permission to do so.
  4. Do not include attachments with your message. Messages with attachments will be rejected automatically. Documents such as white papers or PowerPoint files may, however, should be posted as resources within the MRA Insights Café.
  5. "Lurk" (i.e., observe quietly) and learn what's acceptable before posting to the MRA Insights Café.
  6. Don't over-quote when responding to a prior message. Include only the specific information you're responding to, and delete the rest.
  7. Avoid one-line posts such as: "Thank you." or "Me too." If your post doesn't add value, don't send it. (Example: Don't send a "thanks" message. Send something like that directly to the person you're thanking.)
  8. Use proper capitalization in your messages. WRITING MESSAGES IN ALL CAPS IS THE EQUIVALENT OF SHOUTING. Try to avoid this.
  9. Use meaningful, descriptive, accurate and intriguing subject lines. 
  10. When taking a discussion thread off on a tangent, change the subject line.
  11. Be courteous to other MRA Insights Café members. If you disagree with them, don't resort to personal insults.
  12. Do not post private e-mail messages to the MRA Insights Café without the author's permission.
  13. Spell-check and reread your messages before posting.

Legal stuff

MRA may disclose user information to government authorities at its discretion or when required by law. MRA also may disclose user information when it has reason to believe that someone is causing injury to or interference with its rights or property, other MRA site users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. By using the MRA Insights Café, you agree to indemnify MRA, its employees, representatives, and agents, and hold them harmless from any and all claims (including claims for legal fees) which may arise from your participation on the MRA Insights Café. You also agree that MRA is not responsible for the materials posted by users of the MRA Insights Café. In addition, you grant MRA and its affiliates royalty-free perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display any message or content posted on the MRA Insights Café and/or e-mail sent by you to the MRA Insights Café (in whole or in part).