Community Discussion Guidelines and Google Group Assistance

The International Neuromodulation Society operates two different types of online discussion forums exclusively for its members.

On the INS website, logged-in members may access member forums where they may post messages from a web interface, or subscribe to have alerts of new posts sent to them. (Replies must be entered on the INS website interface.)

In addition, the INS set up a separate discussion channel for participating members to engage in quick peer-to-peer consultation. It operates outside the INS website, and can facilitate group discussions over email.

The operating instructions below pertain to this second discussion group, which is hosted in Google groups.

Meanwhile, the following section on "guiding principles" generally applies to all discussion forums set up by the INS.

Our Google group for INS members, INSforum, encourages community dialogue and welcomes active members to participate through posts and discussions. Once you have subscribed, posts may be sent directly to insforum@googlegroups.com. For help with technical issues, selected instructions from the Google help pages are copied below.

The society strives to create opportunities for professional dialogue and community development. All members of the INS may opt in to be added to the Google group for dynamic discussions with peers. While posts are not pre-screened, and may be seen in lightening speed by several hundred colleagues worldwide, participants can adjust settings to limit receipt of emails, or read solely online -- an option that may be preferred by members reading email on mobile phones.

Please keep your Google profile updated with full name and work location, so fellow discussion participants know who and where you are.

Guiding Principles for the Online Community

Due to the standards of care placed on medical professionals, please remember that collegial discussions here are informal exchanges, and do not constitute medical advice or professional recommendations.

Each member is obligated to protect confidentiality, and advised to not repeat conversations in order to ensure that privacy and confidentiality are maintained.

Although participants may post without having comments pre-screened, moderators reserve the right to delete content deemed inappropriate. A participant will first be privately notified. Participation in INSforum is only open to active INS members. Participation can be blocked by an administrator due to either repeat violation of these guidelines despite private warnings, or lapse of INS membership.

1. Be Respectful
To ensure a spirit of cooperatively exchanging expertise, inflammatory remarks will not be tolerated. You may openly disagree, but state your case in an atmosphere of mutual respect, in which everyone has a right to a particular view about the topic of conversation. Please keep remarks about the topic at hand, avoid personal attacks. Be the first to correct your own mistakes, as this can restore trust.

2. Maintain a Dignified Tone
Derogatory or offensive language or other content that a reasonable person would find objectionable is not allowed.

3. Don't Engage in Marketing
Do not use the group to make advertisements, solicitations or promotions. If appropriate, participants are encouraged to disclose potentially pertinent conflicts of interest -- real or perceived -- when making comments.

4. Use Your Own Words
The distribution of intellectual property not belonging to you is not permitted. Speak your mind honestly, but use your own words to do so.

5. Abide by all Standards of Reasonable Conduct
INS offers this online community to facilitate a collegial exchange of information. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of our society, participants are not assumed to be health professionals. If medical information is provided, identifying your status as a medical professional is required. INS cannot assure the truthfulness, accuracy or reliability of information posted here.

INS does not assume any liability for content posted by others.

You must have the legal right to upload or download any content you upload to or download from the site. By posting material, you represent that you have the legal right to share such content with others.

By submitting content, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless INS, its officers, employees and directors from and against all liabilities, claims and expenses arising from or relating to your posting of material on this site (including any claim that sharing of such content infringes the privacy, copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights of any third party).

It may be necessary to post updated community guidelines over time, and, for the sake of everyone’s benefit, repeated violations of community guidelines may result in a participant’s access to the group being blocked.

6. Make Yourself at Home
Remember, this is your community. Don't be shy to speak up. Feel free to express yourself, ask questions and engage.

Operating Tips from Google Help Pages
For your convenience, we have gathered technical assistance and instructions for limiting receipt of emails, limiting distribution of replies, contacting the list owner directly, and unsubscribing:

Change email delivery options for your group
To change your email delivery option, you must first sign in to the Google Account associated with the email address subscribed to the group. If you haven't already created a Google Account for your address, please visit http://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and follow the directions on that page. After completing the account creation process, please follow these steps:

1. Visit your Google Groups page - manage memberships
2. At the shaded button near the center of the page, click the pull-down button that provides choices for email frequency
3. Choose the email delivery option that you prefer for your group (this includes “no email,” for reading on the web only).

Trouble accessing a group through the website
Groups that are restricted require you to sign in with your Google Account username and password. If the email address that was registered to the group isn't associated with a Google Account, please visit http://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount to create an account for this email address.

Contacting the owner of a group
Group groups help pages say you can reach a group owner by clicking the "About" link on the right side of any of the group's pages. On this About page, click the "Contact owner" link. You'll see a web form to submit your message.

*To contact the INSforum list owner, just click directly on: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!contactowner/insforum .

Replying to only an author
To reply to the author through the web interface, in the upper right corner of the message, next to "Post reply," hover your cursor over the small grey arrow pointing down -- a pull-down menu of more options appears. Select "Reply to author".

The "Reply" option in a post
When someone clicks the "Reply" link on your group's web page, the reply will always be sent to the group. To reply to the author from the web page, click the "More options" link near the top of the message, then click on the "Reply to author" link.

How to submit a post to a group
You can submit a new post to a group either by posting directly to the group or sending a message via email.

• To submit a post directly to a group: visit the group's homepage and click the red New Topic button at the top left.

• To reply to an existing topic, open it and click the red Reply button near the top of the posting.
  

• To submit a new post via email: send an email to your group's email address. The subject line of the email will be the title of the post, and the body of the email will be the content of the post.

• You can reply to an existing post over email if you're set up to receive all posts to the group through email. Simply find the post you'd like to reply to in your email inbox and click the Reply button in your email program. Type your message into the body of the email, making sure you keep the subject line of the email intact so that your post is sent to the correct thread. Select reply (to respond only to the poster) or reply to all (to respond to the whole group). The response is posted.

Unsubscribing from a group

If you’d like to remove yourself from a Google Group, do any one of the following steps:

• Reply to an email from the group with REMOVE ME as the subject of your message.
• Send an email to groupname[email protected]. For example, if you want to leave the group myfriends@googlegroups.com, you could remove yourself by sending a blank email tomyfriends[email protected].
• Go to the Group’s homepage and remove yourself as a member. (Please note that you’ll need a Google Account to unsubscribe yourself from this group through this method. You can easily create a Google Account, but if you would prefer not to create an account, you should use one of the other unsubscribe methods.)

1. Go to the group’s homepage. (Hint: If the group’s email address isexample@googlegroups.com, then the URL for the group will be http://groups.google.com/group/example.)
2. Click Edit my membership.
3. At the bottom, click Unsubscribe.

Please note that if you unsubscribe from a group that only allows members to see group content, you might not be able to read that group's pages anymore. If you want to continue your membership in a group but don't want to receive group email, select the No Email option on the Edit My Membership page, then click "Save these settings".