COMMUNITY GUIDELINES

Welcome to the IGWG Discussion Forum!

Our Mission

The Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) Discussion Forum platform is intended to foster connection, networking, and knowledge sharing within the community of practice and among IGWG members. This platform allows IGWG members to ask questions about their work and advocacy efforts, share resources, solicit feedback and input from colleagues, and participate in discussions on gender-related topics in global health, including family planning and reproductive health, gender-based violence (GBV), male engagement, and youth and gender norms.

The IGWG is committed to promoting evidence-based approaches around advancing gender equality in global health. To help ensure that the content posted on this platform helps further this goal, we have developed these Community Guidelines to outline the IGWG Discussion Forum’s intended users, how the platform can be used, and appropriate and inappropriate content for the platform.

By creating an IGWG Discussion Forum account and using the platform, you are accepting these Community Guidelines, in addition to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Intended Users

The IGWG Discussion Forum is intended to be used by professionals working in the fields of global health, gender, and international development. You may use this platform only in compliance with the Terms of Service and all applicable laws. You cannot use the IGWG Discussion Forum if you are under the age of 13. If you are 13 or older but under the age of 18, you should review Terms of Service with your parent or guardian to make sure that you and your parent or guardian understand and agree to it.

How to use the IGWG Discussion Forum

You may use the IGWG Discussion Forum in two ways:

• Browse discussion posts on the “posts” page without creating an account, or
• Create an account as a registered IGWG Discussion Forum user, which will allow you to:
  • Post/share gender-related content, including resources and
    queries (for example, requests for input and/or feedback), with
    other users.
  • Save posts shared by other users to your profile for easy access
    later.
  • Like posts s shared by other users.
  • Follow threads that are of interest to you.

IGWG Discussion Forum users who create an account are expected to provide true, accurate, current, authorized, and complete information on the account registration and user profile form. If you submit any false, inaccurate, untrue, unauthorized, or incomplete information, we reserve the right to terminate your access to and use of the IGWG Discussion Forum.

All content posted and shared by users to the IGWG Discussion Forum (i.e., “posts” page) is publicly available; any content that users post, including information in their usernames, is not private.

User Content

The IGWG Discussion Forum allows registered users to post content which may include links to online resources, such as articles, reports, fact sheets, documents, blog posts, infographics, data visualizations, videos, and other materials. You are solely responsible for all resources that you share, publish, display, disseminate, or otherwise communicate through the IGWG Discussion Forum. Please be aware that the resources you choose to post may be protected by copyright and other laws; refer to the website you were visiting when you saved such resources for copyright notices, information, and restrictions that may be applicable. We respect the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same.

This platform is intended to be used to foster discussions related to gender equality in global health programming, including family planning, reproductive health, GBV, and male engagement. Information that is not relevant to global health and gender programs falls outside of the intended scope of this discussion forum and should be posted elsewhere. We expect that IGWG Discussion Forum users will not share or otherwise communicate any resources that fall into the following categories:

• Abusive, threatening, hateful, or defamatory
• Fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading
• In violation of any intellectual property right of another
• In violation of any law or regulation, including any USAID global health
  legislative requirements, family planning guiding principles and policy
  requirements, and HIV/AIDS legal and policy requirements
• Lewd, obscene, or otherwise offensive
• Private information
• Spam

IGWG reserves the right to prevent the posting of or delete content that we reasonably consider to fall within these categories, and if we ask you to refrain from sharing such content in the future, you must agree to comply with such request immediately. We reserve the right, at any time, in our sole discretion, with or without notice, to terminate the accounts of, and block access to the IGWG Discussion Forum to, any users who share or otherwise communicate any content that fall within the above categories.

Our enforcement of these guidelines relies on information available to us. In some cases, this means that we may not detect resources and behavior that violate these guidelines, and in others, enforcement may be limited to circumstances where we have been provided with additional information and context.

Safeguarding

The IGWG is committed to ensuring that the IGWG Discussion Forum is a safe, supportive, and inclusive platform.

Please note that this platform is intended to explore topics that may be sensitive to some (for example, GBV). Users are encouraged to practice self-care while navigating the platform and participating in discussions.

Unfortunately, people sometimes post inappropriate content on sites like the IGWG Discussion Forum. We take this very seriously and want to warn users that by using this platform, they may be exposed to content that is offensive, indecent, or objectionable before we have a chance to take it down.

The IGWG Team will be closely monitoring content that is posted on the Discussion Forum and doing our best to quickly respond to flagged content. We invite users to help us keep this Discussion Forum a safe, welcoming, and supportive platform. If you see inappropriate content or experience harassment while using the platform, you can report it to the IGWG Team by:

• Clicking on the “flag” button that appears below posts. This option
  allows you to report posts as spam, inappropriate, or other.
• Clicking the “contact” button that appears at the top of the website.
• Emailing the IGWG Team at igwg@prb.org.

Disclaimers

Content posted on the IGWG Discussion Forum may feature links to other sites on the internet for your convenience. These other sites are maintained by third parties over which we exercise no control. The appearance of any such third party links (provided by us or by a third party) is not intended to endorse any particular company or product. If you decide to access any of the third party sites linked to this website, you do so entirely at your own risk.

Furthermore, we make no representation and give no warranty that any content on the IGWG Discussion Forum is accurate, up to date, or complete. We accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by inaccurate, out of date, or incomplete content.

The content of this platform is not intended to address any particular requirements; they do not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by the PROPEL Health Project or the United States Government and are not intended to be relied upon when making (or refraining from making) any decision or conclusion.

The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of the individual users who post the content. The information provided on this website is not official United States Government information and does not necessarily reflect the views or positions of USAID, the United States Government, or the PROPEL Health Project.

For More Information

If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please contact the IGWG Team at igwg@prb.org

BEST PRACTICES

This is a Place for Respectful Public Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. The Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) Discussion Forum is a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules. They are guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a kind place for public discourse.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by adding something positive to the discussion, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

The topics discussed here matter to the IGWG, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond by disagreeing. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

• Name-calling
• Personally attacking the poster
• Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content

Instead, contribute to the conversation by sharing thoughtful insights that introduce new perspectives and help further meaningful discussions

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, watching, muting and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. Replying encourages bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators are responsible for previewing new posts though there may be instances where inappropriate content may appear on the Discussion Forum before the IGWG Team has a chance to take it down. To learn more about the IGWG Team’s efforts to monitor the Discussion Forum and content that may be considered as inappropriate, read the platform’s community guidelines.

Always Be Respectful

To keep conversations on the platform respectful, please:

• Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
• Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
• Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
• Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of a major news site.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

• Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
• Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
• Don’t post no-content replies.
• Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
• Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

Powered by You

This site is operated by the IGWG Secretariat and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, you can share feedback with the IGWG Team by filling out this Contact form. If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.

Terms of Service

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.