Guidelines for Online Communities
Online communities are maintained by the Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc. to assist the interaction of community members and their work on tasks undertaken to fulfill the Society’s mission. Comments by participants represent the views and opinions of that individual and do not necessarily reflect the position of SPE, its officers and directors, or other SPE members.
Community members are expected to participate in a tone of congenial discussion and professional courtesy. SPE online communities operate under the Terms of Use/Service for SPE.org. and the following guidelines. Postings and messages will be deleted if they are considered, at SPE’s sole discretion, to be counter to the Terms of Use/Service policy or these guidelines.
- All material and messages posted must pertain to the focus of the community. Questions, information, and issues outside the scope of the community’s interests and work should be discussed using means outside the online community.
- Commercial material and messages that promote a specific product, service, institution, or company must not be posted to the online community.
- Participants must either hold the copyright to material posted or have permission to post the material from the copyright owner. Under most international copyright laws, the originator of material, including postings to this site, is the copyright holder unless he/she has specifically transferred copyright to another. Material does not have to include the copyright symbol or a statement of copyright ownership to be protected by copyright.
- Participants must not copy, forward to others, or use materials posted to this community without the permission of the originator or the copyright holder.
- If the community is working on a document for SPE purposes, such as a report, guidelines, book, or paper, material in that document may be distributed only to the authors, editors, reviewers, and SPE staff working on the project.
- Contributors may argue facts or opinions, but personal attacks on other contributors or institutions are not allowed.
- Do not post materials or messages that are of questionable taste. This includes material that is threatening, defamatory, violent, vulgar, or obscene. Please keep in mind that material and messages posted to the online community will be viewed by a sometimes large and diverse group of people. Humor and what is acceptable language may differ, depending upon a person’s cultural background or beliefs.
If you note information on any SPE website, listserve, or online community
that may constitute copyright infringement, you can notify SPE to investigate
it. The procedure and requirements for this notification are found in
the Terms of Use/Service.
