A Bill of Rights for Online Community Members

Email Article |  Facebook |  Twitter |  LinkedIn 

If the code-of-conduct document is the Constitution of your online community, just as important is a "Bill of Rights" about what community members can expect.  A key part of the social contract between community managers and community members is a statement summarizing how often you'll contact them and what you expect of them.

Often, in an MROC, the Bill of Rights will relate to surveying:

• A promise not to survey more than twice a month
• A promise to limit survey length to 10 or 15 minutes
• A promise to share the aggregated feedback and how the feedback was used.

The following is an example of a Bill of Rights for an invitation-only advisory council.  Feel free to adapt this to your own needs.

Member Bill of Rights

Your participation is very important to us, and we value the information you provide.  You will effectively be an "insider" to our Product Team.  Therefore, our relationship will be one of respect and consideration, based on the following practices:

1. Your privacy and the privacy of your answers will be respected and maintained.
2. Your name, address, phone number, personal information, or individual responses won't be disclosed to anyone without your explicit permission.
3. You will not be sold anything, or asked for any money ever for any reason.
4. In the possible event that one of our employees or research agents wants to speak to you over the phone, before anybody contacts you, you will be asked for your permission for us to call, given a maximum amount of time the call will take and asked when we might call so that it is most convenient for you. You would also be told the name of the person contacting you in advance, and the reason for the call and the topic being discussed.
5. Your decision to participate in any particular focus group, forum, survey or study is completely up to you.  You decide whether to answer specific questions, or not - or to continue or discontinue your participation in the Product Advisory Council.  Your decisions will be respected without question.
6. You are assured that the highest standards of professional conduct will be upheld in the collection and reporting of information you provide.
7. You will have the opportunity to not just be heard, but to have your ideas considered fully by the Product Team decision-makers, and frequently have those ideas acted upon.