This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion
Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.
These are not hard and fast rules, merely guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a clean and well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.
Before participating in this forum, we encourage you to review your institution’s policies regarding public communications, use of name and logos, and contributions to public forums or social media.
Improve the Discussion
Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.
The topics discussed here matter to us, 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.
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.
Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree
You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:
- Name-calling
- Ad hominem attacks
- Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
- Knee-jerk contradiction
Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.
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, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.
Let’s leave our community better than we found it.
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, not just janitors or police.
When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the 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 do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.
Privacy
This site uses cookies for site performance, analytics and functionality. Use of this site acknowledges acceptance of these cookies. Contact a Site Administrator if you have other questions about your data, privacy or account.
Children’s Privacy
Children under 13 are not permitted to use this discussion forum. If you have reason to believe that children under 13 are using our forum, please email us at terms@alleninstitute.org. California residents under 18 are entitled, in accordance with California law, to request and obtain removal of content and information that they themselves post on the Allen Brain Map Community Forum page. You may request a removal by emailing us at terms@alleninstitute.org with subject line “California Removal Request,” providing your name, email address/user name, year of birth, mailing address, and the information you want removed.
Always Be Civil
Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:
- Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
- Keep it clean. 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 the New York Times.
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.
- 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.
Owners of copyrighted works who believe that their works have been infringed by users of our discussion forum are encouraged to report the infringement. It is Allen Institute’s policy in accordance with the DMCA and other applicable laws to take action on complaints of infringement, up to and including termination of user accounts. Use of these discussion forums is a privilege, and the Allen Institute may terminate a user account at any time, without notice to the affected user. Further information on Allen Institute’s DMCA policy and Discourse’s DMCA policy is available to users upon request. You can contact Allen Institute’s Designated Agent at terms@alleninstitute.org.
Powered by You
This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! 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 Use
We have a Terms of Use describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our Terms of Use.
In addition, you may, from time to time, provide suggestions, comments, ideas for enhancements, or other feedback (“Feedback”) to Allen Institute with respect to the Allen Brain Map Community Forum or Allen Institute’s websites or other online resources. You give all Feedback voluntarily and agree that it may be used by Allen Institute without restriction or obligation.