Community Rules & Etiquette and Privacy Guidelines
Thank you for being part of our community. To ensure the best possible experience for all members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.
Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. By joining and using this community, you agree that you have read and will follow these rules and guidelines. You also agree to reserve discussions and shared files and content to that best suited to the medium. This is a great medium with which to solicit the advice of your peers, benefit from their experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation. Questions about the community or these guidelines should be directed to our member services department via the Contact Us link on this site.
In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate membership in this community for anyone who violate these guidelines.
The Rules
- Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer guests and members; there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
- Respect the purpose of the community. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals instead of products or services that you provide. If you’ve found a product or service helpful, please share your experience with the group in a respectful way.
- Use caution when discussing products. Information posted on the discussion groups and in the libraries is available for all to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.
- All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited. Do not post anything that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you.
- Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use in the community and have properly attributed to the content creator.
- You may choose to make your content available outside the Services, but you may not reproduce any other Member's content outside of the Services, without express written permission from that Member.
- Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise."
Discussion Group Etiquette
- State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
- Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link in every message.
- Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” to the group. Instead, use the web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your settings.
The Legal Stuff
This site is provided as a service for the members of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (“OTA”). OTA is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. OTA disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by OTA or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall OTA be liable for any special, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of any information posted on this site.
All users shall be responsible for conducting their Site related activities in compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. Without limiting the foregoing:
Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials. Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants OTA a world-wide, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material. Once you have made a posting, you cannot withdraw or retract the license and consents.
Messages should not be posted if they encourage or facilitate members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.
OTA does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings and does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is identified, OTA will take all appropriate action.
OTA reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.
Privacy Policy
Any personal information you provide to us including and similar to your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of our organization except as noted below.
To view the OTA’s complete Privacy Policy, click here.
With Whom Do We Share the Personal Information We Collect Through This Site:
Our Service Providers
We may share your personal information with companies (including our affiliates) that perform services on our behalf, for example, companies that help process credit card payments. Our service providers are required by contract to protect the confidentiality of the personal information we share with them and to use it only to provide specific services on our behalf.
Business Transfers
Your personal information may be transferred to another entity (either an affiliated entity or an unrelated third party) in connection with a merger, reorganization, dissolution or similar corporate event. If such a transfer were ever to occur, the acquiring entity’s use of your personal information will still be subject to this Privacy Policy.
Government and Legal Disclosures
We may disclose the personal information we collect through this Site, when we, in good faith, believe disclosure is appropriate to comply with the law (or a court order or subpoena); to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; to enforce our Terms and Conditions or other agreements that govern your use of this Site; or to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or others.
External Sites
We are not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.
Cookies
A "cookie" is a small data text file that is placed in your browser and allows us to recognize you each time you visit this site (personalization, etc). Cookies themselves do not contain any personal information, and we do not use cookies to collect personal information. Cookies may also be used by 3rd party content providers such as news-feeds.
Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet
While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information. In addition other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through our site have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies. For any other information please contact us using the Contact Us page.
DMCA
If you own intellectual property and believe it is being infringed on the Site, please let us OTA know by filing a complaint as set forth below. In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §512), any notification of claimed copyright infringement must be sent to OTA’s Designated Agent with the following information:
- A physical copy or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
- Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed or if multiple copyright works at a single online Site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that Site;
- Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or could be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit OTA to identify the material;
- A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
- A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Changes
OTA reserves the right to make changes or modifications to the Site and the guidelines. Display of notice of changes on the Site shall constitute effective notice on the day OTA places the changes, and your continued use of the Site thereafter shall constitute your acceptance of such changes or modifications.
Governing Law
This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of Illinois.