Smithsonian Channel Community Guidelines

• The Smithsonian Channel Community Guidelines are designed to promote a thought provoking, helpful, safe, friendly and easy-to-use environment for all the members of the community.
• Topics of Discussion
• The Smithsonian Channel Community is a venue where individuals can share their American experience and cultural heritage - as such, content will be restricted to topics relating to Smithsonian Channel programming and educational topics.
• We encourage civil and respectful debate and knowledge sharing of a broad range of education topics relating to the Smithsonian Channel programming, but we do not host debates outside of these topic areas.
• Suggested areas of discussion include: American Culture, Ancient History, Animals, Antiques, Art, Astronomy, Cars, Collectors (stamps, coins, etc), Conservation - goods/antiques, Education, Environment, Festivals, Flight Geography, Modern History, National Parks, Nature, Pop Culture, Pop Culture, Rare collectables, Science, Space, Veterans.
• Do’s
• Add to the conversation and share what you know - the Smithsonian Channel Community is primarily an educational resource, so please share as much content as you can and be generous with your knowledge.
• Build your own community around your area of interest - so long as it falls within subject areas related to Smithsonian Channel programming and topics.
• Be courteous - focus on manners and treating other users with respect.
• Be a good citizen - help the community by alerting Smithsonian Channel administrators to any material that breaks with the community guidelines.
• Have fun! Learn and teach others in a safe and friendly environment.
• Dont’s
• We reserve the right to remove any postings (although we have no duty to do so). We will remove any posting we become aware of that violates the privacy policy, user submission agreement, terms of service or community guidelines.
• Smithsonian Channel has the right to delete any post and ban any user, with or without notice, at any time and for any reason, without limitation, in our judgment that the user has violated these community guidelines.
• Do not post anything obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, illegal, harmful, insulting, threatening, abusive, harassing, humiliating, embarrassing, defamatory, libelous, untrue, invasive of someone else's privacy, or objectionable. It is at the Smithsonian Networks sole discretion what content classifies as any of the above.
• Please bear in mind that all of the material you read in our community areas comes from other members. Because our community is very large, Smithsonian Networks doesn't monitor or verify all the information posted by our members. The comments, opinions, and statements posted on our bulletin boards and chats don't necessarily reflect the views of Smithsonian Networks. The information posted on our boards and chats, including advice and opinions, is the responsibility of those members who create the posts.
• Don't post with the intent to disrupt or disturb the community or to interfere with other members' use and enjoyment of our community. Don't attack character or damage the reputation of other members, name-call, insult, ridicule, harass, mock, or otherwise verbally assault other members of this community. Don't post anything hateful — including references to political opinions and ideas, race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, weight, or disability.
• Anyone who tries to impersonate any other person or entity, including a Smithsonian Networks or Smithsonian Institution staff member, writer, expert, host, or other user — or who creates a screen name in order to hide her identity while violating our guidelines — will be banned immediately, permanently, and without notice.
• You may not suggest, encourage, boast about, or discuss your participation in, any illegal activity. If illegal activity is discussed on message boards or in chat rooms, we reserve the right to inform and/or provide assistance to law enforcement agencies in any way we deem appropriate.
• Violations of the community guidelines
• If you violate the Smithsonian Channel Community community guidelines, you will be contacted individually by Community staff. Your actions may result in a warning, a one-month suspension, or permanent banning from participation in our community. We do not publicly discuss or announce warnings, suspensions, or bannings.
• Banning is done at the Community staff's discretion and is the result of our sole determination of a member's demonstrated inability or disinclination to follow our guidelines. We reserve the right to ban any member at any time for any reason, with or without warning.
• If a thread that contains a violation of these guidelines has information that's useful to the original poster or other members of the site, it may be edited or locked. However, if in our sole judgment a thread was created for the purpose of violating the guidelines, violates enough guidelines to be irredeemable, or contains no otherwise useful information, it may be removed.
• The Smithsonian Channel Community reserves the right to make binding changes to the Community Guidelines at any time, it is the users responsibility to monitor changes.