MPR Community Forum

Discussion Forum Rules, Etiquette, and Privacy Guidelines

Thank you for being part of our discussion forum. To ensure the best possible experience for all Members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation. By joining and using this forum, you agree that you have read and will follow these rules and guidelines. You also agree to reserve discussions and content to that best suited for this medium. This is a medium with which to solicit the advice of your peers, benefit from their experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation. Questions should be directed to Midwest Public Risk via the Contact Us link on this site.

Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. If you have questions, contact us. In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate membership in this forum for anyone who violate these rules.

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 forum. Use this tool to ask

questions and share ideas. 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 or service

providers. Information posted on the discussion groups is

available to others 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 and have

properly attributed to the content creator.

• When posting items in our collaborative environment,

please indicate if the item is not available for reuse. It’s

also advisable to contact the owner of any material if you

would like to reuse it.

• Post your message or documents only to the most

appropriate discussion forum. This helps ensure all

messages receive the best response by eliminating

"noise."

• Posts that contain any defamatory, abusive, profane,

threatening, offensive, illegal materials, political posts (i.e.

advocating for or against a particular candidate, party or

issue), or religious posts are strictly prohibited on the

Midwest Public Risk Forum. Midwest Public Risk reserves

the right to add to this list of prohibited posts/topics if it

deems a posted topic is counter to the purpose and intent

of the forum.

• Do not post person-specific personnel matters or seek

legal advice through the MPR Community Forum. Be

aware that any content could be required to be disclosed

through subpoena or other legal process.

• The disclosure of any medical information or Personal

Identifying Information (PII) about employees or others is

strictly prohibited.

• Any post deemed not in compliance with these rules is

subject to removal.

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.

• Keep the discussion forum string on the same topic. If

you want to change topics, do so under another post with

another heading.

• Do not post 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.

• Although Midwest Public Risk staff will participate in

discussions when appropriate the purpose of this forum

is to promote and facilitate peer-to-peer discussions

among Midwest Public Risk Members.

Legal Terms

This site is provided as a service for the Members of Midwest Public Risk. Midwest Public Risk is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. We disclaim all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by Midwest Public Risk or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall Midwest Public Risk 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.

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 Midwest Public Risk and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.

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. Midwest Public Risk 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 brought to the attention of Midwest Public Risk we will take all appropriate action. Midwest Public Risk reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.

Privacy Statement

This privacy policy discloses the privacy practices for Midwest Public Risk. This policy applies solely to information collected by Midwest Public Risk through this website. This policy describes:

• What personally identifiable information is collected from

you through the website, how it is used and with whom it

may be shared.

• What choices are available to you regarding the use of

your data and how you can correct any inaccuracies in the

information about you.

• The security procedures in place to protect the misuse of

your information.

• Information Collection, Use, and Sharing

• Midwest Public Risk is the sole owner of the information

collected on this site. Midwest Public Risk only collects

and has access to information you voluntarily provide via

this site, email or other direct contact.

• Midwest Public Risk will use your information to respond

to your inquiries, provide general information about public

entity risk pooling to other Midwest Public Risk Members,

and otherwise fulfill its values of intelligence, education,

networking, operational resources & best practices, and

advocacy.

• Midwest Public Risk does not sell or rent the information

it collects.

• Unless you ask us not to, we may contact you via email to

tell you about Midwest Public Risk programs and services,

Membership issues, news and information about public

entity pooling, or related purposes.

Your Access to and Control Over Information

You may opt out of contact from The Midwest Public Risk

Forum at any time. Contact Midwest Public Risk via email

or by calling 816-292-7500 to:

• Inquire what data we have about you, if any.

• Change/correct any data we have about you.

• Have us delete any data we have about you.

• Express any concern you have about our use of your data.

• Security

Midwest Public Risk collects and maintains very little sensitive information, but we take precautions to protect what we do collect. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline. Any sensitive information we collect through our third-party member database is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar and looking for "https" at the beginning of the address of a Web page.

Only Midwest Public Risk-assigned employees who need your information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store Membership information are kept in a secure environment.

If you feel that we are not abiding by this privacy policy, you should contact Midwest Public Risk immediately via telephone at 816-292-7500 or by email.