ScalePad Community Guidelines and Code of Conduct

Welcome to ScalePad’s Partner Community! This is a space where individuals from our Partner and MSP communities can come together to share knowledge, learn from each other, and engage in meaningful conversations about industry trends, best practices, and more. All members must adhere to the following community guidelines to ensure our community remains a constructive and respectful environment.

By participating in this community, you agree to abide by these guidelines. Violating any of these rules may result in immediate removal from the community and, in some cases, further action, including suspension of your ScalePad user privileges.

1. Respect

The ScalePad Community is an inclusive environment that treats all individuals respectfully, regardless of, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, political affiliation, or career path.

We value respectful behavior above individual opinions.

Respectful behavior includes but is not limited to:

• Be considerate, kind, constructive, and helpful.
• Avoid demeaning, discriminatory, harassing, hateful, or physically threatening behavior, speech, and imagery.
• Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, and traditions of others.

If you need clarification on whether a communication, action, or behavior is respectful, ask someone instead of assuming. No, really. Just ask the Moderators publicly via the Moderators channel or privately via Direct Message. We'd rather hear from you than hear about something you said or did after the fact, and we are here to help.

Don't be a bystander; be a leader. Role model respectful behavior, but also help to address disrespect when you see it within your community.

Consequence: Active members' disrespectful behavior outside this community may be considered a violation of this code of conduct at the Administrators' discretion.

2. Harassment-Free

The ScalePad Community is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of (but not limited to): gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion, or preferred technological ecosystem.

We do not tolerate harassment of Community participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate for any venue. Members violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the ScalePad Community at the discretion of the administrative team.

Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

• Offensive and/or unwelcome comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion, or preferred technological ecosystem.
• Sexual images in public spaces
• Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following
• Harassing photography or recording
• Sustained disruption of talks or other events
• Physical contact and simulated physical contact (e.g., textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop
• Unwelcome sexual attention, including gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior
• Hate speech
• Purposeful psychological manipulation of any kind
• Spamming of GIFs
• Advocating for or encouraging any of the above behavior
• Direct messages or postings in channels/private groups in an overly sales/advertising/spam manner (additional vendor guidelines)

3. Professional Conduct

Please keep all interactions professional and relevant to the MSP community. This is not a venue for personal disputes, advertisements, or off-topic discussions.

4. Privacy and Confidentiality

Protecting the privacy of all community members is critical. Do not share personal or confidential information of any individual or organization without their explicit consent. This includes, but is not limited to, contact information, social security numbers, and financial data.

Protect IP and legally protected information. This community is not a public space. However, no one has signed a non-disclosure agreement ("NDA") to participate, and you should assume anything you say here will become public. Act accordingly.

If you want to disclose anything discussed here in a public channel, use the Chatham House Rule as the guideline ("Participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed") and do not disclose information from which a person’s identity likely could be ascertained.

For attribution of specific content found on this Community’s public channels, you should ask the person who posted the content for permission. If you don't receive specific consent promptly, we ask that you credit the "ScalePad Community."  If specific content found on this Community’s public channel appears to be the personal or confidential information of another person or organization, do not use that information without their specific consent. If you don't receive consent promptly, do not attribute or use that information. 

Consequence: Sharing content from private channels is discouraged without specific permission.

5. No Spam or Self-Promotion

This is a community to learn from each other, not a marketplace. Do not post promotional content or links to external sites for self-promotion or advertising unless it is directly relevant to a conversation and explicitly permitted.
 

A direct message ("DM") is a private message to one or more other members. Sending a DM to another member you don't know might be unwelcome by or jarring for the receiver. Before sending a DM to a member you've never contacted, consider the following:

• Is it evident to the other member why I am contacting them privately? If not, should I provide context, such as a public post?
• Could this message be considered unsolicited spam? If so, should you be sending it?

Consequence: Unsolicited DMs are likely Code of Conduct violations, especially with a commercial flavor.

6. Read the Room

Once onboard, you will likely find yourself in a popular channel with many members who sound like we've figured it out. We haven't. While advice on one channel might appear to be definitive, it is one member's lessons, interpretations, and learnings from their personal experiences. While there is a diverse set of experiences within this community, we continue to learn at every level of expertise. The daily practice of being in the MSP community at large is more art than science.

Different channels will organically develop distinct personalities. Before posting in a channel with hundreds of members, we suggest you take the time to read the room. Specifically:

• Read the last few days’ worth of messages.
• Examine the channel topic for helpful tips.
• Click on the channel details and read the About section to see how many members are present, what messages have already been pinned, and what files have been shared.
• Use the search feature. Your question may have already been discussed, or at least something similar. The results might give you the answer or help you frame your question better.

Consequence: Posting the same message to multiple channels is spamming. Don't spam.

7. Observe Local Laws

While this is an online community, all participants must comply with applicable laws, including those relating to online conduct and acceptable content.

ScalePad’s Rights

ScalePad reserves the right to edit or delete any posts that violate these guidelines and may remove any member who repeatedly violates these rules. We also reserve the right to update these guidelines as needed to maintain the health and integrity of the community.

Reporting Violations

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, and you feel comfortable speaking with the offender, please inform the offender that they have affected you negatively. Often, the offending behavior is unintentional, and the accidental offender and offended will resolve the incident by having that initial discussion. As a worldwide community, we recognize that there are inherent language barriers we must work together to overcome.

The Moderator team recognizes many reasons why speaking directly to the offender may not be viable (all reasons are valid; we will never ask you to explain or defend your reasons). If you don't feel comfortable speaking directly with the offender for any reason, please report violations directly to a member of the Moderation team.

Thank you for being a part of our ScalePad community and for respecting these guidelines to make this a welcoming and productive space for all members.

Moderators

ScalePad employees who are members of the moderation team include:

• Andrea Ayala
• Ola Witukiewicz
• Eric Torres
• Luis Giraldo

Acknowledgments: We thank the Mac Admins Slack administration team for their incredible work on their Code of Conduct, which we have leveraged here to a great extent.