Site Policies

Introduction
This site has been set up as an online apparatus that supports community based governance on Bowen Island. Form should follow function: the site based on, and operates to promote, openness, freedom and collaboration. Our island is a unique, limited and intimate community. The site's foundation has to be suitable to our situation, and with desirable outcomes in mind:
- desirable opportunities for engagement on issues relating to self governance and use of common space, and
- the creation of desirable artifacts ( such as valuable community-based policy initiatives).

To encourage communication that is mindful, inclusive, accurate, referenced and ultimately loving is considered a suitable means and end of the site.

Clearly, a policy of intent isn't enough - ongoing governance by the community is needed to keep discussion and content creation at a sufficiently high level. At the same time, we need to support a tolerant and accessible environment that enables and encourages people to proclaim their point of view within an open and respectful context.

User Profiles
We believe that when people provide their full name and public face it encourages a higher level of discussion. Therefore, to become a contributor to this site you need to provide your full name and a recognisable head shot ( photograph) of yourself.

Contribution
You are solely and entirely responsible for all contributions and content that you add to this site. You warrant that all contribution and content added, edited or uploaded by you: (i) does not include unauthorized disclosure(s) of personal information, trade secrets, or confidential information; (ii) does not violate anyone's rights, including without limitation intellectual property rights; (iii) does not contain software viruses or any other elements designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any software, systems, or devices; (iv) does not contain or link to commercial solicitations; and (v) is not inaccurate, defamatory, obscene, harassing, or otherwise objectionable in a manner which would support third party legal claims.

Dispute Resolution
This site follows the dispute resolutions found in Wikipedia. Though this community is not a wiki it will follow the procedures outlined by the Wikipedia policy; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes

Copyright
This is a share alike site. All site contributions are shared with a Creative Commons License, CC-BY-SA. This license supports redistribution/ sharing/ dissemination of our efforts with other communities struggling with similar issues.

Only if people want reuse text or materials that you create & share on this site, for commercial resale, do they need to ask your permission. Otherwise, a simple attribution, with link to either your site or your entry in this site, is required.

Policy Enforcement
The policies of Contribution and Copyright will be immediately enforced as their violation could put the site at risk. The User Profiles policy will give people the benefit of not following this policy for a brief period of time so they can evaluate their level of participation before making the commitment of adding a photo of themselves or using their full names. If they want to follow along anonymously they can do so by not becoming a member. The enforcement of the User Profile policy will also ease the administration effort as we will reduce our risk of spam and phishing. It should also be noted that not following these policies will increase the efforts of a site administered by volunteers. If you decide to become a member please follow these policies and ease the volunteer effort.
User Profile Enforcement Any User Profile that does not include a current photograph or the full name of the member will be banned after two weeks and three warnings requesting the User Profile be followed.

Policy Discussion
All discussion regarding this sites policies can be found at; http://bowegover.ning.com/forum/topics/policies-1