Team Wikis:Do's and Don'ts for Team Members

General

• Please defer to your GOA's decisions on all matters regarding your group.
• Please use your Group Admin privileges for work related to your position. Please do not use it to make notes on your own group without permission from GOA or HUB Coordinators or Deron.
• Please use your Freecycle.org ID associated with TFN only for official work related to your team. We ask that you not moderate your own or neighboring groups with an official ID.

• Please understand and follow all aspects of the Mod Manual.
• We have a "one hat" rule, where we ask that you be a member of one team at a time. We welcome you to try out other teams if you are interested in changing things up. Please see your current Team Leader or Coordinator to assist you with the change.
• Mods on the same group may not be on the same leadership team. Exceptions can be made for existing team members
• At the Leadership level, Freecycle.org needs all team members to be committed to our mission of keeping usable items out of landfills. Leadership team members are asked not to support groups which misuse the Freecycle name or use a confusing variant of "Freecycle" because these groups are competing with us for members and diluting our mission. In addition, any unaffiliated group that uses the name Freecycle or our logo is in violation of the Freecycle trademark. When you became a moderator, the only requirement was that you not mod these groups. Being a member of a Leadership Team requires more commitment. We ask that you relinquish your membership in these groups.
• All communications are by email. Team members are asked not to make phone calls for team business, whether it's for contacting a member, another moderator, or doing investigative research on behalf of a team.
• Please do understand that Freecycle works best when we give latitude to volunteer moderators, allowing them to opt in to orientation, training, or group memberships like the FLC, etc. It's the difference between providing empowering tools and options and requiring mandatory tasks. The same tools represent something much different in both cases.

Posting on FIOD/FLC

• As members of leadership teams we have ourselves modded on FIOD and leadership groups to avoid "oops" moments.
• Report all tech issues to your team leader/coordinator instead of FIOD. Your TL/Coord may have the answer already, and if not, will make sure the issue is dealt with quickly and efficiently and given the priority that teams deserve. Click here for more information about the tech issue reporting process for team members.
• We ask you to use your personal email address and not include your team member title in your signature line in posting to leadership groups like FIOD and FLC so that it is not misconstrued that you are speaking on behalf of your team. This includes cases where you assist mods with information that any knowledgeable mod would know, or with information available in the wiki. However if you are assisting mods in any behind-the-scenes capacity not available to a normal mod, please use your Freecycle.org ID/email address and not your personal email.
• And, while it may go without saying, please use care not to divulge internal team correspondence or privileged information on FIOD/FLC etc. which might cause confusion (or accidentally reveal spam control approaches or other internal info that might work against the mods/groups in the long run).

Here are some additional considerations when posting on FLC:

• When discussing Freecycle policies on FLC, please try to stick to the language in the Guidelines and Disclaimer. If you have to stretch beyond that language, make it clear that you're referring to your local group policy. We like to leave Freecycle policy interpretation/clarification for Deron.
• If you want to discuss a potential Freecycle policy change, please start by discussing it with your TL/Coordinator rather than putting it out there on the discussion boards. Your TL/Coordinator will either explain why the policy exists or else will forward your suggestion to the Hub Coordinator.
• Please avoid introducing controversial subjects on FLC. We try to keep a good morale going among moderators, and when they start flaming each other on discussion boards it doesn't really help further the goals of Freecycle.