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This document, establishes rules of behavior for using Community.FEMA.gov. It applies to all users. 

Purpose: The National Preparedness Coalition Online Community is where we connect and collaborate on emergency preparedness. Use it to empower yourself to prepare and to coordinate preparedness activities with your family, neighbors, co-workers, and those with whom you may study or worship.

If you are seeking Disaster Assistance, please see http://www.fema.gov/apply-assistance.

Membership: The community is open and free to anyone who wishes to join. FEMA employees are bound by FEMA Web 2.0 Policy (Directive 262-3) as it relates to their job.

Beliefs: When we are connected and collaborate, we are more effective and efficient at educating and empowering ourselves to prepare for disasters and emergencies.

Expectations: We contribute what we can about what we know; ask for what we need; keep doing what is working; communicate about what is not working, and when possible, offer suggestions towards solutions.

Values: The spirit in which we take actions:

  • We are thoughtful, respectful and helpful
  • We encourage each other
  • We celebrate each other’s accomplishments
  • We appreciate the diversity of our approaches

Actions: The actions we regularly take:

  • We invite our peers to join the coalition
  • We add our National Preparedness Month events to the Calendars
  • We add, read, and comment on each other’s discussions and announcements
  • We share our best practices and success stories
  • We ask for help and help each other
  • We are factual and cite sources

Goals: What we have in common that motivates us:
We strive to prepare ourselves, and our families, neighbors, co-workers, and those with whom we may study or worship. We seek to connect with each other and FEMA personnel to build long-term mutually beneficial relationships

Moderation Policy: This is a moderated community, meaning discussion, comments, and photos will be reviewed prior to being posted. Members may post events – which are not moderated but are held to the same standards. All contributions must remain on topic; we reserve the right to determine and delete contributions that do not meet our criteria. We reserve the right to suspend or remove user access at our discretion. 

The following is not permitted:

  • Discussions, comments, events, and photos that include abusive or vulgar language, hate speech, personal attacks, or similar content.
  • Discussions, comments, events, and photos that make unsupported accusations.
  • Discussions, comments, events, and photos that include personal information such as: a FEMA case number, social security number, or any other information (protected by the Privacy Act of 1974.) you do not want available to the general public.
  • Discussions, comments, events, and photos that promote any commercial entities or products.
  • Discussions, comments, events, and photos that contain malware or spam or phishing attempts.
  • Discussions, comments, events, and photos that contain information or links to any fundraising campaigns.
  • Discussions, comments, events, and photos for the submission of any claim, demand, informal or formal complaint, or any other form of legal and/or administrative notice or process, or for the exhaustion of any legal and/or administrative remedy.
  • Do not link to sites that are purely commercial, represent a political or theological train of thought, promote any discriminatory behavior, has vulgar or abuse language, or promote violence. All linked sites must devote the majority of their content to resources for the emergency management community.
  • Do not make request for Disaster Assistance. If you are seeking Disaster Assistance, please see http://www.fema.gov/apply-assistance. 

We recognize that the Web is a 24/7 medium, and your discussions, comments, events, and photos are welcome at any time. However, given the need to manage federal resources, moderating will occur during regular business hours Monday through Friday.

Discussions, comments, and photos submitted after hours or on weekends will be read and posted as early as possible; in most cases, this means the next business day.

User Accounts: All users must have unique user identification (user ID) for the Community. Assigned Community user accounts and passwords may not be transferred or shared.

Passwords: Passwords must be at least eight characters in length and contain a mix of alpha and numeric characters. 2.) Passwords must not contain full or partial personal information, person or pet names, repetitive patterns, dictionary words, or product names and must not be the same as the user ID. 3.) Sharing or disclosing passwords or writing passwords down on a medium that is accessible by others is prohibited. Passwords must not be stored in keyboard macros or .bat files.

Users Responsibilities: User will provide and enter only the information about their organization. User will not enter any confidential information or information considered personally identifiable information (PII) in the Community (such as personal phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, SSNs, or any other information that is linked to an individual.

Other Terms: FEMA does not guarantee or warrant that any information posted by individuals on this site is correct, and disclaims any liability for any loss or damage resulting from reliance on any such information. FEMA will not verify, does not warrant or guarantee, and assumes no liability for anything posted on this website by any other person. As a user you accept liability and will indemnify FEMA for any liability, loss or damage resulting from reliance on the information you posted.

The user recognizes that the Community.FEMA.gov is a government website and is not copyrightable in the United States. See 17 USC § 105. The User grants FEMA a royalty free, non-exclusive right to use any discussions, comments, events or photos posted in the community.

The user recognizes that the Federal government does not endorse any non-Federal entities, organizations, services, or products.

FEMA will be collecting or retaining comments in our records. Therefore anything you post, including discussion, comments, events, and photos must be yours and by posting, you grant us permission for use in future publications.

[Last edited on 8.10.2012]