ASM CONNECT TERMS OF SERVICE

Welcome to ASM Connect, ASM’s online community where members can share information, learn and engage in ongoing conversations with peers all within a safe and secure private community. At ASM, our mission is to create an online community that enhances opportunities to collaborate, discuss issues, and advance microbial science information and education.

ACCEPTING THE TERMS OF SERVICE

Please read these terms of service carefully before entering the platform or any services provided on ASM Connect. By participating in ASM Connect, you agree that you have read and will follow these community rules.

COMMUNITY RULES

To preserve an environment that is welcoming and that respects the purpose of the community, ASM reserves the right to suspend or terminate participation in ASM Connect for anyone who violates the following rules.

No anonymous posts. All shared content must be signed with the member's name and e-mail address.
Respect others and the purpose of the community. Use the communities to engage with peers, build relationships, and hold ongoing conversations related to the microbial sciences profession, education and public health. Keep message contents limited to professional topics. Always be professional when participating in ASM Connect communities.
Use appropriate decorum, do not troll, challenge or attack others. Discussions on ASM Connect are meant to drive collaboration, engage with peers, and build positive relationships, not to create contention or unprofessional conversation. If you have a differing opinion, support your opinion or comments and use them to express yourself in a professional manner. Do not post discussions with the intent of upsetting others and starting a heated discussion.
Export-controlled content is not permitted – members may not post technical or scientific information that is subject to export control laws and restrictions of the United States, their home countries, or other jurisdictions as applicable. Members are solely responsible for ensuring any information posted or shared over ASM Connect complies with applicable law.
Commercial content is not permitted — members may not post on behalf of their employers to recruit for jobs, advertise for services or goods, capture survey data, nor may they collect contacts or create mailing lists for business purposes. Members may not post fundraising requests—including those for meeting travel, research, publication fees, or other individual expenses.
Don’t promote candidates for elected office or engage in electioneering. ASM Connect is not a place to garner support for candidates for office, and electioneering is prohibited. Communities are not a place for discussion around ASM elections or related business. Questions around the ASM election process should be sent directly to the Nominations Committee at nominations@ASM.org
Defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are 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. Legal restrictions, including personal liability for defamation, apply to posts within the ASM Connect communities.
Respect privacy. Do not post any personally identifiable information (PII) to the ASM Connect communities. ASM Connect is not intended to be a place for the exchange of any protected information. Should you submit personal information regarding a patient, patient diagnostics or other third party, you represent and warrant to ASM that you have obtained that individual’s consent or legal authorization, to the extent and in the manner required by law, to the disclosure of their personal information.
Respect intellectual property, copyright, and proprietary rights. By posting material on ASM Connect, you represent and warrant that you have the right to post such material, that you own the copyright or other intellectual property rights with respect to such material or have received permission to share from the copyright owner. When posting copyrighted material, link out to the source on the internet rather than posting a pdf or a file of the content. In addition, by posting such material, you grant to ASM and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use the information or material that you posted. Subject to the grant of this license, the posting party retains any other rights that the party may have to such information.
Don’t post anticompetitive messages or restraint of trade. Do not post messages that encourage or facilitate members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or implicitly leads to price fixing, a boycott, or other conduct that restricts free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are prohibited: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; boycott of another’s business; allocation of customers or territories; selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.
State concisely and clearly the topic of your message in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your post and makes it easier for them find relevant content when they search the archives by subject. Add relevant tags to your post to make it easier to find and improve its visibility in searches.
Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating \"noise.\" Do not post the same message in different communities or libraries. All messages should be intended to add to the body of knowledge within an individual community.
Do not send administrative or general messages such as “remove me from the list,” \"thanks for the information,\" or \"me, too\" to a group. Do not include messages that are not relevant to the majority of community members. Instead, send a private message to the individual by using the \"private message\" link available in every discussion post.

ENFORCEMENT

ASM may monitor all discussions on ASM Connect, although it has no obligation to do so, and reserves the right to remove and delete posts and immediately terminate or moderate any user suspected of violating these Terms of Service. ASM does not actively monitor the ASM Connect communities for inappropriate posts and does not on its own undertake editorial control of posts.

Egregious violations, such as posting defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal material, may result in immediate suspension or termination of a user’s ASM Connect account.

ASM Connect participants can flag a post for the moderator at any time, using the report as inappropriate option. This option requires a description of the reason for reporting the post, and a moderator will determine whether the post violates these Terms of Service.

ASM reserves the right at its sole discretion to remove or reject any message for any reason or to suspend or terminate a user account as needed.

ACCESS TO ASM CONNECT

Subject to the Terms of Service, ASM provides the use of ASM Connect solely for the member's own use, and not for the use or benefit of any other third party.

ASM may change, suspend or discontinue the services at any time, including the availability of any feature, application, or content. ASM may also impose limits on certain features and services or restrict access to parts or all of the services without notice or liability. ASM reserves the right, at its discretion, to modify these Terms of Service at any time by posting revised Terms of Service on ASM Connect portal and/or by providing notice via e-mail. Members shall be responsible for reviewing and becoming familiar with any such modifications. Use of ASM Connect following such modification constitutes acceptance of the terms and conditions of the Terms of Service as modified.
Participants certify to ASM that you are an individual (i.e., not a corporate entity) at least 18 years of age. No one under the age of 18 may provide any personal information to or on ASM Connect (including, for example, a name, address, telephone number or email address). The Terms of Service are void where prohibited by law, and the right to access ASM Connect is revoked in such jurisdictions. ASM makes no claim that ASM Connect may be lawfully viewed or that content may be downloaded outside of the United States. Access to the content may not be legal by certain persons or in certain countries. If you access the ASM Connect from outside the United States, you do so at your own risk and are responsible for compliance with the laws of your jurisdiction.
ASM will make reasonable efforts to ensure that ASM Connect is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. However, there will be occasions when the network and/or service will be interrupted for maintenance, upgrades and repairs or due to failure of telecommunications links and equipment. Every reasonable step will be taken by ASM to minimize such disruption where it is within ASM's reasonable control.
You agree that ASM will not be liable in any event to you for any suspension, modification, discontinuance or lack of availability of ASM Connect, any Content, or other Content. ASM retains the right to create limits on use and storage in its sole discretion at any time with or without notice.
ASM Connect participants shall be responsible for obtaining and maintaining any equipment or ancillary services needed to connect to or access the site, including, without limitation, modems, hardware, software, and long distance or local telephone service. Subscriber shall be responsible for ensuring that such equipment or ancillary services are compatible with ASM Connect.

DISCLAIMER

This site is provided as a service for the members of American Society for Microbiology. ASM is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by members and participants in communities. You should not consider out of date user submitted content to be current thoughts and opinions, as thoughts and opinions of a user can often change. ASM disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by ASM or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. ASM does not guarantee the privacy of any content posted or shared on ASM Connect. In no event shall ASM 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. You are urged to preserve copies of any data, material, content or information you post in ASM Connect. If you post or otherwise use content outside of ASM Connect, whether such content was created by you or others, you agree that such content will visually be displayed, link back to the source or clearly indicate the author’s name(s) for every piece of content shared.

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS

If you believe that content residing or accessible on ASM Connect infringes a copyright, please send a notice of copyright infringement containing the following information to service@asm.org:

Identification of the work or material being infringed.
Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing, including its location, with sufficient detail so that ASM is capable of finding and verifying its existence.
Your contact information, including name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.
A statement that you, in good faith, believe that the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or law.
A statement made under penalty of perjury that the information provided in the notice is accurate and that you are authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the copyright owner.

After ASM receives notification of an alleged infringement that meets all of the requirements above, ASM shall:

Disable access to or remove any material that ASM reasonably and in good faith believes infringes on copyrighted content or has been unlawfully copied and distributed on ASM Connect.
ASM will then immediately notify the aggrieved party and the individual responsible for the allegedly infringing material that it has removed or disabled access to the material.
ASM reserves the right, at its discretion, to terminate immediately the account of any participant who is the subject of repeated infringement allegations.

OTHER LEGAL INFORMATION

By participating in ASM Connect communities, you agree to abide by the ASM Connect Terms of Service. You further agree to abide by the ASM code of conduct policy pertaining to all ASM meetings, available at https://asm.org/Ethics.

ASM reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by the ASM Connect rules.

Your privacy is important to us. ASM’s Privacy Policy contains a detailed explanation of how we use your data, how we communicate with you, and the terms and conditions of use.

As a participant in ASM Connect, you are subject to both ASM’s general website Terms of Service and these ASM Connect Terms of Service. To the extent that there is a conflict between the general website and these Terms of Service, the ASM Connect Terms of Service shall govern relating to any submission you make on ASM Connect.

ASM may change these Terms of Service from time to time. It is your responsibility to check these Terms of Service periodically for revisions. Your continued use of ASM Connect following the posting of changes will signify your agreement to such changes.

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