Community Guidelines

Community Protocol & Etiquette, Terms and Conditions, and Privacy Guidelines

Thank you for being part of the Daughters Online Community (DOC). To ensure the best possible experience for all DOC users, the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (“NSDAR”) has established some basic guidelines for participation.

By joining and using this community, you agree that you have read and will follow these rules and guidelines. You also agree to reserve discussions and shared files and content that are best suited to the medium. This is a great medium with which to connect with fellow Daughters, benefit from their experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation about our service in the DAR mission areas of historic preservation, education, and patriotism. In some cases, however, it may be advisable to direct your questions to your Chapter Regent, a committee chair, or your State Regent, as appropriate.

Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. If you have questions about the community guidelines, contact community@nsdar.org. In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate membership in this community for anyone who violates these rules.

Community Protocol

  • Respect others and be kind. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer members; there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
  • Respect the purpose of the community: strengthening our DAR ties of service and friendship. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals.
  • Sales of merchandise and business advertising are expressly prohibited.
  • Promotion of personal, chapter, or state fundraising campaigns is expressly prohibited.
  • Use caution when discussing products or services your chapter may use in fulfilling the DAR mission. The information posted on the discussion groups and in the libraries is available for all to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.
  • All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive or illegal content and materials are strictly 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. Just as we follow DAR protocol in our attire and behavior at in-person events, follow DAR protocol in our behavior in the online community. Choose profile photos, complete your online bio, and post information accordingly.
  • Content that is political in nature is strictly prohibited. As stated in the NSDAR Handbook: “The NSDAR is nonpolitical. It maintains no lobby at national, state, or local government levels; contributes to no political party nor to candidates in any way; initiates no legislation; and does not have a legislative chair. The DAR is interested in preserving and maintaining our constitutional republic and urges its members, as good American citizens, to be informed and to vote. Each member, chapter, and state society is cautioned to refrain from any activity performed in the name of DAR, which might be construed as political. Such activities are prohibited.”
  • Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator. NSDAR is not liable for any alleged or actual infringement or misappropriation of any proprietary right in your submission. NSDAR may, at its discretion, remove content or content that appears to infringe the proprietary rights of others. If you believe that your copyright has been violated by materials posted to this DOC site, please contact NSDAR at community@nsdar.org.
  • When posting items in our collaborative environment, please indicate if the item is not available for reuse. It’s also advisable to contact the owner of any material if you would like to reuse it.
  • Understand that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback, or other information posted to this DOC site (“submissions”) are non-confidential. As such, do not share sensitive personal information, including your national numbers, or proprietary information from any DAR system.

Discussion Group Etiquette

  • State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
  • Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link in every message.
  • Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” to the group. Instead, use the web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your settings.
  • Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise."

DOC Terms & Conditions

Disclaimer. This DOC site is provided as a service for the members of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (“NSDAR”). The opinions of DOC moderators, posters, and commentators are their own and not necessarily that of NSDAR. NSDAR is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. NSDAR disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by a member, DOC user, or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall NSDAR, including its officers, directors, volunteers, employees, or agents 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 of this DOC site or any information posted on this site.

Warranty by DOC Users. By posting content and materials to this DOC site, you agree to abide by the Community Protocol and Discussion Group Etiquette set forth above, and warrant that your posting does not contain any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials, or any information or other material that may infringe upon the proprietary or privacy rights of others.

License Grant to NSDAR. The posting party grants NSDAR and users of this DOC site the nonexclusive right and a worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material in any way and in any medium for any purposes deemed appropriate by NSDAR.

Administrative Authority and Account Suspension Policy. NSDAR does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in order to ensure the DOC is a welcoming forum for productive discussion that furthers the DAR mission, the DOC operates under the above-listed Community Protocol and Discussion Group Etiquette (the “Community Guidelines”). Individual communities are moderated by Daughters invited to serve in such capacity by the current Administration. Should a DOC user violate one or more of the Community Guidelines, the moderator for the respective community will generally take the following steps before terminating a DOC user’s account or suspending the user’s posting privileges:

  1. First violation: The moderator will screenshot the post, then delete the post. The moderator will email the user the screenshot along with a prewritten first warning referencing the Community Guidelines, copying the respective community’s National Chair and community@nsdar.org.
  2. Second violation: The moderator will screenshot the post, then delete the post. The moderator will email the user the screenshot and a prewritten second warning referencing the Community Guidelines and the date of the first violation, copying the respective community’s National Chair and community@nsdar.org.
  3. Third violation: The moderator will screenshot the post, then delete the post. The moderator will alert the community’s respective National Chair and community@nsdar.org. The associated National Chair will contact her executive liaison and the National Chair of Public Relations and Media. The National Chair of Public Relations and Media will review the three violations and contact her executive liaison and the President General. Following consultation with the President General and at the President General’s approval, the National Chair of Public Relations and Media will email the member a prewritten email listing the dates of the first, second, and third violations and state that the user’s account will be terminated. The National Chair of Public Relations and Media will take steps to terminate the account.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, NSDAR reserves the right to delete or disable access to the offending posts, suspend or terminate the user account, and take all appropriate action based on NSDAR’s sole discretion without notice. As the Community Guidelines state: “All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive or illegal content and materials are strictly prohibited.” Should a user’s community behavior violate this guideline, NSDAR reserves the right to proceed directly to the user termination at the President General’s approval.

DOC Privacy Policy

Information We Collect; Purposes

If you wish to participate in the DOC site, you will be asked to create a user login account and provide personal information to NSDAR. The type of personal information NSDAR collects to set up the log-in account includes your name, membership number, and email address. You may also create a profile on the DOC site. When you create a profile, NSDAR will collect the information that you elect to upload to your profile, such as biography, your education and job history, and volunteer experience. Other registered DOC users may also view your profile information. You should carefully consider whether you wish to submit personal information and tailor any content you submit appropriately.

How We Share and Disclose Information

Any personal information you voluntarily provide to us to use on the DOC site including and similar to your name, address, telephone number, and email address will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of our organization except as noted below.

Our Contracted Service Providers

We may share your personal information with companies (including our affiliates) that perform services on our behalf. Our service providers are required by contract to protect the confidentiality of the personal information we share with them and to use it only to provide specific services on our behalf.

Business Transfers

Your personal information may be transferred to another entity (either an affiliated entity or an unrelated third party) in connection with a merger, reorganization, dissolution, or similar corporate event. If such a transfer were ever to occur, the acquiring entity’s use of your personal information will still be subject to this Privacy Policy.

Government and Legal Disclosures

We may disclose the personal information we collect through this Site, when we, in good faith, believe disclosure is appropriate to comply with the law (or court order or subpoena); to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; to enforce our Terms and Conditions or other agreements that govern your use of this Site; or to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or others.

External Sites

We are not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Cookies

A "cookie" is a small data text file that is placed in your browser and allows us to recognize you each time you visit this site (personalization, etc.). Cookies may also be used by third-party content providers such as newsfeeds. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, if the user declines the attachment of any cookie, the user may not have access to the full benefits of the site.

Security Measures and Safeguards to Protect Personal Information

NSDAR will maintain reasonable and appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for protection of the security, confidentiality, and integrity of member data submitted through the DOC site to NSDAR. Those safeguards will include, but will not be limited to: (i) measures designed to prevent unauthorized access to or disclosure of member data (other than by member or authorized users), (ii) implementing and maintaining systems and procedures for detecting, preventing and responding to attacks, intrusions, or other systems failures and regularly testing or otherwise monitoring the effectiveness of such systems, and procedures (i.e. vulnerability scans and penetration tests conducted by selected vendors), and (iii) identifying internal and external risks and assessing the sufficiency of any systems and procedures in place to control these risks.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, when you submit information through the DOC site to NSDAR, you should be aware that your information is transmitted across the Internet and that no method of transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. Although we maintain reasonable safeguards and take reasonable security measures to protect your information when we receive it, you also need to ensure you take appropriate steps to protect your information. In addition, other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through our site have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies. For any other information please contact us at community@nsdar.org.

How to Access, Correct, and Delete Information

You may access, correct, or delete your personal information by logging in to your DOC account and utilizing the setting function or by contacting us at community@nsdar.org. We may ask you to provide sufficient evidence of your identity for your own protection so we can ensure that information is being released to the correct person. We will respond to your request to access your information within 30 days. In some cases, our business requirements and legal obligations may prevent us from being able to delete your information. If we are unable to delete your information, we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

International Website Access and Cross-Border Data Transfers

Our principal place of business is in the United States. If you are accessing the DOC site from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and NSDAR is based. In addition, information that NSDAR collects may be stored and processed in and transferred between any of the countries in which NSDAR operates to enable the use of the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You agree to such cross-border transfers of personal information.

Amendments and Updates

NSDAR will occasionally update this Privacy Policy. Any changes to our Privacy Policy will be posted here so that users will know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and whether we will disclose it to anyone. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices and this Privacy Policy.

Effective Date: October 2022