Community Rules & Etiquette and Privacy Guidelines
Thank you for being part of our community. To ensure the best possible experience for all volunteer community users, we have established the following basic guidelines for participation (“Terms”).
By joining and using this community, you agree that you have read and will follow these Terms. You also agree to reserve discussions, shared files, and content to that best suited to the medium. This is a great medium with which to solicit the advice of your peers, benefit from their experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation. Questions should be directed to our Volunteer Services department via the Contact Us link on this site.
Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these Terms. If you have questions, contact the Volunteer Services department. In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and productive dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate access to this community for anyone who violates these rules.
The Rules
- Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer guests and users; there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
- Respect the purpose of the community. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals instead of products or services that you provide. If you’ve found a product or service helpful, please share your experience with the group in a respectful way.
- Use caution when discussing products. 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 materials are strictly prohibited. Do not post anything that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want associated with you.
- Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator.
- 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.
- Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise."
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.
- Consider your audience: 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.
The Legal Stuff
This site is provided as a service for the volunteers, collaborators, and staff (“Community Members”) of National Board of Medical Examiners (“NBME”). NBME is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. NBME disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by NBME or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall NBME 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. Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved by NBME.
NBME reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these Terms.
Participation as a Community Member does not guarantee placement on an NBME or USMLE Committee or Task Force.
NBME reserves the right to change the content on this site (including these Terms) and to suspend or deny access to this site for maintenance or modifications. Any rights not expressly granted to you herein are reserved to NBME. You may not assign your rights under these Terms, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of NBME.
Any failure to enforce or delay in enforcing any part of these Terms will not constitute a waiver of NBME’s rights under these Terms or law. Except as otherwise noted above, these Terms constitute the entire agreement and supersede any prior agreement or communications between you and us regarding the website. If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at legal@nbme.org.
Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials. Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants National Board of Medical Examiners and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.
NBME owns all rights to our trademarks. NBME trademarks may not be used without prior written permission of NBME.
Messages should not be posted if they encourage or facilitate Community Members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.
NBME does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings and does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to the attention of NBME we will take all appropriate action.
NBME grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferrable, limited privilege to access this website. Unauthorized access to the site includes, but is not limited to: accessing any part of the site, services, content, data, or information you do not have permission or authorization to access or for which NBME has revoked your access; overriding any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls or use limits employed to prevent or limit access to any area of the site or server; access content or data not intended for you or logging into a server or account which you are not authorized to access; hacking, password mining, application of scripts or other electronic mechanisms; or using any other illegitimate means. Your access to the site is governed by all applicable laws.
Further, you may not engage in any activities that could damage, disable, or impair any NBME server; take action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our network or infrastructure; collect content or information or otherwise mirror or access our site using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers); or modify, copy, distribute, or make any attempt to discover the source code, algorithms, or processes of this site.
Suspected Copyright Infringement
If you believe that your rights under copyright law are being infringed by the uploading, posting, display or other distribution of your copyrighted content to our site, please submit a notice of alleged copyright infringement with the following information:
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A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information provided in the notification is accurate and that you are either the copyright owner or are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
Suspension or Termination of Access
You understand that NBME reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts and to block access to this site by any user who violates — or who NBME in its sole discretion believes may have violated — these Terms. You understand that access may be suspended or terminated with or without notice.
No Warranty and Limitation of Liability
This site is provided to you on an “as is”, “as available” basis. NBME (inclusive of its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, or affiliates), to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, disclaims all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to, representations and warranties regarding accuracy, timeliness, completeness, reliability, security, noninfringement, course of dealing, course of performance, usage of trade, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. You expressly agree that your use of this site is at your sole risk.
Further, NBME makes no representations or warranties that your use of this site will be uninterrupted or free from errors, omissions, delay, defects, or harmful components. NBME is not obligated to correct or update the website or its content, and NBME will not be liable for omission, typographical errors, or out-of-date information that may appear on the website.
In no event shall NBME be liable to you for any claim whatsoever arising out of or relating to your use of, your inability to use, your dissatisfaction with, or the delay or failure of the site, including but not limited to, any special, indirect, consequential damages, or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, whether in an action for breach of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of, or in connection with, the use or performance of this site.
This website is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice or as a substitute for the advice, diagnosis, or treatment provided by a qualified medical professional.
Links to Third Party Sites
The website may provide links to other websites that are not owned or controlled by NBME. NBME is not responsible for the contents or operation of any linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by NBME of the sponsor or content of the linked website.
Privacy Policy
Any personal information you provide to us including and similar to your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of our organization except as noted below and in NBME’s Privacy Policy, linked below.
NBME’s Privacy Policy
With Whom Do We Share the Personal Information We Collect Through This Site:
Our Service Providers
We may share your personal information with companies (including our affiliates) that perform services on our behalf, for example, companies that help process credit card payments. 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 a 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 themselves do not contain any personal information, and we do not use cookies to collect personal information. Cookies may also be used by 3rd party content providers such as news-feeds.
Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet
While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account 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 using the Contact Us page.