Who does Get Satisfaction "work for"? The companies, or the consumers?

Get Satisfaction is a neutral space, a "Switzerland" for companies and customers. For this to work we believe both sides need to take responsibility for their part in creating a healthy community (see the Company-Customer Pact).

As anyone can see from a casual browsing of discussions across many companies, there is no shortage of talk about competitive products. In fact, Guy Fawkes, most of *your* replies which have discussed competitive products are still up.

However, we are intently focused on fostering a productive environment that rewards listening and treating others with reciprocal respect. It is well known by now that many people use the Internet as an anonymous platform to terrorize others simply because they can. There are many places on the Internet that encourage this self-serving snarkiness and cruelty, but Get Satisfaction is not one of them. We operate under the premise that communication between companies and customers works to *build* trust when both sides behave civilly.

Let me be blunt: Trolls are not welcome here. Griefers are not welcome here. Critics, on the other hand, are encouraged to post, as long as they're focused on productive outcomes. Because to criticize without positive goals in mind means that the only place to go is down. And nobody but a griefer wins by tearing somebody else down.

We take great pains to preserve neutrality in enforcing our community guidelines, and when removing posts we also consider the pattern of behavior from the author in question. If the author is viciously sniping, is anonymous, has created multiple accounts to participate in the same community, *and* their posts or replies are being flagged as abuse by other users, we are likely to delete their posts. If the abuse continues we will also escort the user from the system.

Finally, Get Satisfaction rewards authenticity. For best results, do not hide behind a mask of anonymity while demanding transparency of those who are willing to attach their names and real-world reputations to their words.

Our community guidelines don't specify every permutation of abuse, and we will extend them where we need to, but let me quote a few of our stated guidelines that apply here:

• People will respect you more, engage with you more often, and treat you like a real person if you use your actual identity here. Have the courage to be you — instead of "Riot Grrrl 69". While not mandatory, we think you'll have a much better online experience when you stand behind your actual words.


• We're into transparency, honesty, and truth. Don't misrepresent yourself or lie about your identity, affiliations, or age. This community is based on the contributions of real people who put their reputations on the line. Be one of them. Ask tough questions and reward the candor of others.

What I have said is consistent with these guidelines. It is misleading to use multiple identities in a community to impact a conversation, to avoid accountability, or to game the system in any way. We think this is common sense.

When enforcing our policies we will always consider context. As moderators of a loosely bound community, we are often not in position to judge content, so we depend on input from the community, and we must look at behavioral patterns to determine the best remedy. We are committed to holding people accountable for their behavior, though we realize that this may not make everybody happy (see my earlier comment about Griefers and Trolls). And we do consider it a red flag when an anonymous user develops a pattern of making unsubstantiated accusations about the motives of other people and companies.

Philosophically we're supportive of the notion of increasing the transparency of our flagging review process, and it will be something we consider as part of our product roadmap (there is some technical work involved). In the meantime, we believe that the evidence of our neutrality and commitment to civility across over two thousand companies here speaks for itself.

There is simply no systematic scrubbing of user posts to protect companies at the expense of fair-minded customer input. Every employee of a company is also a customer of other companies. So our policies are by necessity designed to work in both directions. Yes, at the expense of Griefers.

By "productive outcomes" we don't mean productive for the company alone, but for the community of involved participants around that company. As much as anything this means helping its customers work with the company. It also includes questions about whether a product is a good fit for a potential customer, comparisons to competitive products, and requests for missing features. But there's a difference between these things, and attacks designed to diminish or hamper the efforts of others engaging in good faith. The latter has a chilling effect for all involved.

We dismiss a great many requests to delete posts because we are committed to giving people an open channel [see http://getsatisfaction.com/satisfacti...], and we may consider the reputations/behavior of those who are flagging posts in determining whether to delete the item. It's interesting to note that in the six months since we've launched Get Satisfaction this is the first time we've encountered any question about censorship. And we've only sent warnings to troublesome users a handful of times.

But in the event that a user doesn't agree with our terms of use, community guidelines or the way we enforce them, I'll quote another of our guidelines:

• Those boots were made for walking. If Get Satisfaction isn't for you, there's always the door. We'll miss you, but we'd hate for you to stick around if you're unhappy.

Your posts have been flagged by a number of users, including but not limited to employees of the company. But we made the call without input from others, after warning you multiple times about what we considered to be unacceptable behavior. I'll add that some of your posts that users have flagged we have decided *not* to delete.

No other users in PBWiki have been warned or their posts deleted, and there is ample discussion about competitive products there and in other companies to assuage any concerns about that kind of censorship. Your continued and active efforts to undermine productive discourse and sow the seeds of suspicion against other members of the community are what set your words apart. We've resisted banning you up to this point because you are sometimes helpful. But we will not let people blatantly disregard our community guidelines.

This is the last warning you'll receive.

P.S. Issues regarding Valleyschwag (a separate and now retired company) should be reported here: http://getsatisfaction.com/valleyschwag