Be respectful

Online respect may require more, and different effort.  Emotion, especially criticism,  feels differently in person than in text.  Double-check your words to make sure they convey what you mean.  Without in-person cues like facial expression and tone, our words are not always clear to others. 

• Carefully choose words. Review your comment for tone before hitting the submit button
• Text tools for kindness:
  • Including emoticons where appropriate.  
  • Avoiding ALL CAPS. That is heard as shouting.
  • Paradoxically, consider your comment with the filter, “Would I say this in a group if we were face-to-face?” Research shows people are often on their best behavior then.
• Be particularly careful with humor, and sarcasm. Go out of your way to review any comments you write that might be heard differently than how you intended them .  Take the time to rephrase.   
• We are committed to active facilitation. We lean hard into the value of kindness with proactive moderation.  If a comment’s overall effect seems less than kind, the moderator will likely not approve it.  We would rather omit a comment than contribute a less-than-respectful tone to the conversation.  
• Respect privacy; if for some reason you want to share forum comments outside the forum, please ask the original poster’s permission.
• Don’t spam. We have a specific process for people who want to provide service to the community.  Please inquire about how to do this at contact@findyourfrenchtown.com
• Respect the moderators. Any question you have regarding moderation  should be directly towards them privately at contact@findyourfrenchtown.com

Participate and encourage others to participate;

• Don’t just be a lurker. Our community is what we all make it. 
• Listening is important, and not easily perceived, in an online setting. Expressing appreciation is helpful.

Keep our common goals central:  We’re here to form a community that helps people explore their interest in moving to France. 

• Community
• Getting to France.
• Thriving in France.

If your contribution doesn’t help any of those three, then this is probably not the right place for it.  So…..all those topics that often cause problems (politics, religion, personal comments — double-check that what you say is serving our shared goal.

We are about information and community.

• We welcome tips from other sources. Please cite your sources to the fullest degree you can so others can evaluate them for reliability in their decision process