Community Rules & Etiquette and Privacy Guidelines

Thank you for being part of our community. To ensure the best possible experience for all members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.

Synapse Member Communities Rules and Etiquette Guidelines

By joining and using any online, member community of the American Academy of Neurology or its affiliates (“Academy”), you must follow the AAN member community Rules and Etiquette Guidelines and reserve discussions for topics best suited to the medium. Member communities are intended for distributing relevant, topic-related information that the members as a group might benefit from sharing. The Academy reserves the right to modify these member community Rules and Etiquette Guidelines at any time without notice and to suspend or terminate access to any Academy member community for users who violate these rules and guidelines.

Online Community Rules:

• Courtesy:
• Do not attack others. The discussions on the member community are meant to stimulate conversation, not to create contention. Let others have their say, just as you may.
• Do not post the same or similar messages in multiple Synapse communities. This protects the user experience of members who belong to multiple communities. Please choose only the communities that are most relevant to the subject matter. Please contact sections@aan.com with requests to consider posting a message to many or all communities.

• • Commercial Messages: No commercial messages are permitted, including job postings and links to promote and/or purchase products or services. Contact individual members directly with products and services that you believe would help them. Contact the AAN’s Neurology Career Center about submitting a job posting.
    • Exceptions include federal government agency- affiliated postings (NIH, NINDS, CDC, VA). As an AAN resource, community members may post information on Synapse that is pertinent to the AAN and/or federal government agencies. 
  • Surveys: Do not post surveys to Synapse communities that have not been reviewed and approved by the AAN Member Insights Team for dissemination to specific audiences. This does not include brief member polls.
  • Sweepstakes/Drawings/Contests: Non-AAN-generated sweepstakes/drawings/contests are not permitted on Synapse.
  • Privacy Laws: Comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and applicable state and federal privacy laws.
  • Use caution: Do not post anything in an online community that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you. Do not post any material that is defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, illegal, or violates any third party’s rights.

• Antitrust: The Academy complies with all antitrust laws and reminds all users to guard against activity that could be construed as a violation of the antitrust laws.

• • Do not post any material that:
    • References specific fees charged or paid for professional services
    • Discusses prices, discounts, terms or conditions of sale regarding medical suppliers or other vendors or terms and conditions of provider agreements relating to reimbursement levels, bonus payments, and other price or cost-related items
    • Addresses salaries or terms of employment
    • Attempts to allocate patient markets or encourage collective or coercive activity regarding third party payers, hospitals, other health care providers, or suppliers
    • Includes information that could otherwise be construed to impose a restraint on trade and inhibit free and fair competition
    • Encourages or helps 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
    • Encourages or facilitates an agreement about 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
• Copyright: 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 the material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants the Academy and users of the online community the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and otherwise use the posted information or material.

The Academy does not actively monitor the lists for inappropriate postings and does not undertake editorial control of postings. However, if any inappropriate posting is brought to the Academy's attention, the Academy will take appropriate action. The Academy reserves the right to immediately terminate access to any user who does not abide by these rules and guidelines.

The Academy accepts no responsibility for the opinions and information posted on any Academy online communities, except if posted by an Academy employee within the scope of their employment. The Academy disclaims all warranties regarding information posted on any Academy online community, whether posted by the Academy or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event will the Academy 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 any Academy online community.

Online Community Etiquette Guidelines:

• Only send a message to the entire member community when it contains information that everyone can benefit from.
• Include a signature block on all messages. Include your name, affiliation, location, and e-mail address.
• State concisely and clearly the specific topic of the comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for administrators to search the archives by subject.
• Include only the relevant portions of the original message in your reply, delete any header information, and put your response before the original posting.
• Do not send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals to the entire list. Do this by using your e-mail application's forwarding option and typing in or cutting and pasting in the e-mail address of the individual to whom you want to respond.
• Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” to the member community.

Privacy Policy

We respect your privacy

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.

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 newsfeeds.

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 by emailing sections@aan.com. 

Meeting Security

Individual Synapse participants as hosts are responsible for ensuring the security of any meetings arranged through invitations made on Synapse.

For example, any Zoom meetings should be held with the use of in-meeting security options and the host or any co-host should be fully familiar with those options. The Security icon in the Zoom meeting controls allows the host or co-host of a meeting to enable or disable options during a meeting to secure the meeting and minimize disruption during the meeting. Available security options can enable the waiting room, remove participants, control screen sharing and lock meeting features.

Any security breach should be reported as necessary to the meeting platform security team, and to law enforcement if criminal activity is involved. The incident should also be reported to AAN; however, AAN is not responsible for the consequences of any security breach that occurs in a meeting hosted by an individual Synapse participant or participants.