Blue Green Grey Orange Pink Purple Red Red

Updates

March 23, 2006

Visitor Harassment Policy

Posted by Senior Staff [2:15 pm] (link)

This is a update of for the General category.

Staffers have always been expected to treat visitors politely. Visitors, for their part, are expected to treat the staff politely in return. However, although visitors can contact the senior staff with concerns about staffers, including inappropriate staffer behavior, until now, there hasn’t been any formal policy regarding visitor conduct towards staffers. As such, we have implemented the following guidelines:

If a visitor is harassing or abusive towards a staffer, the senior staff will be notified. “Harassing” or “abusive” mean something beyond snippiness or annoyed, even rude, tones. Generally, this means insults, foul language, or deliberate, stubborn refusals to listen to staffer requests. It can also mean repeated negative e-mails to staffers, either over a specific matter or over a longer period of time.

The senior staff will then determine whether the visitor has gone beyond mere rudeness. If this is the case, then the senior staff will formally warn the visitor about the incident and inform her that her behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the future. She will be told that if she has future problems with a staffer to contact the senior staff directly. Finally, the e-mail will also include what will occur to her if another incident occurs. However, if anything about the situation is unclear, we will contact the visitor and staffer(s) first and inquire about the situation before sending any warnings.

If a second incident happens, the senior staff will temporarily ban the visitor from applying for new fanlistings. The ban’s length will depend on how severe the two incidents were, when they occurred, and other relevant factors. The visitor will be informed of the length of the ban. She will also be warned that if she attempts to circumvent the ban (such as by applying under aliases), the fanlistings approved during the ban will be removed from the network. Furthermore, attempts to circumvent the ban may result in the ban being extended, or, if the circumstances are severe enough, the person’s current fanlistings may be removed from the network.

Any further incidents of abuse or harassment towards staffers will result in permanent bans and/or removal of current fanlistings from the network.

Although this policy may seem harsh, we don’t anticipate it being used often. It will be applied only in extreme circumstances. The majority of TFL visitors are polite, and even those who are not always polite rarely rise to the level of “abuse” or “harassing.” One warning will likely be sufficient to correct any visitor behavior. Once visitors have already been warned of the consequences, there isn’t any excuse for further harassment/abuse. We believe that though staffers are expected to deal with visitors maturely and politely, there are limits to what staffers must tolerate – even when the customer is always right, there is a point when managers step in and firmly tell abusive customers to leave the store.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please feel free to get in touch with the senior staff either on the board or via the contact form on the main site.

NULL

Support Us

TFL relies on donations and advertising to keep running. There are several ways you can help! Make a donation and get access to the TFL donators package or visit our advertisers. We also have a banner rotation for fanlistings and fansites. Every bit helps! More information can be found on the Support page.

Did You Know?

Want to know what we do with all the forms you send in? Or what our policy is on spam? Or what your information is used for? Then our Terms of Use page is for you!