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Care2.com: Establish open dialogue between management and members
Concerned C.
started this petition to
Randy Paynter, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer - Care2.com
As a community comprised of members actively using the tools provided by this site to accomplish needed improvements to various aspects of all life (animal, human, environmental), we, the undersigned, are hereby petitioning Care2 itself to strongly consider the following grievances and suggestions for improvement and mutual understanding.
Excerpt from The Care2 Story, authored by Randy Paynter (http://www.care2.com/aboutus/):
"Care2 provides powerful tools to make a difference in your life, your community, and the world. Our website is driven by passionate people (like you) who want to restore the world's balance. We pride ourselves on being a different kind of company. As a certified B Corporation (B Corp), we're committed to using the power of business to make a positive social and earth-friendly impact on the world. "
While these tools are available to us at no charge (as is customary for most social sites), we also are aware that, due to our efforts in The PetitionSite, Care2 News Network, Click To Donate, member groups, etc., we are the driving force behind encouraging new members (which, in turn, makes Care2 an attractive choice for advertisers) and promoting recognition of Care2 as a positive environment for ourselves and others to freely express their concerns and activate change.
Censorship
Increasingly, news stories, petitions, comments -- and even certain member-started groups (one with over 2,000 members) -- are being deleted. This is done with no explanation or prior notice nor proof of violation of Terms of Service (TOS) or Code of Conduct (COC), the provisions of which each member agrees to respect and follow in order to participate in the site. Unfortunately, it has become apparent that the language of those documents is so vague and one-sided that interpretation of those rules is at the complete and final discretion of management and their representatives, and appears to be applied to targetted members subjectively.
We are in NO way asking that any member's circumstances should be divulged to the general population, as that would be indiscreet. We are, however, requesting that those documents also contain specific examples and protocol for members to present grievances.
Suspensions
Much the same as censorship, members have been suspended, and the majority of them were given no concrete explanation. As actively contributing members, devoting hours of our days building relationships with other members, opening groups, signing petitions (and encouraging others to do the same, both inside and outside the site), it is necessary that we feel we have the right to expect that, so long as our behavior is within TOS and COC, we can be secure in our expectation of continued use of those tools.
In fact, there is not even in place a standardized notification to members giving them the length of a suspension. (In some cases, it is a matter of a few days. For others, it could be months.)
Members who are subjected to suspension are given no proof of wrongdoing, citing the specific clause of TOS or COC violated, nor are they given the length of duration. [Suspending a member and giving them, as the reason, that they violated COC or TOS, without citing the actual condition broken, is similar to being pulled over by a traffic cop, who issues you a ticket stating that the infraction was "broke the law."]
We write to you in the hopes that you will fairly consider our concerns and the need for these changes. While we are aware that termination of membership can be "at will," we implore you to understand that the overall trust and morale of the body of members can suffer seriously if their reasonable expectation of continued usage is not respected or appreciated and the use of disciplinary action is not applied judiciously.
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