Membership Policies / Rules / Code of Conduct
1.0 INTRODUCTION: Thanks for being a Member of Scanner Group. If you were directed here by an Admin or another Member, or just happened by, we appreciate your interest. These are the policies/rules you agree to by joining any of the 20+ groups under the Scanner Group name in Southern Oregon and Northern California. The Administration reserves the right to edit, improve and add to our group’s membership policies at any time, for any reason. Hey, let’s face it, this is are over 125,000 Memberships in over 25 groups and some policies are necessary to help the drama hounds and criminal element of society not ruin our community, or our efforts. Most of this will apply to Jackson, Sis-Q, Josephine, and now Salt Lake County Scanner Groups, but the general meanings apply to all groups. Only exception is WARS! It has it’s own rules.
2.0 WHAT IS EXPECTED OF MEMBERS: Watch the feeds for incidents, updates and announcements in your area. We encourage Members to post clean information about local crime and public safety subjects or comment to contribute to any post if they have valid/confirmed information about. Abusive or vulgar language is unacceptable. If you are on the feed to be rude, slander/bash someone or mess with people, skip it and bail. Otherwise welcome to Scanner Group!
3.0 IF YOU SEE A CRIME, SUSPECT OR ACCIDENT, FIRE OR OTHER INCIDENT: CALL 911 or the Non-Emergency Line BEFORE POSTING. We cannot stress this enough!! We are NOT law enforcement. Don’t PM an admin, call Law Enforcement.
4.0 WHAT CAN & CAN’T BE POSTED? If it is a crime or public safety event and you have applied the 911 logic above to it, post it. Your post should include only facts enough details to be worthy of our Members’ time. Video and photos are welcome. No text or imagery should identify a victim, child if not missing or the parent is posting, or contain a victim or child’s address. We also do not want gory accident pictures. Accident photos should not show victim faces. CRIMES MUST HAVE A CASE NUMBER! They could get deleted if not.
Scanner Group is not used to handle civil disputes, infractions, driving complaints unless reported and reckless, or for personal digs at another party over civil issues. We don’t care about your neighbor’s yard trash, that you made a bad deal on Craigslist or how shitty your divorce is going. Usually things are being handled in civil court because an agreement between two parties allegedly has been breached or asan attempt to recover financial loss. These cases are “he said she said” and to be handled in an appropriate venue. We require case numbers to protect ourselves from claims of defamation. We cover scanner calls and police reports. We also require facts, PC (Probably Cause) to arrest and/or an immediate danger to the community. Our goal is to make life difficult on the criminal element and assist LE in their duties. Not provide a venue to bash another over civil issues and minor infractions.
5.0 WE DO NOT ALLOW UNAPPROVED ADS in the posts, comments, photos, or anywhere else on Scanner Groups or Scanner Wars! Charity posts must check first. Do that by messaging an admin. We use a ban and mediate policy to all spammers & bootleg advertisers. Our Members don’t like it and neither do we. If you are looking to advertise a legitimate business, contact us.
6.0 FRIENDLY DISCUSSION IS ENCOURAGED, because it helps our community stay close. We welcome you to comment on the posts. Matter of fact our Members love it if someone in the know about a certain post fills them in. You may also discuss opinions about calls in the comments section of a post, within reason. Any unhelpful, unnecessary or abusive comments are subject to deletion by our admin group.
5.0 INFO ON VICTIM & MINORS Hey, we love the freedom of speech and press principles this Group was founded on. Our Members have shown their compassion for victims through their actions, support, consideration, hopes and prayers. Our Admins have vigilantly attempted to protect identities of the most fragile members of our community and continue to learn along the way. We have made the decision that it is only appropriate to post the street name on certain calls that we consider the most sensitive. Victims & minors are our main concern in all situations. Photos and information about minors is not appropriate in any of our groups including WARS!, unless it is a missing child post or approved by the administration.
6.0 INSIDER INFORMATION We appreciate insider information. Please consider your best judgement and the wishes of Law Enforcement (LE) in your comments. If you know something helpful or an update on a call, we’d love to hear it. Over sharing and comments we deem inappropriate will be quietly removed without discussion by any Admin. Repeat offenses can and will lead to banning the member. People supporting a suspect or known criminal are not allowed to comment with attacks on our members who are annoyed by their crime. Remember, our purpose is not to support criminal activity – it is to report it and provide awareness, safety and support to our members and community.
8.0 FOLLOWING POSTS & MANAGING NOTIFICATIONS: Members have been known to put a period (.) as a comment to follow posts. Please DO NOT do this. We encourage you to follow a post if you’d like, however periods or dots (.) create a cluttered thread that makes it difficult to read, follow or update. We suggest you turn on notifications for the posts you want to follow. That is found in a collapsible menu accessible from a small down-arrow in the top right corner of the post on computers, tablets and smart phones. If that doesn’t make sense or you don’t see it, try reading Facebook’s short notification instructions at this link. We respectfully request that Members learn how to manage notifications for that purpose and turn notifications off for posts they commented on but no longer want updates for.
9.0 MINORS AS MEMBERS: Scanner Group generally defaults to Facebook Rules on age. This allows anyone 13 years or older to participate in the online community we are part of. Though we don’t consider Scanner Group or WARS! Group, or even Facebook, to be appropriate for every teenager, we have no way of checking age or maturity. Thus, we observe parental rights when considering a minor’s eligibility for Membership. If a minor should not be in that space, we expect that their parent(s) have taken appropriate action to manage or enforce their own rules. If we are contacted by a parent, asking us to remove a minor from the group, we likely will with proof of guardianship, so we know you aren’t just someone picking on a kid. We defend kids, and some of us have even been or are teen mentors. As long as your kid is mature about their interactions in Scanner Group and WARS!, they will be welcome. We assume they have your permission.
10.0 DONATION REQUESTS, GOFUNDME, KICKSTARTER, PAYPAL, ANY OTHER REQUESTS FOR MONEY OR SOLICITATION OF ANY KIND ARE NOT ALLOWED: After thoroughly researching and validating a cause, we have allowed some to be posted and we reserve the right to do so going forward. Do not ask. When we do allow something of this nature, it would be in support of a victim, related to our charity campaigns or related to our community safety and awareness campaigns. It will be closely managed and monitored. Why not? It is very hard to vet these requests. For example, GoFundMe has no real vetting process. Anyone can open a GoFundMe account for any reason! Most of the GoFundMe accounts we have seen and researched were not created by the person in need. They were created by friends, family, or someone completely unknown to the needy party, making the account unwarranted. We don’t want to expose our members to potential scams, nor can we guarantee the money raised by online donation efforts will be spent in the way intended.
11. RESPECT FOR FIRST RESPONDERS INCLUDING LAW ENFORCEMENT: We don’t allow open negativity and disrespect of our Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders. Are Admins associated with Law Enforcement? We have absolutely no association with any government agency. We re-publish publicly transmitted and content like local news stories.
12. WHAT IF I DON’T LIKE A POST OR HOW IT OPERATES? Well now, that is a bummer, but it is a private, closed group. It is optional, and you can unjoin the same way you joined (upper right corner), but it is also optional for us to entertain you as Admins. How can I make you remove a post or website information that I don’t like? You can’t. Unless previously posted information is proven to be false, there is no legal or moral burden for us to remove public information. We are community volunteers posting information, data and content that has been released to the public or supplied by the public. Removal requests can be sent via Private Message to an administrator, or to media@jacksoncountyscanner.com. There may or may not be a response.
13. REPERCUSSIONS FOR BEING AN ASS: If you break these policies or are unruly to the Members or Admins, you may be muted for 24 hrs. to 7 days. You will not be able to post or comment. If it is worse than that or you are a repeat offender with an arrest less than a year ago, you may be blocked from seeing the group entirely.
14. STEWARDSHIP & MANAGEMENT OF THE FEEDS: 12+ Experienced Administrators and Moderators make decisions about closing posts when they are stale or off course. They make decisions as a group and also regarding deleting duplicates, bad comments and other situations. Follow the lead of Admins and experienced Members when there question as to how SG works. The rules and management of the feed are not up for consensus or manipulation. To make it enjoyable for all, we occasionally detrend posts. Keeps it fresh like a spring breeze.
15. INVITING OR ADDING FRIENDS: Yes, you can use the Add Friend feature at the top or send them the link to join. Yes they can be from outside the area, but we prefer they have a reason or interest in the area, like went to school there, friend or family live in the area.
16. WHAT ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH: It isn’t a government or public space. Read the 1st Amendment for more information. But we do care that there is crap you want to say that isn’t ready for prime time. To that end, we have created WARS! Group. Debate, rant, argue, etc. by clicking and joining Thousands of people that play the edge.
17. ELECTIONS & POSTING: During elections we allow posts in support of candidates for these categories, as they are partially responsible for government action in the crime & public safety arena:
- County Commissioners
- District Attorney
- Judges
- Sheriff
ONE POST will be operational at a time, per candidate. Whoever posts first gets it and it will stay for 24-72 hours unless the candidate themselves want to post. The Members and Admins can participate freely in posts and comments. Volunteering in groups does not remove their right to their opinion in this realm. The Admins will manage it fairly. If one candidate participates more than the other, that is on the candidates and their supporters. Moderating and closing posts will be at the able hands of the Admin team. All regular rules apply and we would like those posts to remain about issues rather than personal attacks. Ballot measure posts are not allowed unless the decisions have the potential to affect crime & public safety.
ELECTION DAY (Nov 6th each year) will be a day of rest for candidates and constituents on Scanner Groups (JaCo, JoCo, SisQ, Salt Lake). No political posts will be allowed on that day. In addition, each candidate, win or lose, will be able to make one polite, wrap-up post if they choose to thank the voters, Members and their supporters in that way, withing 48 hrs. after election day.
