Community Guidelines

Overview

SourcingExchange is a learning community for the growing number of independent or individually operating sourcing professionals to create a decisive force in the overall maturity of the market place. Our mission is to provide our members an environment that normally only is available to sourcing professionals working at large procurement or vendor management departments, large sourcing advisory firms and service providers. The SourcingExchange will provide the sourcing professional with a like-minded community, a valuable network, easy accessible knowledge key to his/her day to day job, access to the market information, professional development opportunities and state of the art tools, that will enhance his efficiency, effectiveness and ability to innovate and thus succeed in sourcing. 

All members should conduct themselves with a high degree of integrity and respect. Your use of the SourcingExchange website is subject to these Community Guidelines. We reserve the right to modify these guidelines at any time.

Tips & Guidelines for Asking & Answering Questions in the Answers Section

The Answers feature is a powerful way for members to get valuable business advice from sourcing experts while also allowing sourcing experts to showcase their expertise by providing helpful Answers. Here are some tips to asking great questions and providing valuable Answers:

Provide sufficient detail. When asking a question, provide an appropriate level of detail to help people better answer your question. When answering a question, provide a thorough response. This is a great opportunity to exhibit your knowledge. When answering a question, do not merely refer or provide a link to your website or publications. This is perceived as self-promotion. Providing references or links as supporting information to a thorough response can be useful.

Select a tag. Get more quality Answers by selecting an appropriate tag for your question. We will email your question to relevant experts based on the tags you select.

Vote. Say thank you, by voting up helpful Answers and help maintain high quality content by voting down Answers that are not useful.

Do NOT self promote. The purpose of our Answers feature is to help our members obtain quality sourcing advice and for sourcing experts to showcase their expertise to potential clients. Purely self-promotional questions or Answers will be deleted and multiple infractions may result in account deactivation. 

Be Professional. The purpose of the Sourcing Exchange is a professional community. Knowledge sharing is at the core of this. In responding to questions or commenting, remain objective and behave professional. Refrain from using inappropriate language, flaming or opinionated responses. Specifically objective and professional behavior is required when discussing organizations and/or Service Providers. Gossiping or bad-mouthing is strictly forbidden and may result in a temporary ban on the Answer feature and repeat offenses may result in the deactivation of your account.

Tips & Guidelines for Messaging

General Etiquette: SourcingExchange messaging exists to help our members engage with each other to share, collaborate and transact business. Remember to be courteous, introduce yourself fully and be respectful of the recipient's interests and time.

Self-Promotion & Spamming is Strictly Prohibited: Using the message system to self-promote or "spam" members about your business, services, products or non-business related matters is prohibited. Any message flagged as self-promotional or spam may result in a temporary ban on your messaging abilities and repeat offenses may result in the deactivation of your account.

Inappropriate Language/Behavior is Strictly Prohibited: Any obscene language or content that is offensive to other community members, including certain topics around race, religion, gender or political affiliation is prohibited. Any message flagged as inappropriate may result in a temporary ban on your messaging abilities and repeat offenses may result in the deactivation of your account.

Messaging Experts: Unless you are mutual followers, you should only message experts if you are inquiring about services or expertise that they offer. Using this messaging feature to promote your own services or for any other purpose is strictly prohibited. Any message flagged as self-promotion or spam may result in a temporary ban on your messaging abilities and repeat offenses may result in the deactivation of your account.

Automated Messaging: Any attempt at automated messaging, including promotional content or spamming, will result in an immediate suspension of your account. If automated messages continue, your account will be deactivated.

Flagging a Message: If you receive a message that does not meet the SourcingExchange Messaging Guidelines simply click the "flag as inappropriate or self-promotional" in the message. The SourcingExchange team will review the message and take appropriate action, which may entail a warning to the sender, a suspension of that member's messaging abilities or the deactivation of that member's account. Thank you for helping to foster a high quality community.

Tips & Guidelines for Posting Knowledge Items

Knowledge items you post appear in both our Knowledge base (if approved by our team) and your profile. Knowledge items provide a great way to showcase your expertise and attract more business.

Choose a good topic. If you are searching for topics, browsing questions in our Answers feature is a great place to draw ideas for popular topics.

Choose a catchy title. You want people to click through to your knowledge item so choose an enticing, yet relevant title.

Break it down. Online readers often have limited time. Use smaller paragraphs, subheadings and bullets to keep your audience's attention.

Tag. Help your knowledge item show up in relevant search results by adding tags.

Vote. Help keep content of high quality by voting up/down knowledge items.

Comment. Add comments if you like a knowledge item, disagree or have something relevant to share.

Do NOT self promote. The purpose of our Knowledge items feature is for experts to be able to share their expertise with our community. Posting quality knowledge items is a great way to show potential clients your knowledge. Purely self-promotional knowledge items will be deleted and multiple infractions may result in account deactivation. When posting a knowledge item, do not merely refer or provide a link to your website or publications. This is perceived as self-promotion. Providing references or links as supporting information to a detailed knowledge item can be useful.