AAS Community Forum Guidelines and Best Practices
Welcome to the AAS Community Forum!
All of us at the AAS Secretariat are excited that we are able to offer this new benefit to our members. Whenever we ask people why they think AAS membership is important, some of the most frequent replies are “networking” or “the opportunity to meet other Asian Studies scholars.” For decades, those connections have been created and nurtured face-to-face at our Annual Conferences, AAS-in-Asia conferences, and affiliated regional conferences. More recently, the Asian Studies community has forged ties online, through social media, AAS Digital Dialogues, and our 2021 Virtual Annual Conference. The AAS Community Forum provides another important space for our members to connect, engage, and collaborate.
To ensure that everyone visiting the Community Forum enjoy a supportive and welcoming environment, we ask that you observe the following guidelines and best practices:
- Treat all forum users with respect and in a professional manner.
- Keep conversations civil; when engaging in debate with others, provide evidence for your argument.
- Stay mindful of the discussion topic and only comment publicly when you have a substantive addition to make. If you would simply like to show support for the original post (“I agree!”), use the “reply privately” function and respond directly to the post’s author.
- Please keep your comments as brief as possible (under 500 words).
- If a discussion is veering away from the original topic, please begin a new discussion thread—this helps us keep discussions focused and easily located.
- We will not permit pejorative or defamatory posts in the Community Forum. Violators of this rule will have their Forum accounts suspended. AAS Secretariat staff members have the right to review and moderate Community Forum posts.
- Please refrain from political polemics.
- You may not post employment advertisements in the Community Forum. All prospective employers wishing to advertise jobs should do so in the AAS Career Center.
- We encourage anyone wishing to share a conference announcement or Call for Proposals to submit it to the event calendar on the AAS website. This will help your event find the widest audience possible.
Thank you for your participation in the AAS Community Forum. We hope you will find it a valuable benefit of your AAS membership and look forward to many productive discussions.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please contact me at mcunningham@asianstudies.org.
Thank you for your support of Asian Studies!
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
AAS Community Forum Manager