Discussion club rules

What discussion clubs are

Discussion clubs are closed spaces for debate built around a topic or a specialisation. They host discussion threads, a meeting calendar, working documents and a member directory.

A club is not a public forum. Content created in a club is available only to its members and to people with management rights - it is not indexed by search engines and does not appear in the public feeds of the service.

Participation creates no employment or service relationship and no membership in a body of the foundation. It confers no right to represent the foundation or to speak on its behalf.

Admission to a club

• Admission follows an application, an invitation or an existing membership plan - depending on the rules of the particular club, described on its page.
• An application contains the details needed to assess fit: professional background, affiliation and motivation. We process that data solely to consider the application and to run the membership.
• The admission decision is discretionary and needs no justification. A refusal does not bar a further application later.
• A personal invitation is single-use and expires. Passing it to someone else does not give them access.
• Participation is conditional on accepting these rules and the confidentiality rules of the particular club.

The Chatham House Rule

Meetings and threads may be held under the Chatham House Rule. It means: participants are free to use the information received, but the identity and affiliation of the speaker or of any other participant MAY NOT be revealed.

The Rule applies where it has been expressly announced for a meeting, a thread or part of one. The marking is visible on the surface concerned - if it is absent, the Rule does not apply.

• You may quote the substance of a contribution and use it in your own work - without saying who made it.
• You may not publish recordings, screenshots or transcripts that would identify a speaker.
• You may not disclose the attendee list of a meeting or the membership of a club to people outside it.
• The Rule applies indefinitely - including after your membership ends.
• A LIMIT WE DO NOT ROUND OFF: the Chatham House Rule binds participants on a contractual basis. It is not a legally protected secret and it relieves nobody of obligations under the law - in particular the duty to report a criminal offence or to comply with an order of a court or competent authority.

Anonymous contributions - what that really means

Some clubs allow you to speak anonymously. The anonymity is towards OTHER PARTICIPANTS: they cannot see who wrote a contribution.

The system knows the author. The link is stored, because without it we could not respond to abuse or comply with a legal obligation. We say so plainly, so that nobody builds their safety on an assumption we do not meet.

• Revealing an author is possible only in moderation and requires a written reason; the system rejects a request without one.
• Every disclosure is recorded in the moderation log together with the reason and the person who made it.
• We use disclosure in serious matters: threats, harassment, unlawful content, organised abuse.
• An author whose identity has been revealed is informed - unless a legal provision or the terms of an authority's order prohibit it.

Rules of participation

• Argue with the argument, not the person. Sharp substantive disagreement is valuable; a personal attack is not.
• Do not bring into a club information you have no right to disclose - trade secrets, classified information, data covered by professional secrecy.
• Do not use a club for solicitation. A commercial offer requires the club board's consent and unambiguous labelling.
• Do not post content that may not be posted anywhere in the service - the catalogue and the moderation procedure are in a separate document (/moderacja-komentarzy).
• An account is personal. Do not share club access with third parties, including within your own organisation.
• Club materials - working documents, studies, recordings - are for your own work. Further distribution requires the consent of the author and of the club board.

Moderation inside a club

• A club has its own moderation. The club board may approve, hide and delete threads and replies, and may exclude members.
• Approval and hiding are reversible - deletion is not. Irreversible operations require an additional confirmation.
• Moderation operations go into a log visible to the club board, together with the target and the time of the operation.
• A moderation decision can be appealed on the terms set out in the content moderation document - including where the decision was taken by a club board rather than the editorial team.

Suspension and exclusion

• We use exclusion for breaches of confidentiality, repeated breaches of the rules of participation or conduct that endangers the safety of other participants.
• We treat a breach of the Chatham House Rule as an aggravated breach: it may lead to exclusion after the first instance.
• Before excluding someone we state the allegation and give them an opportunity to respond - unless delay would risk further harm.
• An exclusion may be appealed to office@neweuropeanstrategies.com within 30 days. The appeal is handled by a person outside the board of the club concerned.
• If club access came from a paid plan and the exclusion happened without a breach on your side, we refund a proportionate part of the fee. No refund is due where exclusion follows a breach of the rules.
• You may resign your membership at any time. Your existing contributions remain in the club unless you ask for them to be removed.

Data and confidentiality on the system side

• Club content is available only to club members and people with management rights. The restriction is enforced at the database level, not only in the interface.
• The member directory is visible only to members of that club. You control the visibility of your own profile in the directory in privacy settings.
• Meetings are recorded only where this is announced before they start. A participant may ask for their contribution not to be recorded.
• We keep membership application data for the duration of the membership and the limitation period for claims; rejected applications are deleted after 12 months.
• The full description of data processing is in the privacy notice (/polityka-prywatnosci) and the data processing policy (/polityka-przetwarzania-danych).

Contact

Membership matters, reports of confidentiality breaches and appeals: office@neweuropeanstrategies.com. We treat a report of a Chatham House Rule breach as a priority - the sooner we know, the better the chance of limiting the harm.