American Association of Cannabis and Hemp Value Chains^™

Site Guidelines

Welcome to Cannabis Connect^™

We’re mobilizing to achieve value chain gold!

Before anything else, please familiarize yourself with our site guidelines. Rules are few, but their observance helps this community stand out as a friendly place for all members to conduct real Cannabis+Hemp (C+H) value chain business.

By registering on this site, you agree to having read and understood all the policies and terms used herein. Contact us if you need help or clarification.

You also agree that you have never been a registered member at any time previously. Multiple accounts will result in instant banning.

These guidelines may change. Please refer to them any time you are in doubt.

Our Standards Body: We are organized as a leading-edge global standards body under the name the American Association of Cannabis and Hemp Value Chains^™ (IACHVC^™) which includes Cultivators, Processors, Sellers (CPS) and many other types of supporting organizations and trading partners. We are referred to by these monikers:

• C+H^™ (Our logo stands for Cannabis + Hemp)
• IACH Value Chains^™ (The International Association of Cannabis+Hemp Value Chains)
• CHchains.org (Our primary domain name.)
• CHchains.com (Our secondary domain name.)
• Cannabis Connect^™ Our Professionals’ Networked Community(PNC) platform
• Cannabis Connect Value Chains^™
• C+H Supply Chain^™
• Others

We assist countries in launching their own C+H Value Chain organizations such as these:

• Canadian Association of Cannabis and Hemp Value Chains^™
• International Association of Cannabis and Hemp Value Chains^™
• Many others now being organized

Age: Cannabis Connect^™ is a site intended for an adult audience which, for the purpose of these guidelines, are people who are 18 years of age, or greater. We reserve the right to ban anyone who does not meet that requirement. Posting that you are not an adult is a quick way to get yourself banned. If you choose to ignore these guidelines and sign up anyway, it is not our responsibility if you are offended by what you read or see. Similarly, if you are an adult who is offended by what is often labeled as adult content, you should probably avoid this site, too.

Remember: Cannabis Connect^™ is a site that is focused on enabling Cannabis and Hemp value chain organizations to build connections with other value chain businesses in order to improve customer experience and service quality, improve product quality and lifecycle management capabilities, decrease costs and cycle times, and much more.

A major part of the work activities that are carried out on Cannabis Connect is to put value chain deals together. This includes communication, control, coordination and collaboration which leads to deal identification, vetting / due diligence and, ultimately, merger and acquisition activities.

Deal-making and deal brokering is a big part of the activities carried out on our Professionals’ Networked Community (PNC) platform. Because of this we ask that you keep these proprietary conversations confined to a private community forum. We can help you start a private club as soon as you need it to accelerate your deal-making activities.

For instance, let’s say that you may want to start a Cannabis or Hemp Farmers’ Coop for your local state, province or region. You can set up a private club for this purpose and brand it with your own group name. We will work with you on these needs.

Thus, the bottom line is that we want most topics here to be related to Cannabis and Hemp (i.e. C+H) value chain topics. If you find that you are posting mostly on non-C+H Value Chain topics, then maybe you have picked the wrong site for your Professionals’ Networked Community (PNC) activities.

Posting, spam and off topic topics: Off topic posts can be great fun between friends, but they do run the risk of making a topic unreadable to other members. We ask you to try to stick to the thread topic. In most cases we are happy to leave this to your judgment, but we will step in if we feel you have gone too far. Posting in "old" topics is generally frowned on, but it's a complicated topic. Read here for more details on this.

Other Standards Bodies: We support many standards bodies across our industry in many different ways. We have a policy of not attacking or offending other groups or organizations no matter whether we have strategic partnerships or professional relationships with them, or not.

Community-of-Practice, Communities-of-Interest, Centers-of-Excellence and Club Ideas: If you have a great idea for one of these open membership or private groups, please let us know:

• Community-of-Practice (CoP)
• Community-of-Interest (CoI)
• Center-of-Excellence (CoE)
• Industry Cluster
• Executive Think Tank
• Special Interest Group (SIG)
• Group or Club 
• Other sub-organization

Once you let us know your idea, we will first determine if there are any existing groups like the one you propose, or similar groups that might be in a formative stage. For most of these we charge 25% of the membership fees that you levy.

Member Hijacking and Off-Site Content: We have a strict policy of not allowing our Members to post their Blog Posts or links to content that is hosted off-site, if we sense that this is being done to drive our Members to your sites. This has been a huge long-standing issue with many social media sites like LinkedIn.

Promotion, Self-Promotion, Selling and Billboarding: New members are not allowed to sell/trade on this site, but we do allow long term members to do so in a new section of our site that we are considering; i.e. the Buy / Sell / Trade / Finds forum. Be sure to read the rules to this forum before posting there. We occasionally allow exclusions to this rule but you need to contact our management or staff first.

Please don't use Cannabis Connect^™ as a billboard. You may certainly post links to your site in your signature, but don't join just to advertise your site. This includes reviews / press releases / contests / marketing collateral and similar content posted on off-site forums and websites.
 

Personal Message System: We NEVER allow our Cannabis Connect^™ personal message system to be used to either spam or contact members to make sales offers. If you engage in this practice, you will be subject to an immediate ban. The only time the personal message system should be used is when both parties have previously agreed to that form of communication.

Deal-Making and Deal Brokering: We take no responsibility for any transaction that takes place as a result of contact made on this site. If you have a problem with a transaction, you should discuss it with the other party, not us. Quite simply, know who you are dealing with and act accordingly. If the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR VETTING ANY VALUE CHAIN DEALS THAT YOU ENTER INTO!

Images: Don't post images that are over 1,024 x 768 (or 768 x 1,024 for pictures with a portrait orientation) or are confidential. Images rarely need to be over 800 x 600, and any that are over 1MB (including GIFs) are not allowed unless there is admin approval. BMPs are never allowed. Avatar images should be 100 x 100 (and under 20k) and may not be more than 400 x 400 (and 100k, even if hosted remotely). No animated GIFs are to be used as avatars. Before registering, please familiarize yourself with these tutorials to learn how to reduce your own images. Also, when quoting, don't quote images unless it is specifically needed. This just fills up posts with repeat images for no reason.

Signatures: As a general rule, you may use up to four pictures each with a maximum pixel height of 200, a file size of 250k and no more than 200 words. If your sig is bigger than your average post, it can confuse someone reading a thread and you may be asked to reduce it, or a staff member may do it for you. Some exceptions may be made on a case by case basis, but please try to limit the space you use. Font size should be kept to a minimum: ideally no bigger than size 3. No animated GIFs are to be used in your signatures.

Manners and Serious Topics: Don't be offensive to other members. We like Cannabis Connect^™ to be a friendly place to discuss industry and value chain topics and we do NOT allow posts that are intended to offend or attack. For the same reason, topics (or avatars and other expressions) about religion or politics are not welcome on Cannabis Connect^™.

English Skills and Clarity: Try to be clear and precise when posting and use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. We do tolerate bad English, nor tolerate laziness, as we are a site that welcomes users from all around the world. No Leetspeak (aka l33t sp34k or "texting language"). We don't criticize international users who are non-native English speakers, but who are merely trying to post in English. You probably couldn't do as well in their language. Bear this in mind.

Privacy/Personal Information: This is the internet, the things you post will be picked up by search engines and could potentially live on forever. Keep that in mind when you post. If you don't want something you say to be associated with you later, don't say it. We usually do not delete user accounts or posts, so create them responsibly.

Management and Staff: The management and staff are here to help you. Do not debate staff issues with them. Feel free to make suggestions as we are happy to hear them, but if you are told that something is against policy, the discussion is over. Similarly, if you're not staff don't act like you are. Telling new members site rules from time to time is one thing, but don't make a habit of being a mini-modder. Use the "Report" button instead.

- The Cannabis Connect^™ Management and Staff -