These are the official user posting guidelines (“Site Guidelines”) for www.RateMyDepartment.com website, application or other interactive service (“Site”). The Site is owned, operated and/or provided by Rate My Chief LLC (“Rate My Department,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) and these Site Guidelines are a part of, and an Additional Terms under, our terms and conditions Agreement.

Rate My Department is the largest online destination for firefighters and police officers to research and rate chiefs and departments across the United States. Our mission is to provide a safe forum to share personal experiences to help fellow first responders make critical career choices.

The Rate My Department website (www.RateMyDepartment.com) provides user generated feedback on chiefs’ leadership methods as well as user generated feedback on the lifestyle and facilities of college and university campuses.

Ratings should only be posted by users who have worked for the Chief or who are currently working with the Chief. Users are limited to posting one (1) review per Chief. Department ratings should only be posted by employees who have worked or are currently working at the department being rated.

Rate My Department is NOT the place to report dangerous, illegal or illicit behaviors. If you believe that you, another coworker, or a citizen is in danger, we strongly advise you to report such incidences directly to the authorities.

Rate My Department has a team of moderators who read every rating submitted. We have defined site guidelines to help reinforce our mission and most importantly to ensure our decisions around moderation are 100% consistent, regardless of the employee or chief. Our moderators are experts on our guidelines and will remove any comment that doesn’t comply.

Did we miss something? If you feel an inappropriate comment should be removed from the site, we want to know. You can flag a comment for re-review and it will immediately be escalated to our moderators. Moderators will determine whether to remove the rating permanently or restore it to the website. Our moderators will never edit a rating to make it comply or remove a rating simply because it is a low score or negative review.

Employee Guidelines:

• Be honest in your reviews. You want to be able to trust these reviews when evaluating your department options so we ask that to contribute in the same spirit.
• When you are reviewing a department and/or chief, it’s often helpful to provide both pros and cons. This leads to much more credible and constructive feedback for your peers.
• Reviews should focus specifically on your experience. Do not comment on a Chief’s appearance, dress, age, gender or race.
• Avoid hearsay. We want you to share your individual experience and what you take away from your job. Don’t speak on behalf of another, encourage others to submit their own reviews.
• This is not a forum for debate. Reviews that specifically reference another review will be removed. If you do not agree with someone’s individual experience, we encourage you to share your own.
• We understand that not all Chiefs are the perfect match for each individual person. Tell us how the Department or Chief wasn’t the best for you in a way that helps others make their own decision.
• Reviews fueled by anger do not reflect well on the author and can be removed for violations such as profanity. Take a minute to step back and make sure your review will genuinely help others understand your experience.
• Rate My Department reserves the right to remove ratings that do not contain substantive comments.
• We only allow one employee to review a Chief one time. Spamming or dogpiling an account will lead to comment removal and the account being temporarily locked on the site.
• When reading your fellow employees’ reviews, we encourage you to use your discretion and weigh every review amongst the others. Online reviews should be one of the many resources used when making a decision that affects your future.

Chief Guidelines:

• This is an anonymous website where fire & police employees can share their work experiences. We are unable to provide any data or personal information about the submitter of a review.
• We are unable to remove a comment simply because it is negative. It will only be removed if it doesn’t comply with our site guidelines.
• Rate My Department’ moderation team is unable to prove or disprove details mentioned in a review. We are not arbiters of facts. If you disagree with the details mentioned in a review, please contact us via the contact form on the website.
• If you believe that your profile is being spammed or dogpiled, please tell us. You can contact us via the form on the site. We’re here to help and will happily review the comments in question.
• While it is against our guidelines for a Chief to rate themselves, we recommend for Chiefs to encourage their employees to leave reviews for them. The more reviews you have, the more representative they will be. That being said if something seems out of the ordinary with a Chief’s reviews, we will contact those who left the reviews to investigate.

Prohibited Content: Comments that contain the following will be removed:

• Profanity, name-calling, and/or vulgarity, derogatory remarks about religion, ethnicity or race, gender, physical appearance, age, mental and/or physical disabilities;
• Identifiable information about a Chief or student that would allow someone to contact the Chief/student outside of their work;
• References to a Chief’s or employees’s family, personal life and/or sex life, including sexual innuendos;
• Claims that a Chief shows bias for or against a employee or specific group of employees (For more information and resources, please read here);
• Claims about a Chief’s employment status, including previous employment;
• Claims that a Chief or other employee engages or has engaged in illegal activities;
• Direct references to other existing comments or comments that have been deleted by our moderators;
• Accusations that the Chief is rating him/herself or his/her colleagues;
• A language other than English. Comments must be written in English only;
• Hyperlinks and / or URLs.

Department Guidelines:

• This is an anonymous website where fire & police employees can share their work experiences. We are unable to provide any data or personal information about the submitter of a review.

Rate My Department occasionally receives removal demands that include threats to sue Rate My Department. To date, no one has followed through with a lawsuit against us for our reviews.

The law protects Rate My Department from legal responsibility for the content submitted by our users, like the reviews that appear on our site. Specifically, the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (47 U.S.C. Sec. 230) created a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers, like Rate My Department, liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service.

The law is clear on this. Anyone who wishes to sue Rate My Department for the reviews posted by our members risks penalties imposed by the court. These may include financial sanctions and reimbursement of our attorney’s fees for our having to defend against a lawsuit that ignores obvious legal protections for Rate My Department.

If, despite our caution, you feel that legal action is the only recourse for you, our address for service of legal process is:

Rate My Chief LLC

30 N Gould St Ste R

Sheridan, WY 82801

If you intend to serve documents on Rate My Chief LLC, please make sure that service is properly effected in the US in accordance with all applicable law. We are not obligated to respond if service is not valid.

These guidelines are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. While we stand by our guidelines, you are encouraged to seek advice from an attorney who is competent in the relevant field of law.

The Site reserves the right to remove any comments deemed as inappropriate, libelous, defamatory, indecent, vulgar or obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit or sexually suggestive, racially, culturally, or ethnically offensive, harmful, harassing, intimidating, threatening, hateful, objectionable, discriminatory, or abusive, or which may or may not appear to impersonate anyone else or that otherwise violate the terms and conditions Agreement.

The Site reserves the right to remove, provide to authorities or otherwise take appropriate action regarding comments that threaten violence or bodily harm to another user or Chief including, but not limited to, notifying the authorities of your IP address, where available, and the time you rated and taking any action as described in the terms and conditions Agreement and Privacy Policy.