The purpose of Bates Engage is to be a resource to students seeking information about how to navigate life on campus. Bates Engage is a service provided by Campus Life.

Bates Engage is Moderated

• Campus Life staff check to ensure that these community guidelines are being followed.
• Campus Life reserves the right to suspend access to Bates Engage at any time, and will generally do so for reasons covered in the guidelines below.

You’re Not Invisible (By Default)

• Bates Engage is a social and communication platform, and it is not anonymous. 
• Your name, Bates ID, and (if you so desire) picture are associated with your Bates Engage profile, and your interactions in the app could be perceived or interpreted in ways that are beyond your control.
• You have the option of turning off visibility for various sections of your user profile, and even your user profile itself, via the “Privacy Settings” option on the user menu.
• Do not post personal information about yourself or others – anyone in the Bates community can see it, especially when posting in campus feeds, which sends a notification to all users’ phones.

Keep it Topical!

• Please keep all posts topical to the area in which you’re posting. For example, if you’re posting in Ride Sharing, your post should be about offering or finding a ride. If you’re posting on a club group’s wall, your post should be about the club.
• Bates Engage does not have a general discussion area.
• Bates Engage does not have a marketplace feed – please do not post seeking items to buy or sell. Campus Life does not have the means to ensure that items are in the condition described, or provide remediation or compensation for sales that are not to a party’s satisfaction. If you’re interested in buying or selling items, we recommend using platforms designed for this purpose, such as Facebook Marketplace or eBay.
• Posts deemed not topical by moderators may be removed without notice, and without further penalty, provided they do not also violate the Post by the Rules guidelines below. Repeated non-topical posts may result in a user being suspended from Bates Engage for a period of time.

Lost & Found Guidelines

Bates Engage offers a Lost & Found feed, on which individuals may post about items they find, or seek items they lost. When posting to this feed, please keep the following in mind:

• To protect others’ privacy, do not post pictures of Bates IDs, government IDs, credit cards, or other items with personally identifying information.
  • It may be more expedient to email the individual directly – not everyone has Bates Engage Mobile, but everyone has a Bates Gmail account.
• Do not possess lost items for an extended period of time. If you do not receive a response via Bates Engage within 30 minutes, you should bring the item(s) in to Campus Safety, and update your post advising that the item(s) have been turned in.

Post by the Rules

• Posts may not harass, intimidate, defame, or slander others – even unnamed others.
• Posts should not be objectively offensive.
• Do not post pictures of, or pictures that may be construed as, nudity, graphic language, drug and/or alcohol use.
• Do not post pictures of others without their consent.
• Ensure your posts do not violate the Student Code of Conduct or the Equal Opportunity, Non-Discrimination, and Anti-Harassment Policy. Posts that do will be referred for appropriate formal disciplinary action relevant to the nature of the post.
• In addition to referral for formal disciplinary action, violating the Post by the Rules guidelines may result in the following measures, which impact your access and use of Bates Engage:
  • First violation: written warning.
  • Second violation: suspension of Bates Engage access for one week.
  • Third violation: suspension of Bates Engage access for the remainder of academic term. A meeting with Campus Life staff is required for access to be restored.
  • Fourth violation: indefinite suspension of Bates Engage access.
• While sanctions relating to access will typically follow the sequence noted above, moderators reserve the right to enforce a sanction based on the severity of a violation, at their discretion.

See something off? Report it!

• If you see something that violates any of these guidelines, help us better moderate the Bates Engage community by reporting it.
• Every post has a gear icon in the lower right corner. Select it, then select the triangular “warning” icon to notify the Bates Engage moderators that something isn’t right.
• In addition to reporting within the app, you can report incidences of sexual harassment or misconduct here.
• For emergent situations, always contact Bates Campus Safety by calling 207.786.6111.