AboutMyCoach.com Survey Guidelines for Parents and Athletes

While you have the right to publicly comment on a coach here* we still expect the universal guideline known as the Golden Rule to override all guidelines. Here are some others to help clarify what we mean:
• Qualified: If you were not an actual athlete, or the parent of an athlete, on team you are not qualified to provide feedback on a coach. If your friend was an athlete or had a son or daughter that was an athlete, it doesn’t qualify you. This is especially true if you have a conflict of interest such as being an employee or owner of an organization or are a friend of, networked with, or compete against an organization or coach.
• Honesty: Keep your feedback factual. Descriptive language can be helpful, but your experience can be discounted it seems embellished, exaggerated, biased or otherwise ’over-the-top’. Anything involving threats, harassment, lewdness, or bigotry is most definitely out of bounds.
• Privacy: Using the name of a coach or organization is fine, but don’t post their private information or sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) such as mailing addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, etc.
• Relevance: Make sure your feedback is relevant to the coach and their coaching practices. This site is not for rants or outrage with a coach or their organizations politics, faith, gender, race, employment practices, personal opinions, or other issues that don't address the experience athletes have during the season. This is also not the place to ‘air’ grievances outside of coaching experiences or what a coach can control, such as a refund owed or a rude secretary in the front office.
• Balance: If you provide both strengths and weaknesses your feedback will come across more credible. What you don’t like about a coach might be what another athlete or parent is looking for. Constructive criticism is helpful, and even ambivalence (that’s what 5’s and 6’s are for), but so is highlighting some good qualities. And vice-versa.
• Original: You may see other reviews you like or that paint a clear picture of thought you’d like to convey. Be inspired, but please don’t plagiarize. Also, try not to debate, or ‘pile-on’, with others who leave feedback. Your own words really are perfect.
• Appropriate: Keep in mind young people and their families use this site. Any posts with profanities or deemed inappropriate for either will be removed. Keep feedback clean. The coach may review comments, and we are hoping this will be helpful feedback they and the organizations they work for will use to improve their coaching. Even if you believe you have found a coach that simply does not have the skillset to coach, just describe your thoughts objectively.
As discussed above, we are hoping the feedback you see after a season is constructive and helpful to you and your organization. If you believe a comment violates any of the above guidelines please flag it for us and let us know at: moderator@aboutmycoach.com. We will review your concerns carefully and decide on leaving or removing a post. If you simply disagree with an opinion, we will likely leave the post. We also recommend you encourage all your athletes and their parents to comment here; the more reviews the more representative they will be.
* The law is clear about liability protection available to opinion sites for the content submitted by users leaving reviews. For example, the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (47 U.S.C. Sec. 230) created a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make sites such as AmoutMyCoach.com liable for information originating with a third-party user of our service.