Community Guidelines

Engage Marin is an online space where community members can share ideas, give feedback, and help shape decisions in their community. Every conversation helps the County better understand community priorities and make more informed decisions.

Whether you are sharing a new idea, asking a question, or joining a discussion, thank you for participating.

Strong opinions are welcome. Personal attacks are not.

Engage Marin is a place for respectful disagreement. We encourage honest conversation about the issues affecting Marin County. People may disagree with each other, criticize County decisions, and express different opinions.

We moderate how people participate, not what they believe.

Our goal is to keep conversations going, not to shut them down. Engage Marin is designed to help you get an idea posted rather than turn it away. When a submission needs attention, the first thing you see is what needs to change and an invitation to revise and try again. We restrict participation only when it is necessary to keep discussions respectful, safe, and welcoming for everyone.

• Be respectful.
• Focus on ideas, policies, and solutions rather than individuals.
• Engage constructively, even when you disagree.
• Stay on topic. Post ideas and comments that relate to the question being asked.
• Help create a welcoming environment where everyone feels comfortable participating.

Anyone can read Engage Marin. You do not need an account to browse questions, read ideas, or see how others have voted.

Participating as a guest

You can take part without creating an account. As a guest you can:

• Submit one idea
• Cast up to five votes

This allowance is tied to your browser rather than to a single visit, so it does not reset when you close the tab.

Guests cannot comment on other people’s ideas, and cannot edit an idea after submitting it.

Participating with an account

Creating an account takes one step: enter your email and click the link we send you. There is no password. With an account you can:

• Submit as many ideas as you like
• Vote without a limit
• Comment on ideas and reply to other residents
• Correct your own wording within 15 minutes of posting

You choose how you appear. You can post under your name with a profile, or post anonymously, in which case your ideas show your city rather than your name.

Your name and city

Both are required on every submission.

Your name is published on your idea, so residents can see who suggested what. Your city is chosen from a county list and is also published, either alongside your name or on its own if you are posting anonymously. If a form asks you to type a location in your own words, that field is visible only to county staff and is never published.

Names are screened automatically before they are saved.

County staff

County staff review submissions and moderate the conversation. Staff accounts cannot submit ideas or cast votes, so staff cannot influence the outcome of a question. Staff can comment publicly to respond to residents, and those comments are labeled as coming from the County.

About voting. Engage Marin includes ways to support ideas by voting or prioritizing proposals. These tools help identify community interests and priorities. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, participation on Engage Marin is not an official vote or a binding County decision.

Every idea and comment passes through automated screening before it appears. The screening has two levels, described under “What cannot be posted” and “What gets a warning instead.”

What happens after screening

• If your submission clears, it publishes immediately. This is true for guests and account holders alike.
• If your submission is flagged, it either cannot be posted as written, or it is held for a county moderator to look at.
• If our screening is temporarily unavailable, submissions are held for staff review rather than published unchecked.

Nothing is ever removed by the automated screening on its own. Content is removed only by a county moderator applying these guidelines.

The County aims to review anything held within one business day. Moderators review content using these guidelines and the full context of the conversation. We moderate behavior, not viewpoints, and we apply these guidelines as consistently as we can.

Blocking is reserved for a narrow set of content that cannot be published at all. If your submission contains any of it, you will see a notice explaining that it cannot be shared as written, and you can revise and try again. This applies to:

• True threats, targeted harassment, or intimidation directed at a person or group. Targeted personal abuse counts as targeted harassment, including slurs aimed at a person or group because of a protected characteristic.
• Threats and depictions of violence
• Content that facilitates criminal activity or otherwise violates applicable law
• Content promoting self-harm
• Sexually explicit content
• Any sexual content involving minors

Hateful and discriminatory content is screened, and handled by people. A submission flagged as hateful is not published. It is held for a county moderator, so that a person applying these guidelines, rather than an automated system, makes the final decision.

Private personal information is screened before it is published. A submission that shares a private individual’s personal information without their consent, such as a home address, a personal phone number, or a personal email address, is held for a county moderator to review before it can appear. This does not apply to publicly available official contact information, such as an office phone number, a work email address, or a County building address. We also ask that you not impersonate another person or misrepresent your identity or affiliation. Content that does so may be removed by a moderator.

Submissions that look like spam or that do not respond to the question receive a softer warning rather than a block. This covers:

• Spam. Commercial or promotional content, advertisements, and link drops.
• Off-topic content. Submissions that do not respond to the question being asked.

When this happens on an idea, you will see a suggestion to revise. You can edit and resubmit, or if you believe your idea is fine as written, you can submit it anyway and a county moderator will review it and publish it if appropriate.

Comments work slightly differently. A comment that receives one of these flags is held for a county moderator, who publishes it if appropriate. A comment is never rejected by the automated screening on its own – every removal decision on Engage Marin is made by a person.

Content will not be removed solely because it expresses an offensive, controversial, or unpopular viewpoint.

We want to hear from you. Engage Marin is a good place to:

• Share ideas and recommendations
• Ask questions
• Offer constructive feedback
• Share lived experiences and community perspectives
• Respectfully support or challenge other residents’ ideas

Disagreement with the County, frustration with how something is working, criticism of specific programs or staff decisions, and strongly worded opinions about local policy are all welcome. So are suggestions about local places and activities, ideas the County is unlikely to act on, ideas that conflict with other residents’ ideas, and ideas that ask for things outside the County’s authority.

The point of the platform is to hear residents, not to filter for agreement.

To help ensure everyone’s voice is represented fairly, participants may not:

• Create multiple accounts
• Use automated tools or bots to manipulate participation
• Use fake accounts or other deceptive methods to influence discussions or voting

The County may take action to protect the integrity of the platform and its engagement processes.

You are responsible for the content you submit. Please do not post confidential, sensitive, or private personal information about yourself or others. Ideas and comments shared on Engage Marin belong to their authors and do not represent the views of the County of Marin.

Engage Marin is a public forum operated by the County of Marin. Submissions are retained as part of the public record, including submissions that were removed by a moderator. Removed content is hidden from public view but is preserved in County systems, and may be publicly disclosed as required by the California Public Records Act.

Residents cannot delete their own ideas or comments once posted. If you need to correct wording, you have a 15-minute window after posting to edit your own submission.

Every moderation decision is recorded, including who acted, what they did, and why.

If you see a warning, try revising to focus on the specific change you want to see in Marin. Removing language that targets an individual usually resolves a harmful-content flag. Making an idea more specific to the question being asked usually resolves an off-topic flag.

If you believe a warning was wrong, you can submit your idea anyway and a county moderator will review it.

Appeals. If your submission was removed after posting and you believe that was a mistake, sign in and send us a message about it. Signing in confirms the submission is yours; if you posted without an account, sign in from the same browser and it is added to your account first. Include the question you were responding to and the date you posted. A County staff member will look at the decision again.

These guidelines may evolve as Engage Marin grows and community needs change. When we make significant updates, we will note them on this page.

Thank you for helping make Engage Marin a place where everyone can participate, share ideas, and contribute to the future of Marin County.

• Accessibility statement (opens in a new tab)
• Public records notice (opens in a new tab)
• Privacy notice (opens in a new tab)