Policies and Guidelines

Candidate Endorsement Policy

The primary mission of eHop is community education on funding and policy issues pertaining to the Town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts including the Hopkinton Public Schools. Hence, eHop will strive to provide voters with accurate and detailed information on candidates running for state and local office, with a focus on each candidate’s position on both town and school-related issues.

It is eHop policy not to endorse candidates for public office. eHop board members are at liberty, however, to endorse candidates independently.

When eHop collects information from candidates for voter education purposes, eHop may add editorial comments to clarify candidate claims or statements that eHop deems to be deceptive or misleading, or that require further explanation.

When a eHop board member is running for public office, eHop will make voters aware of said member’s candidacy, and will highlight how the candidate has contributed to eHop. Committee members may endorse their colleague’s candidacy as individuals, but eHop will abide by its non-endorsement policy.

Any eHop Board Member running for elected office in a contested race will not write or edit any blogs regarding the office or communicate with any opposing candidate on behalf of eHop for which they are running, including but not limited to our annual Candidate Q&A.

Candidate Endorsement Policy Adopted April 2011, amended 01/19/16 and 06/24/18.

Editorial and Social Media Policy

• As a volunteer civic organization, we are not a comprehensive news outlet, but strive for balanced and representative coverage of local issues related to our mission.  When there is question about whether content relates to our mission we require a majority vote of the Board of Directors before publishing.  
• The eHop social media pages are public and we encourage discussion among our followers.
• Social media followers are not considered eHop members. To become a member, sign up at ehop.org.
• Friendly disagreement is allowed, but please stay on topic, use common courtesy and be respectful of others.
• The following are not permitted: Profanity, Indecent Materials, Threats, Hate Speech, False or Libelous Information, Spam or Solicitations.
• In addition, due to eHop policy not to endorse candidates for public office, any endorsements for specific candidates will be deleted from our social media  pages.
• eHop reserves the right to moderate or delete posts and comments that do not meet our guidelines.
• eHop reserves the right to ban users who repeatedly ignore our guidelines.
• eHop moderators will regularly post content to our Facebook page, such as news articles and links related to our mission and updates about our organization. The posting of a news article or link does not indicate that the eHop board agrees with the opinions stated in the article.
• eHop follows a variety of social media pages and profiles that are in some way relevant to Hopkinton or to our mission. The following of a social media page or profile does not indicate that the eHop board agrees with or supports the user, but we are simply trying to stay informed about what is currently going on that affects Hopkinton. For example, during an election season, we may follow multiple candidates running for the same office. We will also follow all our elected officials regardless of their political views.

Facebook & Twitter Guidelines originally approved at the 06/19/13 eHop Board Meeting, then amended and expanded to be a general Editorial & Social Media Policy at our 06/24/18 eHop Board Meeting.