Mentor Guidelines

Please remember that a mentor is, in a way, representing this community. Please keep this in mind when interacting as a mentor.

Please make safety issues your first priority.

Please abide by the Forum Guidelines in all correspondence.

The Mentor Program is not a place for pandering, proselytizing or profiteering.

Encourage your mentorees to become active posting members of the forum. This is not a “hand-holding” project. Mentors need to encourage their mentorees to do their own “homework.” Avoid looking things up for them; have them do this for themselves. This teaches them to use the Thunder software and doing so will improve their posting abilities down the line.

Nor is this a “secret” project in the sense that everything needs to be “backstage” between mentor and mentoree. No one mentor will have all the answers. Push always toward the accumulated knowledge we have here, and the great talent on the board. If you run up against a wall, encourage the mentoree to post, or you make the post for him - if you can say it better or briefer.

Either party may stop a mentorship, at any time, with no reason given or required. Ideally, this project should not take up too much of a mentor’s time. If/when a mentoree starts pushing for more attention than the mentor feels comfortable giving, just say in no uncertain terms that you are doing a special favor and that the mentoree is pushing your limits, in a friendly way. Anybody who doesn’t hear that message isn’t worth your valuable time.