Every community online (and offline, too!) has a set of rules or guidelines which they follow. People don't walk down the street naked in your neighborhood (or if they do, you sure do live in an interesting neighborhood!), break a window in your house on purpose, or yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theater when there's no fire, and that's all very good and helpful because it allows folks to live their lives. In society, most of that behavior is governed by laws.

In social and support groups, like this one here, behavior is governed more by social mores and norms. And to help establish some minimum norms, we spent some time putting together a set of Community Guidelines. These are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Exceptions can and will be made. They are here to help people know what to expect from the community and the folks who have volunteered to help oversee it. Violating a guideline is more likely to get you a PM than anything else.

Yes, we used the guidelines from Psych Central as a blueprint for these, and made some changes. Why? Because we've spent 7 years refining the Psych Central guidelines and, while not perfect, they are a good foundation to build upon.

If you have any specific questions, concerns, whatever, this is a good place to post them. I'll try and answer each and every one of them.

Best,
John