Here are the community guidelines:
http://forums.braintalk2.org/showthread.php?t=1293
Quote:
This is, first and foremost, a self-help support and education community. That means if your message (post or PM) isn't about offering support or information to another person or asking for it, it's potentially not appropriate for our community. Specifically prohibited from our community:
* Advertisements of any sort
* Soliciting others to join another online mental health community
* Flames or messages meant to intimidate or harass others
* Threatening or profane messages
* Messages discussing a private message (PM) from others
* All administrative issues (exceptions will be made from time-to-time for community administrative issues)
* Copyrighted materials that you do not own the rights to, except any educational or research article a member would like to post that is not available elsewhere online to nonsubscribers
* Messages containing suicidal threats or suicidal actions
* Messages containing or condoning illegal acts
* Limit your direct discussion of politics, as people usually hold pretty strong opinions about this topic
* Posts of a mostly religious nature should be made to the Spiritual Support forum
* Triggering material without the use of the Trigger Icon  (to be added)
* Anything that violates the Terms of Use for this site (TBD)
For links to other websites, the following guidelines apply: - Links in your profile are fine. Link to almost anything you want in your profile page, as long as it doesn't violate our sexual, illegal activities, or profanity guidelines.
- Links on a post to anything except another mental health community are okay, as long as it's your personal site, photos, a research article, a helpful tip, etc. We don't want to see people abusing this by saying, "Hey, I just updated my site" and posting about it every week (which we've seen done elsewhere).
- Links in your signature are okay, as long as they are your personal site, a charity, a project or non-profit effort (no commercial links allowed in one's signature, ever).
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There has been some concern expressed here about people leaving links back to OBT, but I think it depends on how/why it is done.
In the guidelines, it states soliciting others to join another online
mental health community is prohibited. It doesn't really cover other types of boards, but the question has been raised. For now, it is being allowed within reason. This is a complex situation with the history of OBT.
I think people should try to use common sense and discretion. While it is appropriate to leave a link back to a pertinent thread from another site that might have useful information for a member in regard to a specific question, we should probably stop short of actually soliciting people to join one forum over another forum (either place). It would be better to do that via personal message if one felt so inclined.
My personal thoughts:
There are some people who post on other OBT boards who have mostly gone back there (child neuro, MS) and those people might find it easiest to pop over to the OBT board. Others have settled in nicely here, and have no desire to go back or even look back. New people will continue to fall both places by google searches and referrals.
This has been divisive for us as a group, no doubt. I have personally decided I can't choose one forum over another, and I will participate in both forums. I suspect both forums will have a fair amount of activity, but only time will tell. I understand two forums aren't practical or desirable for everyone, but some people already pop in and out of multiple forums.
As for rebuilding data, most of the information that I was involved with building and maintaining is now in TGF (googlepages version). Others (myself included) will rebuild data here or there depending on their personal preference and motivation. I think we've all learned that we should keep our own backups of information that is important to us, or that we have worked hard at creating. Because Doc John leases his servers for this site (compared to JL who owns his, and lives cross country from where it is housed), there is much less risk of extended downtime here.
I guess what I am saying is that I think the most important thing is that people should feel free to post wherever they want to, not feel forced into choosing, and not feel guilty about choosing one over another, and not hold any grudges against anyone for their personal decisions. We all have our own personal
valid reasons for which way we choose to go.
I understand this has been frustrating for all of us, and many feel it would be easier to have just one group, but that is not the way the chips have fallen. We now have two forums open for business.
I hope I explained this alright without saying something wrong, and I don't speak for everyone~ just myself.
JM2C~
Cara