[DocJohn]

Please use this thread to discuss the community guidelines. Thank you.

[DocJohn]

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

[Curious]

thank you docjohn. i hope you are feeling better.

[Snoopy]

I find your guidelines more than fair - not a problem as far as I'm concerned.

I appreciate having the guidelines posted. I am more than a little surprised to see:

* All administrative issues

As one of the forbidden topics.

I will delete all my posts and would appreciate you removing my membership tomorrow so I have time to delete my posts tonight. I consider these restrictions to give the moderators far more authority than BT1 moderators.

This forum has permitted bashing people who are not members by name and bashing other forums, but then stops a thread where no one was attacked or hostile so it can be reviewed???????

And we have can be banned for discussing administrative issues? So -- its okay to bash moderators and other forums, but not to discuss the administration of this one???????

Sorry, I have a sense of fair play.

[DocJohn]

Two things to be real clear about--

1. NOBODY GETS BANNED FOR VIOLATING A GUIDELINE ONCE. Nobody. Ever. We're not trigger-happy on the banning or suspensions. You will get a PM. You do it again, you'll probably just get another PM (depends on the circumstances and such). Do it a third time, yes, we're going to start getting a little annoyed and start talking about a suspension for a day or something.

2. Not sure what the point about talking about administrative issues in public serves. We administer the forums private, mostly through PMs to individual members. PMs are, to me, like email -- you don't share them with others unless you have permission.

The point of this guideline is that we don't want to get into long, drawn-out discussions for every little administrative action. I don't appreciate constant second-guessing of decisions (as, I suspect, most people don't), and since I can't predict how much second-guessing there will be (although I have a sense of it already), it's best to just make it a simple constant.

The best part about all of this? THE GUIDELINES ARE OPEN FOR DISCUSSION! Make a case for why this guideline shouldn't be there, and I'm happy to listen.

Hence, this thread.

Thanks,
John

[Doody]

# Links in your signature are okay, as long as they are your personal site (no commercial links allowed in one's signature, ever).

So if my passion is pet adoption or a cure for breast cancer, should those links go in just my profile? Not in my signature in posts? I think that's what I'm reading but sometimes I misread stuff.

And I started blathering away in another thread to Doc before I saw that comments should be made here about the terms.

So...we should only discuss the illness at hand in any particular forum but not about, oh, what movie we saw last night. Or, what great recipe our aunt gave us?

We've had a tendency to do that in Suvivors of Suicide forum, but maybe we shouldn't have been.

Just wondering. I have fibro, CMP, ADD, depression, deupytrens syndrome, ulcerative colitis, TMJ, a shot spine....my brain doesn't know how to function anymore so I'm must wondering, don't mean to be a pain in the *****.

Originally Posted by DocJohn

Two things to be real clear about--

1. NOBODY GETS BANNED FOR VIOLATING A GUIDELINE ONCE. Nobody. Ever. We're not trigger-happy on the banning or suspensions. You will get a PM. You do it again, you'll probably just get another PM (depends on the circumstances and such). Do it a third time, yes, we're going to start getting a little annoyed and start talking about a suspension for a day or something.

since the guidelines don't say this, how would anyone know?

Originally Posted by DocJohn

2. Not sure what the point about talking about administrative issues in public serves. We administer the forums private, mostly through PMs to individual members. PMs are, to me, like email -- you don't share them with others unless you have permission.

The point of this guideline is that we don't want to get into long, drawn-out discussions for every little administrative action. I don't appreciate constant second-guessing of decisions (as, I suspect, most people don't), and since I can't predict how much second-guessing there will be (although I have a sense of it already), it's best to just make it a simple constant.

I totally agree - but then why is second guessing decisions made on other forums allowed?

Originally Posted by DocJohn

The best part about all of this? THE GUIDELINES ARE OPEN FOR DISCUSSION! Make a case for why this guideline shouldn't be there, and I'm happy to listen.

Hence, this thread.

Thanks,
John

I have already posted my objection to the ability of moderators to just end threads which are neither hostile, abusive, or containing personal attacks.

I believe if one is going to belong to a forum they should abide by the TOS, and the ability of moderators to just do that isn't something I am comfortable with.

Hence, my request to have my membership deleted. I have deleted all posts that I can except in this thread. The others are in threads which have been locked. Please delete my membership and those threads.

At the time those posts were made, locking threads wasn't done or permitted, and I would rather not have those posts remaining if I am not a member.

Thank you for your efforts. I think many people will be quite happy with the TOS you have outlined. I am just not one of them - and I think one should be willing to abide by the rules in order to be a member.

[DocJohn]

Understood and I appreciate your feedback.

[DocJohn]

I think we can make exceptions for links in signatures for charities, causes, things like that. I can update the guidelines to reflect that, sure thing.

As for what's discussed in each and every forum, I think I'll leave that to the community to decide. If folks are okay with off-topic (OT) discussions in every forum, I will be too.

John