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Forum Rules





1. Basic Forum Rules and Principles

The overriding principle of Psychforums is to ensure that this is a safe and ANONYMOUS place where all members show sensitivity to, respect for, and support for other forum members. In accordance with this policy, all new member registrations require a valid separate email address (dedicated only to psychforums.com communications and protected with a different password than your other mail accounts) which can be verified or confirmed.

To avoid triggering other forum members, please note the following primary rules concerning the FORUMS and BLOGS:

  • IF YOU ARE SUICIDAL, DO NOT POST HERE, PLEASE CALL 1-800-SUICIDE. (1-800-784-2433)
  • STAY ALWAYS ANONYMOUS, DO NOT GIVE AWAY PERSONAL IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION (PII), like for example (but not limited to) real name, birthdate, link to social network profile, THAT COULD MAKE YOU DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY RECOGNIZABLE ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE (for example, but not limited to, in posts, post signature, blog entries, Personal Messages (PM) or anywhere else on this site). GIVING AWAY PII RELATED TO OTHER INDIVIDUAL IS NOT PERMITTED AS WELL
  • DO NOT POST GRAPHIC OR DESCRIPTIONS OF PLANS FOR OR ACTS OF SELF-INJURY OR SUICIDE.
  • DO NOT POST GRAPHIC OR DESCRIPTIONS OF ACTS OF VIOLENCE OF ANY KIND OUTSIDE THE SPECIFIC GROUP OF FORUMS "KIND OF ABUSE".
  • DO NOT POST MESSAGES ADVOCATING OR ENCOURAGING SUICIDE OR SELF-HARM.
  • DO NOT POST MESSAGES ADVOCATING OR ENCOURAGING ANOREXIA OR BULIMIA.
  • DO NOT POST MESSAGES ABOUT PARAPHILIAS, INCLUDING PAEDOPHILIA, AS THE MAIN TOPIC.

In addition, the following are expressly prohibited on this web site:

  • POSTS THAT ADVISE ANY MEMBER OR PEOPLE IN GENERAL NOT TO TAKE MEDICATION PRESCRIBED BY A LICENSED PHYSICIAN OR NOT TO FOLLOW ANY OTHER ADVICE GIVEN BY A LICENSED PHYSICIAN OR OTHER MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL (remember that only the individual´s physician or primary therapist is likely to know the full medical or personal or family history of that individual).
  • POSTS THAT ATTEMPT TO DIAGNOSE ANY MEMBER OR TO DISPUTE A DIAGNOSIS GIVEN TO A MEMBER BY A QUALIFIED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL (remember that only the individual´s physician or psychologist is legally able to provide a diagnosis).
  • PRESENTING YOURSELF OR YOUR OPINIONS IN ANY KIND OF PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY

Any and all advice provided on this forum is intended as general information for the membership and/or any visitors to this site and should never be construed as a substitute for or a contradiction of medical advice from your own physicians, who are in a position to know your full medical history. It should be emphasized that we do not provide online diagnoses at Psychforums and we do not permit members to diagnose other members. Only a qualified physician or mental health professional (1) with the legal authority to diagnose and (2) who is in a position to evaluate your history and current symptoms can provide you with a diagnosis.

Additionally, all members are expected to treat other members with courtesy and respect. Profanity, insults, personal attacks on other members, or harassment of other members in any form is unacceptable and may result in being banned from the forum. The Golden Rule - Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You - is a good general basis for forum decorum.

We respect members' right to their own religious beliefs. However in posting we ask you to respect the views of other members and their religious beliefs, spiritual systems or choice not to follow any form of religion. Posts that excessively promote a belief are not permitted. Discrimination based on religion will also not be tolerated. Political commentary in forum is prohibited.

Finally, spam or blatant self-promotion will not be tolerated. Such posts will be removed and will probably result in your account being deleted.

Please ensure that you read the complete Forum Rules below before posting. Your use of this forum indicates that you have read, understood, and agreed to these rules and guidelines.

2. General Forum Rules

General Forum Rules & Privacy Statement

Registration at this forum is free. However, registration means that you accept the forum rules. The rules also applies to the blog functionality if applicable. The rules are not meant to be exhaustive and we reserve the right to edit posts and/or to take other action in accordance with the purpose and principles of the forum.

Please note that the moderators and administrators of this site are volunteers and are not medical practitioners. Any and all advice they offer is pursuant to their own life experiences and should not be construed as medical advice on behalf of this site.

Although the volunteer Forum Staff of this website will attempt to monitor and remove objectionable content in the forum, it is probably impossible for us to review all posts thoroughly. If you find an objectionable post, please report it to forum staff.

All posts reflect the views of the author of that post. The owner of this website will not be held responsible for the content of any messages or information posted. By registering at this forum, you are agreeing to be held responsible for the information you post on the forum (including forum posts, blog posts and personal messages) and that you accept and understand the complete forum rules contained in this page. Here are the general forum rules:

E-mail Accounts

You must register on this site with an e-mail address that you dedicate only for your interactions with psychforums.com and protect this mail account with a different password than your other mail accounts. This email must be valid and users whose e-mail accounts bounce will have their accounts deactivated. New users will not be able to post on the forums until they click the activation link sent to their registered e-mail address and the account has been approved and activated by the forum administrator.

Number of Accounts

Only one account per person is allowed and registering more than one account could result in all of a users accounts being suspended.

Abusing Other Members

Abusing other members of this website is not tolerated. Personal or targeted insults are not tolerated. Posts that are just insulting or nasty are not tolerated. Please report abusive posts or Private Messages to a Moderator or Administrator.

Arguments and Disagreements

If you feel a post is not correct or the actions or comments of another member have upset you, do not start an argument in the forums. Instead, send a Private Message to the user and speak to them directly. Please do not question the actions of Forum Staff within the forums; instead, communicate via Private Message or e-mail. In the event of disagreement, Forum Administrators will have the final say.

Please note: While moderators and administrators will attempt to ensure that insensitive or abusive posts are removed or edited, and as stated above you are encouraged to report any such activity to Psychforums Staff, you alone are responsible for your interactions with other forum members. Psychforums reserves the right but is not obligated to mediate or solve disputes between you and other users of the forum.

Reporting to the authorities

If the team has reasonable reasons to think that anybody could be at risk based on the information stored on the website, it reserves the right to report you to the authorities without you being notified.

Privacy

Sharing private information, about you or any other person, that makes you or anybody else recognizable is not permitted on the forums and will be removed immediately if brought to our attention.

Individuals may choose to take part in discussion boards or blogs run by Psychforums. These users may share their information publicly on those boards against the forum rules. If an individual chooses to share his or her private information (against the forum rules) on one of our public forums (or by PM) or in any other way, the owner of the site cannot and will not be held responsible for the individual´s privacy issue created. The user posting is responsible of the content he is posting.

Account Removal and Banned Accounts

If a user who has posted on the forums wishes to leave this website, he can self-deactivate his account from his user control panel (UCP). However, please note that posts will not be removed as all the information published is ANONYMOUS. The main reason is that this can cause other posts and threads to read incorrectly. As stated in the rules content shall always remain anonymous, shall you have any question please use the contact form.

Banned users will not have their account removed and their information may remain on this website so we can attempt to limit them from registering again and should the need for further action arise. Question can be sent using the contact form identified by the email linked to the former account.

Account self-deactivation

User self-deactivation is final, the account cannot be reactivated nor posts removed on user's request. Any request can be done using the contact form identified by the email linked to the former account.

3. Posting Rules and Guidelines

Posting and Readability Guidelines

  • All posts must be in English. Please try to use plain language with standard punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphs in your posts. Among other things, this will help you to get more replies to your posts and questions. Long run-on sentences with no breaks and no paragraphs are a lot of work to read and many members won´t have the patience to persist to read the whole post.
  • Avoid the use of "txt msg" formats such as "u no" and "ur problem" - not all of our members will be familiar with the conventions used in text messaging and it makes threads difficult to read.
  • Do NOT post in ALL CAPS or in large fonts.
  • Do not use nonstandard font sizes or font colors except for emphasis (i.e., don´t use a nonstandard font size or font color for your entire post).

Third party materials

All third party articles or excerpts must include full credit to the authors as well as a link to the original source. Please also ensure that you do not post material where the author has expressly forbidden reproduction.

Advertising and Spam

Advertising a website, product or service is not allowed unless permission has been given from the Forum Staff or in a specific forum with rules on the types of posts that can be made. Using the forum to recruit members for chatrooms or similar services, television show, news/feature articles and the like is also expressly forbidden. Links to social media or instant messaging, such as Skype or Facebook groups, are not permitted. The only exception to this are solicitations made in our Surveys and Studies forum, which require prior approval from the forum administrator. Fund raising and petitions or posting links to fund raisers or petitions is not permitted. All other violations of this rule may result in immediate ban without notice.

Malicious Content

Any member posting anything that you know may cause the computer or system of a visitor to experience problems will face an immediate and permanent ban from the forum.

Junk Posts

  • Posts made must be in the correct forums. Specific forums are available for users to post off topic posts so please use them if required. Please try to remain on topic, especially in serious or informational threads.
  • Do not post when the only content is a smiley or a quote from another member followed by a smiley.

Multiple Posts

Posting the same information in multiple forums is not permitted (unless you have forum staff permission). You may post something similar to another post if it has not been discussed or used for a reasonable time period.

4. Registration and Account Activation

You must register with a valid e-mail address that you dedicate only for your interactions with psychforums.com and protect this mail account with a different password than your other mail accounts. This email must be valid in order to complete your registration. Once you have completed your registration, your email address must remain valid so please remember to update it if you should change internet providers or otherwise change your email address. Members whose e-mail accounts bounce will have their accounts deactivated.

New members will not be able to post on the forums until they click the activation link sent to their registered e-mail address.

5. Your Email Account

You must create an email that you dedicate only for your interactions with psychforums.com and protect this mail account with a different password than your other mail accounts.

You must keep an active valid email account to maintain your membership at this forum. You can edit and change your email address in your User Control Panel Settings.

If an email notification sent by the forum software to your listed email account is ´bounced´, i.e., comes back to the Administrator, this is an indication that your email account is not active or valid. If this happens, your forum membership account will be set to Inactive and your forum privileges will be restricted until the email problem is corrected.

To correct this, go to your User Control Panel Settings and change your email address to a valid one. Then request an activation email. This will be sent to your email address. It will contain both a link and an activation code to reactivate your account. If you have any difficulty reactivating your account, please contact one of the Forum Administrators for assistance.

Many email providers also have spam filters. If you do not receive your confirmation email make sure you check your spam folder or your spam filter settings as it may be being flagged as spam.

Please add info@psychforums.com to the Contacts or Address Book or ´whitelist´ for the email account you use for your forum membership. This will be the return address for email notifications and messages sent by the forum software. Alternatively, marking email from info@psychforums.com as ´not spam´ will often avoid future spam filter problems.

6. Private Messaging

Private Messages or PMs are just that: Private. They cannot be viewed by other forum members or forum staff, other than those to whom the private message is addressed.The content of Private Messages must not be published on the forum and even not be referred in the thread discussions. Releasing private messages copies on the forum will not be tolerated.

Please do NOT use private messages to request advice or support from our moderators or administrators. First, Psychforums staff simply do not have the time to reply to individual PMs. Second, part of the purpose of the forum is to share problems and solutions with other members. Trying to solicit advice and support via PMs defeats this purpose.

Instead, please post any requests for advice and support in the appropriate forums.

Do NOT try to spam our members via the PM system. This includes sending links to users about any services (e.g. chatrooms). Recruiting users in anyway by PM is forbidden. That will result in an immediate ban.

7. Ownership and Copyright

  1. All original posts and threads posted by members become the property of Psychforums, much like a letter to the editor of a newspaper. Members still retain the copyright to their original content (e.g., they can post the same content on their own web sites or blogs) but have in effect conveyed a license in perpetuity to use that content here at Psychforums. Members can edit their posts for a limited time to correct errors or to clarify the intended meaning. When the time period for editing has elapsed, members may request that a moderator or administrator edit the post for further modification. We do respect the privacy of members and Psychforums will take action to protect that privacy at its discretion. If you have second thoughts or concerns about threads or posts that you have submitted, you may contact an administrator or moderator to have such posts removed. However, the decision as to whether to remove any posts will be made on an individual basis at the discretion of Psychforums.
  2. If you post material from any other source, either from an internet web page or from a source in print, you must give FULL CREDIT including the author´s name, organization if appropriate, and a link to the original source. Otherwise, such posts will be removed.
  3. Note that if you link images from other websites, they might be removed by the moderator in such cases.

There are two reasons for rule #1:

  • First, it means that no one can take the personal posts of Psychforums members and reproduce them without the consent of Psychforums, which in such cases would also mean the consent of the member posting.
  • Additionally, it means that members must understand that they are posting in a public forum, rather like the "Letters to the Editor" portion of a newspaper, and that others can both read and reply to what a member posts. This is, of course, the whole point of an online forum. Sometimes, members will ask that their posts or threads be removed. Only in exceptional circumstances will we honor such requests, particularly where concerns about privacy can be adequately explained. Not that this should not be the case if the basic forum rules have beeb followed. In many cases, to delete posts would disrupt the flow of a thread to the point where the thread would become incomprehensible.

8. Avatars, Profile Pictures and Other Images

All images uploaded to your profile, inserted into posts, or added to your signature must conform to the general Psychforums Rules, must be tasteful, and must be suitable for a family-rated website.
Specifically:

  • No nudity or sexually explicit images
  • No depiction of violence
  • No threatening images
  • No images displaying personal features
  • Avatars depicting Death, Blood, Gore, Vulgar language or Images, Weapons of any kind or that have Sexually Suggestive undertones are not appropriate for this site.

Psychforums reserves the right to remove or edit any images that violate these guidelines or are offensive in nature.

9. New Members: Restrictions on Privileges and Permissions

We have found it necessary to add certain anti-spam measures. First posts are systematically screened by the moderators and new registered user cannot use the blogging functionality straight away.

These restrictions are lifted once a new member has proved to be a member with good intentions, and the removal of such restrictions remains in effect as long as the member remains a member of this forum in good standing.

How soon your restrictions will be lifted is a function of several factors including number of posts, length of time as a member, and whether or not you have received any infractions for breach of forum rules (which can lead to permanent ban or the user´s posts to be systematically screened before being published).

10. Signature Restrictions

  • Signatures should not include links any commercial site (except if you have a formal agreement from the staff).
  • links to online pharmacies, chatrooms, sites claiming non-supported "cures", adult sites, or other sites of questionable value or dubious content which are not in keeping with the rules and principles of Psychforums will lead to permanent ban.
  • Spam in signature links, as in other areas, is not permitted.
  • Signatures are permitted to link to a member's own web site provided it does not violate other forum rules, particularly around maintaining anonymity. You are encouraged to mainly link to personal websites with relevant informational content about mental health. You may not link to chatrooms, other forums, advertise your professional services or products, or link to any other content that is deemed by moderators to violate forum rules. If you are unsure, please ask a moderator.
  • Links must be transparent. Shortened links or links that redirect to another URL are not permitted.
  • Violations of signature rules may result in loss of this privilege or banning from the Forum.
  • Signatures must be in English.

11. Article Restrictions

All posted articles which are not the work of the member posting the article must include full credit including a link to the original source and the full names of all authors at the top of the post. Please abide by specified copyright restrictions and laws of fair use.

By registering on this forum, you agree to abide by the Psychforums Rules.


These rules are subject to change any time without notice.



Remember these boards are for everyone… those with mental illness, their friends, family, caregivers, students and mental health professionals.


Psychforums team