Lifesupporters.com Forum Posting Guidelines.

[Duke]

To skip directly to the site rules, please click here.

Lifesupporters.com is a site that is dedicated to giving everyone, regardless of age, a place to come and have a voice. This site serves as a vehicle for anyone to discuss issues important to them and possibly gain insight into how others may have dealt with similar issues. It is also a place where sympathy, understanding and compassion are the order of the day so I ask that you leave your prejudices at the door when posting here.

As we grow the topics are likely to become more sensitive in nature. This is unavoidable when you structure a website to deal with issues such as:

- Abuse
- Peer Pressure
- Pregnancy and Parenting
- Special Needs
- Politics
- Religion

I ask that everyone please be cognizant of the issues and not be judgmental. This will only serve to do harm to a person who needs their voice heard, not ignored. No one likes to have issues important to them watered down so please don't do it. If you have no knowledge on the subject matter being posted, I ask that you kindly move onto the next topic.

Thank you for your understanding. Should you have any questions, comments or concerns on the above, please do not hesitate to contact me at sirapnek@shaw.ca, via Private Message, or you can discuss this with any of our Staff Members.

For specific guidelines, please see below.

Regards,

Ken (aka Duke)
Lifesupporters.com Founder.

[Duke]

This will serve as a temporary guideline to posting any content on this website and will be updated regularly. Once the Guidelines are complete, you will find them added to the Forum FAQ.

Usergroups (New Members): Due to abuse, new members are now placed in a usergroup with imposed limits until such time as the member surpasses 5 forum posts. Specific permissions are as follows:

New users are now broken down into one of two separate usergroups:

1. Registered Member: Members with 5 posts or less (limited forum access).

• Limited Private Message quota (two message maximum): adjusted to avoid Private Message spamming of our members.
• Forum Signatures Prohibited.
• Restricted access to chatbox.
• Unable to post polls (still able to vote in existing polls).
• Unable to post attachments.
• Unable to upload attachments.
• Unable to post events on calendar.

2. Established Member: Members with 5 posts or more (full forum access).

Spam Policy: Spam as viewed at Lifesupporters.com is defined as:
- registering with intent only to market yourself and/or products/services (self promotion).
- continual posting of links to external sites that have nothing in common with the theme of Lifesupporters.com.
- racial, pornographic, gender biased, and other hate related content.
(all the above are governed by our "Official Policing Policy" (coming soon) and could result in account, user ID, known IP, Network-wide user ban. Joking around in appropriate forums/topics is not only welcomed, it's encouraged!

Member Bashing/Arguing and Debate: Members are freely allowed to relate to their fellow members as they see fit. When one member has a problem with the way their being addressed is where the problems lie. Should a concern be raised, we ask that the member creating the issue kindly refrain from the activity. I firmly believe the members here are the lifeblood of our community so I will not tolerate members making members uncomfortable. I take member bashing extremely seriously and should you be deemed a Sh1t Disturber, you're gone. This is one of the precious few examples of where you waive your rights as a member of this site.
In other words, treat people as you would like to be treated. If your kind then they will be kind, if your mean then your banned.

Advice/Suggestions: The comments posted in response to specific issues on this board are of an opinion based nature and at no time should be taken in place of professional help. This forum is here to give you a vehicle to voice your issues to a sympathetic and understanding audience only, not to offer online psychiatry.

Terms and Conditions: It is assumed that once these guidelines are agreed upon and in place, all registered members will be aware of them. They will be added to the Forum FAQ and the registration/sign up page as seperate Site (perhaps Network) rules.

Comment Property: Lifesupporters.com will not be held responsible for comments posted by guests and/or members. Such comments will remain the property of the person who posted them for which Lifesupporters is not liable.

Staff rulings/decisions: I truly believe we have a very fair and open-minded staff here. Unlike many sites online, I have not endeavored to stack our staff team with a bunch of "drinking buddies" but with people who have shown (over time) their commitment to fellow members, this site, and the network in general. In other words, these people were not simply handed their positions, they earned them by gaining my respect.

We do our best to keep this site running in a manner that is casual, friendly, amiable, and easy to post in. Should a situation ever arise in our forums where staff intervention is necessary, you can be assured that the action taken was done so based off of committee ruling instead of individual. We staff here as a team and as such, all major decisions are put to a vote prior to action being taken. This ensures that no one member has total autonomy onsite and gets away with forum murder as is seen on many other sites. This is not to say that we are infallible so if you see something that you feel is inappropriate, please contact one of our staff members and we'll be sure to discuss it.

Please understand though, staff will sometimes be forced to make quick decisions on how to properly deal with a situation on a moments notice so their decisions are final. If you have issue with what action was taken, please contact a staff member via our Private Messaging System or you can contact myself (Duke) directly via PM or e-mail. Arguing a staff decision in an open forum or creating an identical thread to pro-long the issue is strictly, not tolerated and may lead to a one week ban from this site and all others in the Network with no notice given.

Thank you for your cooperation.

[Duke]

Much more to come.

Updated to add staff rulings, June 9, 2006.

[Duke]

Updated Staff Rulings.

Feb 16, 2007

[Duke]

updated New Usergroup and relevant info.