[Paul]

Hi all,

As promised, and slightly late, we have just published the first revision of our Community Guidelines. We've added a link to the navigation bar at the top of the forum pages.

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/guidelines/

Feel free to let us know if you think we've left anything out or unclear. We hope to end up with an easy reference for both participants and moderators as we continue to grow and evolve.

Best wishes,
Paul

[dyermaker]

First, I want to say thank you, for expelling time and effort on this. I do have some comments.

we encourage that all posters voice their opinions while refraining from criticizing the viewpoints of other participants.

I think a criticism of viewpoints is often neccessary--it's impossible to debate something without acknowleding and responding to their arguments. If we refrain from attacking the viewer, can we still attack the viewpoint?

As a global community, it is important to recognize that not all participants are native speakers of English, nor are they all acquainted with colloquialisms popular in your particular area of the world. We expect that our community participants use language that not only reflects proper terminology, but that is in no way vulgar, profane, obscene, pornographic, demeaning, or pejorative to the subject being described or those contributing to the discussion. This is especially important to remember when dealing with sexual health issues.

Does this mean Dave is forbidden?

Discussions occurring on the public forum are to be inclusive of all participants and should not be of a private nature between a small, select group of people.

What if we're soliciting an esoteric discussion, not neccessarily inclusive by name, but certainly by qualifications--for example, "To the virgins: Are you afraid of diseases?"

For your own protection and the privacy and security of all of our guests, personal or personally identifiable information such as the following may not be included within submissions to the forum:

URLs of images or files hosted on external, third party servers

What if it's not hosted on personal webspace--like something you found at MSNBC.COM or something?

[Paul]

Originally posted by dyermaker
First, I want to say thank you, for expelling time and effort on this. I do have some comments.

You're welcome! Glad to hear them.

I think a criticism of viewpoints is often neccessary--it's impossible to debate something without acknowleding and responding to their arguments.

A completely valid point. It appears that this was written incorrectly. I've updated it to now read:

...we encourage all to voice their own opinions while refraining from criticizing other participants for the perspective they hold.

If we refrain from attacking the viewer, can we still attack the viewpoint?

"Attack" is a rather strong word and doesn't exactly connote civil and respectable discourse, now does it? Debating a topic or issue in a non-confrontational manner is always preferred.

Does this mean Dave is forbidden?

We do not discuss individual users on the site.

What if we're soliciting an esoteric discussion, not neccessarily inclusive by name, but certainly by qualifications--for example, "To the virgins: Are you afraid of diseases?"

A discussion about virgins and sexually transmitted diseases could hardly be considered of a "private nature." I see what you're getting at though. Perhaps you'd care to offer a suggested clarification?

What if it's not hosted on personal webspace--like something you found at MSNBC.COM or something?

This is covered by the external links portion of the guidelines. I've removed it from the list entirely and added some supplementary text to that area to be more specific.

Thanks for the comments!

Best wishes,
Paul

[Darkangelism]

The attacks section seems stricter then what was allowed before.

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by Paul
We do not discuss individual users on the site.

Does this mean comedic, untintelligible posts of a comedic, yet vaguely and suggestively sexual manner are prohibited?

[moimeme]

Nice work! Beautifully written and crystal clear on most of the do's and don't's. One thing, though, Paul. You ask that citations

provide empirical data relevant to the thread of discussion, be sponsored by an accredited educational institution, or link to a peer-reviewed publication

This seems excessively limiting, given the vast numbers of credible information sources on the Web, including major news organizations, national and international organizations, government, etc. etc. etc. I can rustle up a link to guidelines on figuring out whether a source is credible, if you like, but to restrict citations to only those from educational institutions or peer-reviewed publications would seriously limit the amount of perfectly credible and useful information that could be posted to assist people in need.

Some articles which have been posted, such as the one on romantic and companionate love, are from independent writers whose ideas are used to promote

participation in self-discovery and responsibility, and ... collaboration between community participants on romantic and platonic interpersonal relationship issues

.

Any chance for a reword of the citation restrictions?

best,
Merry