[squirrelspit]

THESE RULES APPLY TO THE FORUMS, CHAT, PRIVATE MESSAGES, JOURNALS AND ANY CONTENT POSTED ON THE MAIN SITE.


GENERAL POSTING RULES


Please do not encourage self-harm in any way or express anything that could be taken as glamorising any form of self-harm, including excessive alcohol consumption and drug usage.

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For example : "go cut yourself", "cutting is cool", "let's all get pissed"

Please do not share any information on methods to self-harm or any tips, including the best ways/places to self-harm.

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Discussion of techniques that people have not yet heard of encourages them to then go and try them and must be avoided at all times. Information on scar reduction and preventing / reducing the risk of infection, however, are very much allowed and encouraged.

For example : "I find it works best when I do ...", "If you cut yourself on your XXX then even your doctor wouldnt see it" , “If I took X amount of pills – would it kill me?”.

Please do not make suicide threats or 'goodbye notes'.

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While this might seem harsh, suicide threats are extremely unfair on a website full of caring people who have no way of helping you, no way of knowing you're safe and no way of letting anyone know. Of course, people will express their doubts about life and living, but goodbye threats cannot be permitted; it is much more beneficial to ask for support before you get to that stage, since a true 'goodbye note' wouldn't be looking for response anyway. This also applies to any threats made regarding any way to harm oneself.
For example : "this is my last post ever, by the time you read this I will be gone", "pills are gone ... feeling really sleepy ... cant do it anymore ... sorry."

Please do not make any comments that involve any level of discrimination, racism or sexism;

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including personal views, jokes, stereotyping of any specific group, derogatory slang language & terminology, and comments about race, gender, social class or sexual orientation that may be offensive.

For example : "that’s gay!", "... nigger", "what did the blond say to the ...", "so typical for a woman!", "I hate Chavs!" ... etc

Please do not make any comments that are sexually graphic or that could make others uncomfortable.

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This includes member's 'cybering', sharing information or discussion that is, essentially, pornographic or offensive. Also, you will not make sexually graphic comments that could make other members uncomfortable or that would be unsuitable for a minor to see. Images and links containing such material are also not allowed. However, some level of slack will be given to those members seeking support for sexual assaults or advice for sexually related problems, but please choose your words carefully and, when using the forum, use the correct labelling.

RYL takes the matter of members talking sexually to other members who might be under age, on RYL, or on any other instant messaging service, very seriously indeed. All IP addresses, and therefore internet companies and locations, are recorded at all times on RYL, and there will be no hesitation whatsoever in contacting the police, or any other authorities, on any member found to have spoken sexually to, or webcamed (involving anything sexual at all) with any other RYL member who is found to be underage. Those who break laws of sexual contact or exposure involving underage members, will be dealt with by the police, and not by moderators - this includes sharing any images of a sexual nature of anyone, member or not, that is under sixteen on the boards or in chat.

Please do not share anything that discusses, encourages or condones illegal activity.

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Discussion of anything that is against the law in your country is prohibited. Topics such as fake ID cards, underage drinking, smoking and drugs will not be tolerated and will be removed. It is, however, acceptable to ask for support and advice on how to stop these behaviours if you have a problem with illegal activity, such as shop lifting or drug abuse.
For example : "do you know how I can lie convincingly to buy cigarettes?", "does anyone know where I could get drugs?", "Stealing from XXX is so easy - their security system is terrible!"

Please do not share any images or videos that go against any of the terms and conditions of posting.

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This includes images / videos of ANY injuries, including self harm, open wounds, bruising, broken bones, and burns. Triggering content such as blood, SI 'tools' or suicide scenes are also prohibited, as is the posting of an image or video that automatically links to other images/videos that breach these conditions (eg - some You Tube videos). In addition to this, you will not share any images or videos that could encourage eating disorders, or any image deemed to be 'thinspiration'.

For example : "look at my new scar : ", "this picture is a bit racist but damn funny - take a look :" pictures/avatars/signatures/videos containing pictures of blood, open wounds, suicide or 'tools/blades'.

Please do not share any links to content deemed unsuitable on RYL, or to images / websites / videos / content that break the terms and conditions in any way.

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This includes naming or linking to any pro-ED, pro-self-harm, or pro-drug taking sites; any site that encourages self-harm in any way; or any sites that contain images that could trigger or upset. Requesting information about pirated software, or any other form of illegal activity is also prohibited, and this includes links to resources or websites that contain such information. Links where the poster gains from visitors, such as a link to an Ebay auction are also not permitted.

For example : "this site is pro' - what do you think?", "this is me at my thinnest - we're not allowed to post pics like this, so here's the link", "do you know where I can get PhotoShop for free?"

Please do not 'flame' any other RYL member publicly, and keep all arguments and criticism to private messaging (PM), if at all.

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Abusive comments, threats, bullying and stalking are prohibited, both publicly (on the forums / in chat) AND privately (via PMs). This includes making mean and/or sarcastic comments that are obviously offensive or insulting in their intent (judged at the discretion of the Moderation Team). Please only make complaints, suggestions and comments about the site in the Forum and Community Questions forum, and nowhere else. All comments, suggestions and complaints about staff must be directed to the RYL webmaster (Harley) and not posted on the forums.

For example : "that was a dumb thing to say", "God, you're stupid - just shut up and go away", "X is a cow, she did this", "the mods and the rules at RYL are so unfair!"

Please do not share political discussion or views, including images that mock / judge political figures / powers.

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Views on war and comments on any political situation is also not permitted. RYL is a self-harm support site, not a debating ground - we are all on the same side, and time has shown that heated political debates only cause undue tension, arguments, and division within the community. Limited discussion of political issues is allowed in general chat and general forums only and must not decend into arguments, or Mods will step in.
For example : "President X is an idiot", "the war in X is a joke", "did you hear the conspiracy theory about the recent X".

Please do not make comments or post images that overly push any religious belief (or lack thereof) onto any other members, or make any religious comments that could be offensive to others.

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It is not fair to judge and discredit others' beliefs - whatever they may be. If you see a religious comment and disagree, please just turn away and refrain from responding.

For example : "X will save you from self-harm!", "Your God sucks", "how can you believe all that? I don't"

Please do not spam links or content that are not relevant to RYL without first clearing it with the RYL webmaster (Harley) or a moderator.

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Only sites that are relevant to support, advice, information or distraction may be posted, all other websites need to be cleared by Harley or a moderator. No links will be permitted on RYL if it is felt the member benefits from the link in any way, i.e. affiliate links, links to websites where someone wants more traffic / staff for their new self-harm community or threads selling things, before specifically clearing it with the RYL webmaster (Harley) or a moderator first.

You can always add a new link to the RYL Main Site Recommended links, and then share it with other members via forum / chat, that connects people to the Main Site link. Any content on RYL may be freely linked to of course, as can any of the RYL Main Site recommended websites and resources, or any of the webpages within that content.

Also, please be careful how your posting habits on the forums may effect other members of the community who are also in need of support. Members who tend to post multiple new threads in the one forum, can inadvertently cause other members' threads to be pushed off the first page of that forum, leading to these threads being overlooked by others. If you are in need of continued support over a number of days, it is more considerate of other members to update one of your existing threads, rather than posting a completely new thread.

For example : "add three inches instantly - for free, online!", "I really recommend X.com, I go there lots", "I've just started a new support community but we have no members, so I thought I would let people know about it".

Please do not approach RYL members in search for participants in any documentaries, research projects and/or surveys without first obtaining the official permission from an RYL moderator or the RYL webmaster.

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While we do understand the value of RYL members contributing towards making sure that accurate information gets recorded regarding self harm and related issues, allowing too many of these research requests to be posted on RYL could run the risk of distracting members of this community from its main focus, which is as a self harm support community. Therefore, the RYL moderators and webmaster must review all research requests before they are posted on any of the RYL forums or chatrooms. Any posted request for participants in a research project or survey that has not received official permission to be posted at RYL, will be removed.

Please do not make anti-RYL or RYL complaints on the public boards except for Forum and Community Questions.

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This includes all other areas of RYL - ie - live chat, live assistance and the forums.

In a community of this size, sometimes things will go wrong, however publically expressing negative and unhelpful comments about how a moderator, a member, or a certain RYL feature has failed you, only creates unrest. At RYL, we ALL have the responsibility for maintaining a stable and supportive atmosphere. None of the RYL staff are paid for their services, nor do they have the responsibility to try to fix every single problem in such a large community, although the moderators, the rest of the RYL staff, and the RYL webmaster are constantly trying to do so anyway!

If something is wrong, TELL US, via private messaging (PM'ing) a moderator (see Moderators List), private messaging the RYL webmaster (Harley), or filling in a contact form, and it can be sorted - making public comments about it is not the right way. If you have a comment or suggestion on something that could be improved and want community feedback, the Forum and Community Questions forum is the right place to go, however only constructive criticism, ideas and suggestions are welcome, and on the Forum and Community Questions forum ONLY.

As far as member rule breaches and penalties are concerned, a moderator's decision is FINAL. Members are not permitted to publically comment (eg - on the forums, in RYL journals, or in the chatrooms) on any penalties or action taken by a moderator, and all official communication between a moderator and member is to remain confidential.

If you do have any concerns, complaints, or questions regarding the action taken against you by a moderator, you can privately (via a Private Message or email) lodge a complaint with the moderator concerned, or contact the Head Moderators (Shambles - Head Forum Moderator or Griddlebone - Head Chat Moderator) or the RYL webmaster, Harley at harley@recoveryourlife.com.

Also, creating or joining other websites that copy, mirror, rip off or slag off RYL is not permitted. RYL members are 100% free, of course, to join as many other sites as they want, to come and go as they wish, but, as the supportive family that we try to be, members who join in on anti-RYL discussions on websites started by ex-members, for example, do not deserve the continuance of their membership at RYL.

For example : "I'm leaving RYL - I hate this place because nobody cares about me", "I've been banned from RYL but I've started up my own site to take the rip, who wants to join me?", "I just got 7 infraction points - what a joke!"

Lying is also prohibited.

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Members who pretend to be a person/people other than themselves, or who make up events to gain support and sympathy for themselves, are being very unfair on everyone else - nothing hurts more. Therefore, we will act harshly upon anyone who is discovered to be toying with other people's emotions, by speaking about fictional experiences, events or information about themselves. This also means that you must not impersonate any other members - past, present, banned or not. Deliberately using another members name, and certainly pretending to be them, will result in prompt action to be taken. Protecting and helping to hide the identity of people who are currently banned from RYL, is also very detrimental for the website. If you know about a banned member who is finding a way to sneak onto RYL, and if you fail to pass this information onto a moderator or the RYL webmaster (Harley), then YOU will be facing serious penalties. We are a community and we must all play fair. Banned members are also prohibited from going to RYL meets, and those members who supply banned members with details of meets are setting themselves up for a similar fate.

For example: a member lying about a friend's suicide to get sympathy for themselves; a member pretending to be their friend / relative and making lies up about themselves and how ill they are

Talking in languages other than English, for any reason other than expression, is also prohibited. This includes the excessive use of 'text speak'.

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For example : "y do ppl tlk lyk dis n txt spk? i h8 it dun mk no snse 2 ny1".

Please refrain from all forms of emotional blackmail at all times.

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Members at RYL are willing to help and offer all of the support and advice that they possibly can at all times, and so resorting to emotionally blackmailing them, either through making threats to hurt yourself or suggesting in any way that they are the reason you intend to / have hurt yourself, cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. It is always much better to be frank and honest about the support you need and, not only am I sure you will find it much more productive, it is likely to go down much better with the community.

For example: "if you don't do X, I am going to cut / burn myself", " because you said such and such, I am going to commit suicide."

Please refrain from deliberately disrupting / 'hijacking' other peoples' posts.

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This includes deliberately, maliciously or insistently going out of your way to detract attention from the main topic of a post that has been made; this may seem over-zealous, but 'hijacking' a thread can be very upsetting to members, especially when the thread took courage to post, or took a long time to write.

Finally - you must not be generally offensive, unpleasant, argumentative, rude, abusive or bullying.

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Ganging up on members, driving them out of chat or off threads, or just being angry and mean to anyone on RYL without good reason, is very damaging to the stability of support and recovery within the community and must be avoided at all times. If there is a member that you find difficult to tolerate for whatever reason, it is your responsibility to keep yourself safe and take measures to avoid losing your temper - please refrain from retaliating, and use the ignore features where needed.

For example "Nobody likes you, you do nothing but whine - just go away", "ha ha - What a n00b!" "Oh - the **** is back", "Your opinion is not wanted - go away".

POSTS RELATING TO EATING BEHAVIOURS/WEIGHT ETC.

1. There is a complete BAN on all numbers.

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No numbers that refer to eating disordered behaviour or body size/shape will be allowed. This includes BMI, Weight, Calories, as well as numbers such as amount of purges, binges, laxatives taken, or days fasted.

The number aspect is only a small part of what an eating disorder is, and to move the board into a more positive spectrum of the disorder, we want to take the emphasis off numbers, and on to emotion.

Whilst numbers are no longer allowed, word categories are.
For example:
* "my weight is alot less than what is "average" for my height""
* "my BMI is considered underweight"
* "I ate heaps more than what is recommened for a daily requirement for someone my age, sex, and height"
* "I purged several times today"
* "i took alot more laxatives than what it says on the box/container" "

2. Any Pro/borderline/questionable avatars will be removed.

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This includes avatars that contain: body shots, 'thinspirational' images, images that emphasize a person's thin physique, and well-known 'thinspirational' celebrities.
We have already been working on this, but will from now be taking a tougher approach, and will be penalising people who repeatedly break this rule.

3. Food lists are now completely banned.

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Any list of food you have eaten, or are planning to eat, is NOT to be posted. This includes discussing any plans to go on a strict diet, or details of binges. This will apply to ALL forums, including the ED board, the ranting and Venting forum and RYL Journals.

The ONLY exemption to this rule is posting a meal plan set by your doctor or a qualified health professional e.g. a dietician. or posting a one-off positive announcement of foods eaten as a celebration of an important recovery-based milestone that has been achieved.

4. Trigger labels.

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As you will have noticed the trigger labels have all been removed apart from the *positive recovery post* label. These posts are to have NO TRIGGERING CONTENT WHATSOEVER. These are to be used, ideally, when an ED member achieves something on the road to recovery, no matter how big or small. We are no longer using any other trigger labels in this board, so please do not write in your own as they will be removed by the moderators. The trigger labels have been changed across RYL and this thread explains more.

IMAGE POSTING RULES

What NOT to Post on this forum

* Any post where support or advice is needed - please use one of the forums in the Open Topic Support forums, or the Specific Support, Advice and Recovery forums.

* Any thinspirational or 'pro ED' pictures, or any picture where someone is posed in such a way to emphasize or exaggerate body thinness.

* Any pictures that deliberately show off any wounds, cuts, scars or injuries ..... but photos that are posted for any other purpose, where a person's scars may be unintentionally visible in the picture, ARE permitted, as long as they are appropriately labelled as 'scars visible'.

* Any pictures of people who have not given their permission for their photos to be posted on RYL.

* Pictures of people in their underwear, or where any private body parts (genitals, buttocks and breasts) are visible.

* Pictures of yourself or other people in bikinis, or any other swimwear, where the main emphasis and focus of the photo is on the person's body.

By allowing members to post pictures of themelves in swimwear and/or revealing clothes, the RYL administration believes that this would increase the risk of RYL attracting an unsavoury element of people to RYL. Therefore to keep this website as safe as possible from those people who join RYL just to leer and ogle over certain pictures, swimwear photos are not permitted.

* Pictures of anyone engaged in illegal activity.

* Self-depreciating comments regarding weight (as these can be triggering and upsetting for other members, especially those suffering an eating disorder)

all full length body shots must contain the person's face.
This is to ensure the emphasis is not on the person's body. However, if you want to just take a picture of, say, your shoes, you need not try and contort yourself to put your face in it.

If you do not want to include your face when showing clothes then we suggest taking a picture of the clothes on a hanger or laid out on the floor etc.

RULES REGARDING SIGNATURES

1. "Last OD/SI/ED" date signatures are no longer permitted on RYL under ANY conditions.

This includes a ban on ALL different types of "last" signatures - eg - last SI, cut, purge, binge, suicide attempt, burn, hospitalisation etc etc.

This includes a ban on "last" signatures, regardless of whether they are written in a "Hide box", in white text, or with a trigger warning.

This is due to the fact that alot of members find that these "last SI/OD" sigs are triggering, and also not very recovery orientated ... and members' signatures can be seen all over the RYL forums (even in non-triggering forums).


2. Having a date in your signature that is worded so that it is more "recovery-orientated", is also no longer permitted.

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This includes not allowing dates in signatures such as -

"In recovery from self harm since - 23/05/2008"
"10 days self harm free!"

The moderators have discussed this, and while we do like to encourage members in their recovery from self harm, we just think that determining what is and isnt "recovery-orientated" in terns of these dates in signatures, is just going to be too much of a grey area and open to interpretation.

In addition, these "recovery-orientated" signatures could be just as triggering to members as the "last OD/SI" sigs, especially if the member is still self harming frequently, and with the signature date reflecting this.

4. Having a date in your signature, without adding any text, will be permitted.

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A date in a member's signature could mean absolutely anything ... and as long as there are no words or any other elaborations around the date, we dont see any reason to ban ALL dates from members' signatures.

If you have any questions, please pm a Forum Moderator (The guys whos names appear in Red).

The above rules exist for the safety of our members, and are very strictly upheld by both the chat and moderating team. We rely on you to help us out though, if you see any post that you think is breaking the rules, you can report it by pressing the 'report' button that will be at the bottom of the post, to the left.

If you fail to comply with the rules set out, you will be issued with a warning and/or points from the moderating team as detailed below.

Every infraction point given has a lifetime of 1 week. It is therefore a very fair system and only those really pushing the community will receive a ban. You can work off any points you have received as time passes, and Moderators can reverse infractions given if an appeal is asked for.


Deliberately encouraging self-harm: 3
Glamorising self-injury: 2
Glamorising / encouraging alcohol/drugs: 2
Tip-sharing (chemicals, methods of self-injury): 3
Tip-sharing (tools, places to self-injure etc.): 2
Discrimination (racism, sexism etc.) where unintentional: 1
Discrimination (racism, sexism etc.) where intentional: 4
Cybering / pornographic conversations: 5
Links to sexual content: 3
Sexual conversation with underage members: 9
Sexual exposure to / contact with underage members: 25
Discussion regarding minor illegal activity (i.e. copying music, illegal downloads etc.): 1
Discussion regarding major illegal activity (i.e. drug taking, underage drinking etc.): 2
Posting "Thinspiration": 4
Posting images of self-injury (intentional): 4
Posting images of self-injury (unintentional; i.e. open wounds / blood etc. on members): 1
Posting images of a pornographic nature: 7
Links to pro-eating disorder / self-injury websites: 3
Intentional flaming, i.e. where the member has gone out of their way to upset another person: 7
Unintentional flaming, i.e. mean sarcasm: 4
Public complaints about RYL (that haven't been taken to Harley previously): 4
Political discussion: 1
Religious discussion: 1
Offensive religious comments (anti- / pro-): 4
Links to other self-harm support sites: 1
Links / spam to advertise / beneficial / personal gain reasons: 3
Anti-RYL - i.e. I hate RYL / the moderators so much - posts: 4
Creating websites that slag off RYL: 12
Joining websites that slag off RYL: 9
Deliberately offensive / unpleasant / bullying remarks - very serious offence: 6
Talking in other languages / excessive use of "text speak": 1
Deliberate thread disruption / hijacking:5
Lying: 6
Emotional Blackmail:5
Being deliberately rude, sarcastic and / or argumentative: 5
Using other members' names / pretending to be another member: 5
Protecting banned members: 5
Providing banned members with meet information and such: 9

If you reach a certain number of points, you are instantly auto banned - and this time scale is not affected by the lifetime of your points. Here is how the levels work :

9 points is a twenty-four-hour ban
12 is a three day ban
15 is a week ban
20 is a month ban
25 is a year ban.





Thank you.