Social Anxiety Support

Drew · 09-27-2010 until 12-07-2025

In addition to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and User Agreement we have adopted rules specifically for the Social Anxiety Support forums. Please keep in mind that these rules are here to ensure the efficiency and enjoyment of the forums with respect to the diverse nature of our community.

The rules below apply to all user-posted content, including, but in no way limited to, posts, chat messages, private messages, visitor messages, links, custom titles, user names, user profiles, photos, avatars, and signatures.

Personal Attacks
Personal attacks on any member of this community will not be tolerated. Any post, which is judged by the moderators to be defamatory, degrading, threatening, humiliating, insulting or hurtful in any way to another member of the community, will be edited or deleted at the moderators' discretion. Antagonizing or demeaning language that isn't necessarily directed at any individual may also be considered unacceptable.

Inappropriate Language
Freedom of expression is encouraged, however the use of terms and language that are broadly acknowledged to be offensive will not be permitted. Language describing illegal or sexual acts or anything else deemed inappropriate by the staff is also not allowed. Posts containing such language will be locked, edited or deleted at the discretion of the moderators. Using any method to avoid the swear filter will result in a warning or further action on subsequent offenses. This includes using asterisks (*) to block out the letters of a word that is obviously a swear word in the context of the sentence.

Spamming
Spamming will not be tolerated, which includes: blatant, excessive or inappropriate promotion or advertising of any product, service, website or board; pyramid schemes or referral games; posting multiple threads; use of multiple accounts; posting threads in the incorrect forum; excessive capital letter use; excessive punctuation use (ie !!!!!); excessively long signatures; and/or any post deemed spam due to irrelevance or nuisance in nature. Links from recently registered accounts will met with more scrutiny. Don't register on our forum to immediately promote your personal or commercial site.

Photos, Pictures and Avatars
The posting of images containing graphic violence, pornography, or otherwise offensive or distressing material is not permitted. The posting of links to such images is not permitted. All photos, pictures or avatars involving a human being, male or female, must submit to the following guidelines. No nudity or see through clothing with nothing on underneath. Posting any pornographic photos will result in an immediate ban.

Links
The content of the websites linked to must loosely meet the standards of Social Anxiety Support. The staff reserves the right to block links to websites that it feels are inappropriate for the users of Social Anxiety Support. Also see Spamming section.

Medication Discussion
You should always see a doctor before starting, changing or stopping any drug treatment. No posts regarding the illegal or improper use of medications will be allowed. Given that the forum is visited by people from all over the world, there will be some drugs that are illegal in the US that aren't in other countries. If the drug discussed meets all these conditions: 1) is legal in the country the members are currently living 2) has been prescribed to the members discussing it and 3) is not being discussed in a manner that is improper or potentially harmful (as determined by us), then we'll usually, but not always, allow the discussion to continue. The decision is up the moderators and staff of Social Anxiety Support and we appreciate your understanding.

Obtaining Medication
Posts that discuss obtaining medication online illegally are not allowed and will be locked, edited or removed. This includes any websites that allow you to purchase a medication without a prescription or claim to provide you with a prescription without requiring that you see a doctor in person. Additionally, asking for advice via post, PM, or email on how to obtain medication illegally, without prescription or without consultation of a doctor is not allowed.

Suicide
If you are currently thinking about harming or killing yourself please seek help immediately.
On the forums, suicide threats and the discussion of suicide is not permitted. On your personal blog, sharing your feelings is fine, but please do not share means or plans of suicide.

Conflicts
If you have any issue or problem with material posted in this forum, or with the behavior of another community member, please email or PM the moderators or the administrator for a confidential discussion of the issue. Please try to settle it ﬁrst without involving the staff.

Who has Social Anxiety
This site is not a competition - it's not about whose particular brand of SA is the worse, who suffers more than whom, or who has the right to call their problems Social Anxiety. The belittlement of others' suffering will not be tolerated.

Multiple Accounts
Only one account is allowed per person. If we find out that an individual is posting under multiple accounts we will either ban all their accounts or leave one account unbanned for them to use, depending on the circumstances.

Username Changes
Please see this thread: http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/...03-11-a-50544/

Moderation of Recovery Forums vs. Debate Forums
We recognize that people come to SAS and visit the variety of forums offered for different reasons. The Recovery forums exist to provide support for people with social anxiety and the rules will continue to be strictly enforced in those forums. The following Discussion and General forums will fall under a looser set of guidelines:
- Society & Culture
- Relationships
- Agnosticism and Atheism
- Science

What exactly does this mean?

It doesn't mean that all the rules are thrown out and it's a free for all. Instead, it means that we won't be watching as closely for "feelings getting hurt".

It doesn't mean that you can call someone "stupid", post things of a sexual nature, or spout racism. Instead, it means that you are allowed to have a heated debate without intervention from moderators unless something is seen as very inappropriate.

This goes both ways and means that you can't report and expect moderators to come intervene if there's someone that you disagree with. Please avoid these forums if you think you will not do well with confrontation.

Controversial threads may be moved to Society & Culture if we feel they no longer belong in a forum that is more strictly moderated.

This above section will be adjusted and more specifics will added to as we see how the community responds to the change. If you have feedback or suggestions at this point, please share it in the board feedback forum or private message Drew.

Violations and Enforcement

In cases of duplicate accounts, porn or register-and-spam, an immediate permanent ban can be issued.
In cases where a new member (under a month) breaks a rule, their post will be edited/deleted/moved/locked and they will be sent a private explaining the specific rule they broke and a request that they read the forum rules.
In cases where a member who's been registered for over a month breaks a rule, their post will be edited/deleted/moved/locked and they will be sent a private message reminding them of the rule and a request that they reread the forum rules.
In cases where a new member (under one month) continues to break rules after asked not to, they can be permanently banned immediately.
In cases where a member who's been registered for over a month continues to break rules after asked not to, then a thread can be created in the mod forum to discuss and vote on how the member should be dealt with (temporary ban, permanent ban, limit their access to some forums, etc.) A permanent ban will be issued only with a simple majority vote and approval from an administrator.
If cases where a member who's been registered for over a month is extremely inappropriate (very vulgar language, really mean personal attacks, porn, etc.), then a temporary ban can be issued and a thread can be created in the mod forum to discuss and vote on how the member should be dealt with (longer temporary ban, permanent ban, limit their access to some forums, etc.) Again, a permanent ban will be issued only with a simple majority vote and approval from an administrator.

Moderation of Social Anxiety Support
The discussion forums are moderated on a daily basis by volunteers. Most of the time there is at least one moderator active on the forums. Often there are multiple moderators active at the same time. The moderators are all non medical professionals. A list of the current volunteer moderators can be found on our “Forum Leaders” page.

All members of Social Anxiety Support are considered non medical professionals by default. No member has had their medical credentials verified, so it should be assumed that each member is a non medical professional.

Privacy and Control of Member Posted Content
Member profiles, photo albums, blogs, eGroups, and chat messages are only visible to registered members. Members can control who their profile is visible to in their account settings.

All discussion forums and posts within them are visible to the public (without registration), except for the forums listed in this thread.

Members are able to edit content they have posted on the discussion forums, unless they’ve been banned (see Violations and Enforcement section above) or the thread they have posted in has been closed or deleted (see all the sections above on what content is and isn’t allowed). Additionally, members are allowed to delete posts they have made so long as it is not the first post in a thread (i.e. a new thread started by the member). When the first post of a thread is deleted, the thread itself is deleted along with all the posts in it. This rule exists because threads can contain posts from many members and it would be unfair and harmful to the community if individual members had the ability to remove the posts of other members (potentially hundreds of posts in a single discussion thread).

Member Posts Containing Health/Medical Information
We request that all members give references/citations when posting health/medical information that is not personal experience (i.e. something that they didn’t undergo themselves). Additionally, members must post information that is true and correct to their knowledge (i.e. it is not allowed to knowingly post false information).

Updates to Rules
08/09/2012 - Changes to what types of medication discussion are and aren't allowed. Please see the section above for details.
02/15/2012 - Added multiple sections for HON compliance:
Moderation of Social Anxiety Support

Privacy and Control of Member Posted Content

Member Posts Containing Health/Medical Information

08/25/2011 - Added link to Suicide section
04/14/2011 - Modified Medication Discussion section
04/07/2011 - Modified Medication Discussion section
03/30/2011 - Added Medication Discussion section
09/28/2010 - Multiple changes:
Addition of Moderation of Recovery Forums vs. Debate Forums section

Addition of stricter spam guidelines for recently registered accounts in Spamming section

Addition of Username Changes section.

Update of Violations and Enforcement section.

Removal of Agenda Pushing section.

Removal of Intolerance section.

Added chat message to list of user-posted content in second paragraph.

Referenced Spamming section from Links section

12/27/2009 - Discussion of legally obtaining medications online is now allowed.
04/1/2009 - Made rule regarding duplicate accounts more prominent.

09-27-2010 until 12-07-2025
Drew Status: Administrator Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Seattle, WA Gender: Male Posts: 3,680	Board Guidelines (Updated 08/09/2012) In addition to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and User Agreement we have adopted rules specifically for the Social Anxiety Support forums. Please keep in mind that these rules are here to ensure the efficiency and enjoyment of the forums with respect to the diverse nature of our community. The rules below apply to all user-posted content, including, but in no way limited to, posts, chat messages, private messages, visitor messages, links, custom titles, user names, user profiles, photos, avatars, and signatures. Personal Attacks Personal attacks on any member of this community will not be tolerated. Any post, which is judged by the moderators to be defamatory, degrading, threatening, humiliating, insulting or hurtful in any way to another member of the community, will be edited or deleted at the moderators' discretion. Antagonizing or demeaning language that isn't necessarily directed at any individual may also be considered unacceptable. Inappropriate Language Freedom of expression is encouraged, however the use of terms and language that are broadly acknowledged to be offensive will not be permitted. Language describing illegal or sexual acts or anything else deemed inappropriate by the staff is also not allowed. Posts containing such language will be locked, edited or deleted at the discretion of the moderators. Using any method to avoid the swear filter will result in a warning or further action on subsequent offenses. This includes using asterisks () to block out the letters of a word that is obviously a swear word in the context of the sentence. Spamming* Spamming will not be tolerated, which includes: blatant, excessive or inappropriate promotion or advertising of any product, service, website or board; pyramid schemes or referral games; posting multiple threads; use of multiple accounts; posting threads in the incorrect forum; excessive capital letter use; excessive punctuation use (ie !!!!!); excessively long signatures; and/or any post deemed spam due to irrelevance or nuisance in nature. Links from recently registered accounts will met with more scrutiny. Don't register on our forum to immediately promote your personal or commercial site. Photos, Pictures and Avatars The posting of images containing graphic violence, pornography, or otherwise offensive or distressing material is not permitted. The posting of links to such images is not permitted. All photos, pictures or avatars involving a human being, male or female, must submit to the following guidelines. No nudity or see through clothing with nothing on underneath. Posting any pornographic photos will result in an immediate ban. Links The content of the websites linked to must loosely meet the standards of Social Anxiety Support. The staff reserves the right to block links to websites that it feels are inappropriate for the users of Social Anxiety Support. Also see Spamming section. Medication Discussion You should always see a doctor before starting, changing or stopping any drug treatment. No posts regarding the illegal or improper use of medications will be allowed. Given that the forum is visited by people from all over the world, there will be some drugs that are illegal in the US that aren't in other countries. If the drug discussed meets all these conditions: 1) is legal in the country the members are currently living 2) has been prescribed to the members discussing it and 3) is not being discussed in a manner that is improper or potentially harmful (as determined by us), then we'll usually, but not always, allow the discussion to continue. The decision is up the moderators and staff of Social Anxiety Support and we appreciate your understanding. Obtaining Medication Posts that discuss obtaining medication online illegally are not allowed and will be locked, edited or removed. This includes any websites that allow you to purchase a medication without a prescription or claim to provide you with a prescription without requiring that you see a doctor in person. Additionally, asking for advice via post, PM, or email on how to obtain medication illegally, without prescription or without consultation of a doctor is not allowed. Suicide If you are currently thinking about harming or killing yourself please seek help immediately. On the forums, suicide threats and the discussion of suicide is not permitted. On your personal blog, sharing your feelings is fine, but please do not share means or plans of suicide. Conflicts If you have any issue or problem with material posted in this forum, or with the behavior of another community member, please email or PM the moderators or the administrator for a confidential discussion of the issue. Please try to settle it ﬁrst without involving the staff. Who has Social Anxiety This site is not a competition - it's not about whose particular brand of SA is the worse, who suffers more than whom, or who has the right to call their problems Social Anxiety. The belittlement of others' suffering will not be tolerated. Multiple Accounts Only one account is allowed per person. If we find out that an individual is posting under multiple accounts we will either ban all their accounts or leave one account unbanned for them to use, depending on the circumstances. Username Changes Please see this thread: http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/...03-11-a-50544/ Moderation of Recovery Forums vs. Debate Forums We recognize that people come to SAS and visit the variety of forums offered for different reasons. The Recovery forums exist to provide support for people with social anxiety and the rules will continue to be strictly enforced in those forums. The following Discussion and General forums will fall under a looser set of guidelines: - Society & Culture - Relationships - Agnosticism and Atheism - Science What exactly does this mean? It doesn't mean that all the rules are thrown out and it's a free for all. Instead, it means that we won't be watching as closely for "feelings getting hurt". It doesn't mean that you can call someone "stupid", post things of a sexual nature, or spout racism. Instead, it means that you are allowed to have a heated debate without intervention from moderators unless something is seen as very inappropriate. This goes both ways and means that you can't report and expect moderators to come intervene if there's someone that you disagree with. Please avoid these forums if you think you will not do well with confrontation. Controversial threads may be moved to Society & Culture if we feel they no longer belong in a forum that is more strictly moderated. This above section will be adjusted and more specifics will added to as we see how the community responds to the change. If you have feedback or suggestions at this point, please share it in the board feedback forum or private message Drew. Violations and Enforcement In cases of duplicate accounts, porn or register-and-spam, an immediate permanent ban can be issued. In cases where a new member (under a month) breaks a rule, their post will be edited/deleted/moved/locked and they will be sent a private explaining the specific rule they broke and a request that they read the forum rules. In cases where a member who's been registered for over a month breaks a rule, their post will be edited/deleted/moved/locked and they will be sent a private message reminding them of the rule and a request that they reread the forum rules. In cases where a new member (under one month) continues to break rules after asked not to, they can be permanently banned immediately. In cases where a member who's been registered for over a month continues to break rules after asked not to, then a thread can be created in the mod forum to discuss and vote on how the member should be dealt with (temporary ban, permanent ban, limit their access to some forums, etc.) A permanent ban will be issued only with a simple majority vote and approval from an administrator. If cases where a member who's been registered for over a month is extremely inappropriate (very vulgar language, really mean personal attacks, porn, etc.), then a temporary ban can be issued and a thread can be created in the mod forum to discuss and vote on how the member should be dealt with (longer temporary ban, permanent ban, limit their access to some forums, etc.) Again, a permanent ban will be issued only with a simple majority vote and approval from an administrator. Moderation of Social Anxiety Support The discussion forums are moderated on a daily basis by volunteers. Most of the time there is at least one moderator active on the forums. Often there are multiple moderators active at the same time. The moderators are all non medical professionals. A list of the current volunteer moderators can be found on our “Forum Leaders” page. All members of Social Anxiety Support are considered non medical professionals by default. No member has had their medical credentials verified, so it should be assumed that each member is a non medical professional. Privacy and Control of Member Posted Content Member profiles, photo albums, blogs, eGroups, and chat messages are only visible to registered members. Members can control who their profile is visible to in their account settings. All discussion forums and posts within them are visible to the public (without registration), except for the forums listed in this thread. Members are able to edit content they have posted on the discussion forums, unless they’ve been banned (see Violations and Enforcement section above) or the thread they have posted in has been closed or deleted (see all the sections above on what content is and isn’t allowed). Additionally, members are allowed to delete posts they have made so long as it is not the first post in a thread (i.e. a new thread started by the member). When the first post of a thread is deleted, the thread itself is deleted along with all the posts in it. This rule exists because threads can contain posts from many members and it would be unfair and harmful to the community if individual members had the ability to remove the posts of other members (potentially hundreds of posts in a single discussion thread). Member Posts Containing Health/Medical Information We request that all members give references/citations when posting health/medical information that is not personal experience (i.e. something that they didn’t undergo themselves). Additionally, members must post information that is true and correct to their knowledge (i.e. it is not allowed to knowingly post false information). Updates to Rules 08/09/2012 - Changes to what types of medication discussion are and aren't allowed. Please see the section above for details. 02/15/2012 - Added multiple sections for HON compliance: Moderation of Social Anxiety Support Privacy and Control of Member Posted Content Member Posts Containing Health/Medical Information 08/25/2011 - Added link to Suicide section 04/14/2011 - Modified Medication Discussion section 04/07/2011 - Modified Medication Discussion section 03/30/2011 - Added Medication Discussion section 09/28/2010 - Multiple changes: Addition of Moderation of Recovery Forums vs. Debate Forums section Addition of stricter spam guidelines for recently registered accounts in Spamming section Addition of Username Changes section. Update of Violations and Enforcement section. Removal of Agenda Pushing section. Removal of Intolerance section. Added chat message to list of user-posted content in second paragraph. Referenced Spamming section from Links section 12/27/2009 - Discussion of legally obtaining medications online is now allowed. 04/1/2009 - Made rule regarding duplicate accounts more prominent.