New Community Guidelines

[Tiffany]

To prevent potential problems I've created and am now enforcing the following Community Guidelines. New members agree to the new guidelines upon account creation.

Existing Members -- Please note, by continuing to post in the alldoulas.com community, you are agreeing to the new Community Guidelines below. If you are an existing member and do not agree with these terms, please send me a PM about having your account removed.

Thanks for helping ensure a supportive community!

alldoulas.com Community Guidelines

Alldoulas – The Doula Megasite is an information and support website for women aspiring to become doulas and those who are already doulas. It is a business resource and support community for women with a similar passion. Our job as doulas is to support women during pregnancy, labor, birth and through the postpartum period. Since we are always giving the support, don’t we need it too? That is the goal of alldoulas.

Our community is housed in a powerful forum software, which is easy to navigate, read and will help you interact with others. To establish and maintain a supportive environment, the administration has created the following guidelines. Those who do not agree with the guidelines should not take part in the community section of our website.

Content of Threads and Posts

General Information
As a member of alldoulas you are agreeing not to post any content (whether it’s your words or other material) that violates any law, is vulgar, abusive, threatening, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, pornographic, invasive of someone’s privacy, defamatory, or copyrighted by someone else.

This community is NOT to be used to post free advertising, solicitations, or self promotion, specifically within the body of a post, PM, your avatar or your signature. This includes soliciting our members to join other community message boards, mailing lists or groups (such as “Yahoo!”). Mention of other groups in conversation is fine, but an effort to recruit to other sites is prohibited.

All decisions of a violation occurring are at the discretion of Alldoula.com staff.

Client Confidentiality and Medical/Legal Advice
Always keep your clients’ confidentiality in mind when posting in our community. Keep details limited and change names unless you have specific permission from your client. Confidentiality is a responsibility of a Doula, even on the internet.

This community is not for giving or seeking medical or legal advice. Only those whose scope involves it MAY give appropriate advice. Alldoulas.com is NOT responsible for problems caused by taking medical or legal advice that may be received here. Never replace the advice of your caregiver with advice received here.

Freedom of Speech / Debates / Disagreements with Staff
Freedom of Speech rights do not apply to this privately owned community. Members of alldoulas.com must follow these Community Guidelines, which members agree to upon sign up. Violating the guidelines may result in membership suspension or permanent lock out.

Debates are welcomed as long as disagreeing with an opinion does not turn into a personal attack and remains constructive and informational.

Disagreeing with alldoulas staff in a public post on the board will not be tolerated. If you have an issue or disagree with a community staff member, including volunteer forum leaders, please take it to PM (private message). Our staff makes decisions and creates policies to maintain the quality and integrity of our community. We realize not everyone can be pleased but we ask that you talk the issues out privately.

Staff Editing, Deleting, Locking and Moving of Posts
The staff at alldoulas.com, including volunteer forum leaders, reserves the right to edit, delete, lock or move any post made by any member that is violating our Community Guidelines or is deemed inappropriate by our staff.

Posts that are causing a problem within the community or are posing potential risk may be locked to allow members to cool down. This is also true for threads that have gone way off topic. Usually a post will be made within the thread warning members of the direction it is taking.

If a thread has been made in the wrong forum, a staff member will move the thread to the appropriate forum and will make an effort to contact the original poster to notify them about the move. If you need a thread moved, please contact a forum leader or administrator.

If you come across a post that is inappropriate or violates our community guidelines, you are advised to report the post to our staff. To report a post, click the red triangle image in the bottom left corner of the post (under the user’s posting information).

Advertising Within the alldoulas.com Community

If you are interested in advertising on the message board, you may do so by purchasing a signature advertising space. For $5 per month (minimum 3 month purchase) you may put a 468x72 pixel (or smaller) graphical banner ad OR text link within your posting signature. The banner ad may NOT be animated.

The only other option for advertising on the message board is static banner ads or text links on the forum home page or within specific forums. For more information about this advertising method or to purchase a signature advertising space, send email to ads@alldoulas.com. If you are found to post an unauthorized ad on the message board, your account will receive a warning and a 3 day suspension. Repeat offenders will have their accounts locked out permanently.

Account Warnings, Suspensions and Permanent Lock Outs

If a member violates our Community Guidelines, they are subject to an account warning, suspension or permanent membership lock out; to be determined by alldoulas staff. In some cases a member account may be suspended or locked out without prior notification. Permanent membership lock outs can only be made by the alldoulas.com Administrator. All decisions of the Administrator are final.

When dealing with posts that are reported by other members, we will make an attempt to contact the original poster and work the issue out with them before issuing warnings or suspensions.

If a member account is permanently locked out, alldoulas.com Staff will remove the signature, avatar, profile information, and any listing made in our Doula Directory by the account. Since our database uses threaded postings, it is our decision to leave or remove posts made by the member account.

Doula Directory Postings

Membership to alldoulas.com is being abused for the purpose of creating a free listing in our Doula Directory. Because of this, it is no longer allowed for a user to sign up for the sole purpose of posting a listing in the directory. We want you to become a part of our growing Doula community! Therefore, to maintain a listing in our Doula directory, you must post a minimum of 5 quality posts (responses) and 1 quality thread (new topic) per month.

Making brief posts with little meaning for the sake of meeting the minimum requirements is prohibited and may result in a warning. Get involved! We want you to become a part of our community and stay active. It is for your benefit since our site houses many valuable resources and is growing daily!<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>