Forum Etiquette & Policies

These are here for your quick reference. Please take the time to occasionally take a peek at them, so you know what the social norms of pudendal.info are. Thanks.

Registration Agreement Terms

Hello there. We appreciate your taking the time to register and look forward to meeting you. We have labored very hard to make this website a pleasurable, useful, comfortable place for all to learn, share, and care for each other.

This forum is for discussion of anything related to dealing with
pudendal neuropathy and related conditions.

All social communities involve mutual expectations. We expect you to be cheerful, curteous, helpful, friendly, supportive, honest, kind, and all the wonderful qualities that make this a mighty fine virtual community. If you have trouble doing this occasionally we will understand, because it's probably due to the tremendous frustrations and personality changes chronic pain can cause. Chronic pain can get anyone down.

But if your messages cause undue anguish to others then we will have to take action. This includes gently pointing out where a message was lacking in etiquette, warning you not to do it again, and if necessary removing those people whose posts are causing unacceptable problems. But this is as rare as snow in July.

Our general rules of net etiquette are:

Rule 1: Remember the Human

Rule 2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior online
that you follow in real life

Rule 3: Know where you are in cyberspace

Rule 4: Respect other people's time and bandwidth

Rule 5: Make yourself look good online

Rule 6: Share expert knowledge

Rule 7: Help keep flame wars under control

Rule 8: Respect other people's privacy

Rule 9: Don't abuse your power

Rule 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes

These rules are from the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea.

The people running the site includes the webmaster, administrator, moderators, programmers, editors, office help, contributors to the website content, and so on. It includes anyone helping in any way to run the site. There are a lot of people behind the scenes that you may never hear about who do a terrific, and often thankless, job.

We want you to realize that YOU are responsible if you commit slander or libel or anything else illegal with your messages, and not us, the people running the site. You acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the people running the site (except for posts by these people) and hence the people running the site will not be held liable. To learn more about slander and libel, so you can avoid it and help others avoid it, please see the Wikipedia entry.

Now for a few technical details. The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing our policies. As a user you agree to any information you have entered above being stored in a database. While your information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, the people running this site cannot be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

Protecting Your Privacy

Keep your personal information personal.

Do not post your full name, email address, home address, telephone number, or anything else you want to keep private on the forum, unless you want the world to know about it. If you still want to exchange personal information with another member, you should do so using the private messaging.

This is a public forum. Because the forum is open to anyone to read without registering, search engines will lead people to forum messages. This allows those searching for a solution to their health problems to find us, and perhaps we can help them. By your taking that extra moment to keep your personal information personal, you allow this forum to be open to the public in the fullest sense of the phrase. You are helping to help others. We really appreciate this!

We recommend you use your real first name and a single letter for your last name. This may or may not be the first letter of your last name. This way we are talking to real people with real names, but not revealing our full names. The extra letter solves the problem of five Bills or sixteen Cinderalla's. If your real first name is too unique, try a close non-unique approximation, like Cindy instead of Cinderalla.

We frown on the use of wierd names, such as SkyFy or Criptique or The Prez, because they become masks to hide behind. We need an atmosphere of openess and trust. Many lasting friendships develop here.

Note that some people prefer to use their full name, mention what city they live in, and so on. This is their decision. Also, we have some members that are working in a professional capacity. It would make little sense for them to use a pseudonym.

What if someone asks you for personal information? Posts that request anyone to submit personal information should be viewed with suspicion, unless the requester is a trusted member of the community.

Thanks,

The folks at pudendal.info