These guidelines ensure that Gestalt stays a positive community. The content on the site may not always be appropriate for people under the age of 18; we ask that parents monitor their children’s participation on the site.
The guidelines of Gestalt are enforced by the site Administrators and Moderators in cooperation with its members.
A WORD OF CAUTION:
While Gestalt is a forum for those with an interest in psychology and autism spectrum conditions, we wish to point out that none of us is a professional in the field. Should you require counseling or advice beyond a friendly discussion or a sympathetic ear, we strongly recommend you to seek professional help. This forum is not a replacement for a trained professional, nor is it intended to become one.
1. Offensive language and comments.
This includes swearing, racist, sexist, homophobic, comments and harassment of any kind, of members or guests of Gestalt, whether on the forums, by PM or any other contact, if the contact was made through Gestalt.
2. Personal attacks.
Verbal attacks on individuals (vs. content of a post). Infractions will be explained to the offender via PM.
Personal attack: A post which is deemed by the moderaters to have been created in the intention to upset a specific member. This includes situations in which the member is not actually called out by name; if the intent is clear, and/or the member can be identified, it is still a personal attack. Some examples include but are not limited to: Making a thread of any kind about a member without their consent, directly insulting a member, name-calling, ridicule, and using abusive language. It will be up to the moderators to decide what is intended as jest and what is intended as insult, but given that this is a forum for people who may take things literally, err on the side of caution when in doubt. No matter how you may have *meant* something, if it is taken as an attack, it will upset the target of your post.
Note: You are allowed to attack a belief or a set of beliefs but not the person who holds this set of beliefs. Once again, it may be wise to err on the side of caution and try to keep your "attack" of a belief in the frame of intelligent criticism, or you will be at the mercy of the cruel and notoriously unfair evil moderators.
3. Incitement.
Inciting other members to, or encouraging them in, violent or aggressive behavior, suicide, racism, sexism, etc., or other behavior prohibited in the guidelines.
4. Bullying.
Posts intended to take advantage of or mislead other members, manipulate them or their feelings in any way are prohibited (this includes “trolling”). This includes jokes which are not identified as such.
5. Other inappropriate content and behavior.
Spamming, publishing of copyrighted material, posts made only to promote a website, group or product, particularly if made without other participation with Gestalt. Pornographic content; sexually/racially etc. demeaning content; images or descriptions of self-harm; images/language intended to disturb or incite are also prohibited.
In the case of posts with inappropriate content, the mods will request via PM that the member edit their post if the content is not time-sensitive. If the member does not respond by doing so within 24 hours of the post time, the post will be edited by the Moderators. Deletions of posts and threads should not happen often but when this does happen, any further post which refers to the deleted post/thread will itself, be considered against the guidelines and removed without warning.
6. Posting links on Gestalt.
Gestalt members should be aware that, while they are held responsible for the content they post in the forum, they will also generally be held responsible for the content of links they choose to post, although some exceptions may apply. This also includes broken links, e.g., "asdgestalt dot com", etc. Any content on linked websites which would break the Gestalt Terms of Service, such as bad-mouthing another Gestalt member offsite, will be considered a breach of our TOS and will suffer the same repercussions as any onsite breaches.
7. A Sidenote on "Good Spamming".
If you are wishing to advertise a website of yours which is somehow relevant to the Gestalt website and its members, please consult the moderators before posting anything. We just want to make sure to separate out the good spam from the bad. Note that we're not promoting an overabundance of spamming but occasional advertisements for certain sites can be beneficial to the forum community.
If you have a question about what constitutes an offense, please ask in the Questions about the TOS thread. We will do our best to answer in a timely fashion.
Content which falls under Personal Attacks, Bullying (harassment), and Incitement in the above section is also considered inappropriate in the case of Private Messages.
If any Gestalt member sends you a PM by which you feel personally attacked, harassed, or offended, contact one of the moderators or administrators via PM and please provide a copy of the offending message(s).
Please note: For anyone who breaches the PM TOS, the offending message will no longer be considered private but will be viewed by the moderating team so that a decision can be made as to how to deal with the situation. The content, however, will remain confidential and will only be used so that a decision can be reached.[/size]
REMINDER: ADVISORIES AND WARNINGS HAVE A THREE-MONTH EXPIRATION PERIOD. AFTER THREE MONTHS, THEY ARE NOT CONSIDERED "ACTIVE".
Members will be notified of each advisory or warning via PM. In the case of a ban, the member will be notified via the e-mail he or she provided at registration to the forum.
Warnings 1-4:
1st Offense- discussion between member and moderator as to why the post or posts were inappropriate to hopefully come to some agreement to try to avoid such content in future. This would normally be at the level of a warning; however, for a first offense, no warning will be given.
2nd Offense- discussion between member and moderator again as to why the post or posts were inappropriate to hopefully come to some agreement to try to avoid such content in future. For this offense, a warning will be given.
3rd Offense- discussion between member and moderator once more as to why the post or posts were inappropriate to hopefully come to some agreement to try to avoid such content in future. For this offense, a warning will also be given.
4th Offense- a two week ban will be issued to the email address the member provided during registration. Gestalt will have an email set up which the moderators will consistently check so that lines of communication can remain open and questions can be answered.
*For lesser offenses, advisories will be given. Every three advisories will equal one warning.
*Advisories and warnings each have a three month expiration period from the date they're issued before they are wiped off the member's slate. If, however, a similar offense occurs before another warning's expiration date (e.g., 1st warning = personal attack and 2nd warning = personal attack) the three month expiration period for the 1st warning will start over, so it will take even longer for it to expire.
*Advisories and warnings are decided by consensus between the Moderators who are available during that time. Sometimes more mods will be available to vote than other times.
*Some behaviors are considered inappropriate enough to warrant an immediate ban. This is rare, and if it does occur, we ask that questions and comments be directed to the moderators via PM. Some good examples of this would be a member who is a predator, hackers, etc.
*Each member will be informed of the specific circumstances of their offense, and have the right to discuss any disagreements with the moderators. This must be done via PM or other venues as decided by the moderators. In some cases we may set up an email address for the member to carry on a discussion with the moderators.
*If you need to inform the Moderators of any infractions, please let them know by PM.
*Each member will be notified via PM once any warning(s) or advisory(ies) has/have expired, so that members can be more aware of where they stand.
After the first ban:
Two more warnings, especially those of a similar offense committed in the past, within the first month will result in the member's immediate ban for a period of one month. If warnings are received, but less than two warnings with in that first month after the member returns from ban, the warnings system will revert back to the four warnings system stated above.
After the second ban:
One warning, especially that of a similar offense committed in the past, within a span of two months after the member returns from ban will result in the member's immediate ban for a period of six months. If the member receives two warnings in the third month of the three-month expiration period, it will result in only a one-month ban.
After the third ban:
Any further warnings will result in a permanent ban.
Any of the above rules may be suspended and an optional approach taken if the administration team deems it absolutely necessary to protect its Gestalt members. Instances such as these will occur very rarely, if ever. But at some point, necessity may arise for a circumvention of the 1-2-3 warnings/ban system of an active member to protect the larger community.
This is the internet. Nothing is confidential. Having said that, members should know that people with access to the database (the administration team) are the only ones who can read private messages. They have agreed not to read them. Therefore we depend on members to alert moderators if inappropriate material is being transmitted via pm. Given evidence of this, we reserve the right to read the PMs of the individual(s) in question, and none others, so that appropriate action may be taken. This may include posting the contents of those PMs in the moderator's forum for discussion.
Gestalt will make it a priority to try not to republish any material posted by its members without their express permission.
For any creative works, such as poetry, art work, etc., these will remain the property of the individual member who originally posted them provided they were original works to begin with. And these will not be republished by Gestalt without the express permission of the owning member.
RANKS:
1 - Spine
10- Medulla Oblongatta
25- Pons
50- Cerebellum
100- Inferior Colliculi
150- Superior Colliculi
200- Basal Ganglia
250- Hypothalamus
300- Thalamus
350- Occipital Lobe
400- Parietal Lobe
450- Temporal Lobe
500- Frontal Lobe
1000- your choice of rank title
As it says, at the member's 1000th post the members may choose their own rank title. Please contact a moderator via PM to let them know what you've decided.
If there's anything about the guidelines you don't understand or think could be made clearer, please post your questions and suggestions on the Questions about the TOS thread in the Pow-Wow Forum.
Whenever a substantial or crucial update is made to the Members' TOS, Gestalt members will be notified in the forums.Last Updated: September 17th, 2009
