TERMS OF SERVICE - PLEASE READ
You agree, through your use of this service, not to impersonate any other person or entity, whether actual or fictitious. That means No "Dr." in your member name, or do you agree not to have more than one member account. Multiple accounts on Depression forums are not permitted. Any member found to have more than one account will be suspended. Suspended members found creating additional accounts will be banned.
Since English is the main language of this Website, we post in English. We do expect our members to do the same out of courtesy to everyone, as English is the only language acceptable on these Forums. Thank you.
You agree that you will not use these Forums to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of another member's privacy.
"We reserve the right to inform the authorities of any inappropriate posts that threaten another person" or otherwise is in violation of any law. Any such violation is cause for suspension and or banning.
Members who register with an inappropriate or triggering moniker, (member name), shall immediately have their name changed or be deleted from our member database.
Please, do not use a user name that you have used elsewhere so you can protect your Anonymity.
Use a unique name just for this website. It will insure your safety.
Posts in DF are visible to everyone on the net and if you decide to use your real name, you do so at your own risk.
Your member name could possibly become a danger for you if you wish to be unknown, anywhere on the internet just by a simple search.
Please note that posts made on the public forums at Depression Forums are indexed by the major search engines including Google, Yahoo, MSN and many others. If you are unsure which forums are public and therefore visible to the search engines, please consult an Administrator for advice
Do not add any personal information about yourself in your Signatures or posts, such as your e-mails or phone numbers as this is for your own safety.
Your Log in name should not be named after drugs nor drink.
Please try not use your personal photo AS YOUR AVATAR. This is for your own Internet safety. You can post personal pictures in DF's gallery.
Your Avatar must be at least PG or PG13 rated for these forums as we are a member of the HONcode on the net and we have the right to remove any Avatar that we deem inappropriate for these forums.
If you do decide to use your personal picture, you do so at your own risk, as it will be all over the internet in a nano second along with your posts and member name. You have been warned.
You may not state in your member name, (Dr.), profile, signature or post that you are a professional in the field of Mental Health or health care in general as we are peer to peer forums and do not give out professional advice. That is for your personal physician to do. Unless you can provide credentials to us and get our permission to do so, you many not put this information in your posts, moniker, (user name), nor in your signature.
Posting another members personal details, photos or web site details is forbidden and will result in being banned. Excessive, aggressive posts against other members, moderators and admin; or flaming will not be tolerated.
'Flaming', Inciting, or "Bashing" is best defined as posting or responding to a message in a way clearly intended to incite useless arguments, rants, and/or for launching personal attacks, insulting, being hateful, useless criticism, name calling, swearing and other bad behavior. We do not have the right to judge another member. We are all equal and share the commonality of depression and mental illness..
Please do not bring your issues with maligning Doctors, yours or anyone else's, any Medications or Pharmaceutical Companies or other message boards here. We are all here to learn to heal from and cope with Depression.
Dragging your personal issues through the mud is not helpful to members healing nor productive to our mission here as well as hijacking another member's topic or any comments meant to incite anger, which may be cause for your immediate suspension and possible banning.
You should be aware that the Moderators and Administrators are the life blood of these Forums. Without this volunteer staff, these Forums will cease to exist. It is in violation of the TOS to abuse the staff that works so hard to offer this free site to you.
Moderators have the express authority and the right to manage their assigned rooms and edit improper topics and posts in a manner that they feel is in the best interest of these Forums and the entire membership. Should you have a problem with a moderator that you cannot work out PRIVATELY, please send a PM to Forum Admin and we will investigate the matter.
Public posts directed at the staff, for the entire membership to read, whether it is of a technical or personal nature, start unnecessary incidents which may become quite disruptive and can be upsetting to the membership. It should be clearly understood that we expect you to give us an opportunity to handle these matters off of the public board.
Administrators at their sole discretion, will ban or put a formal warning on members from having further access to this site when it is deemed that violations of our terms of service (TOS) have taken place.
Responding to a message in a way clearly intended to incite useless arguments and launching personal attacks to the Administration, will cause our decision to Ban you from these Forums for obvious reasons and for the safety of our members.
You alone are responsible for the content of your posts or responses to personal messages to Administrators and Moderators.
FURTHER CLARIFICATION
It is further agreed to and understood that the Administrators and Moderators, at their sole discretion, can and will suspend or submit a formal warning on members from having further access to this site when it is deemed that violations of our terms of service (TOS) have taken place.
Such violations will include any and all actions that have a clear intent to disrupt, interfere and incite other members. The ability for all members to come here expecting a safe and comfortable environment to seek help, support and information will always be paramount in our decision. We will do everything in our power to defend the integrity of this site against abuse and inappropriate posts.
Willful and intentional actions to cause harm, destroy trust, inflict damage and destruction to the smooth operation of this site will be grounds for immediate termination. This includes inflammatory posts AND the use of our private messaging system as a tool to send malicious or otherwise upsetting messages to the general membership. Private messages are an integral part of our system and the rules governing the use of our PM facility are expressly part of the terms of service agreement.
It is agreed to and understood that the Administrators and Moderators have a responsibility to protect this site from intentional or otherwise unintentional inflicted harm. At their sole discretion, any active member deemed to be using this site with no other obvious intention or purpose other than to disrupt our operation will have their rights to this site terminated. It is in the best interest of this forum and all of its members that we take any and all necessary steps to protect this site from malicious acts and damaging actions.
You alone are responsible for the content of your messages, and the consequences of any such messages. Recommending any Pharmacy on the Internet for medications without a prescription and/or disseminating misleading information about medications could have dangerous results or could actually delay someone from seeking the proper medical attention that they need.
Administrators reserve the right to terminate your registration/membership if they become aware and determine, in its sole discretion, that you are violating any of the Terms of Service or the following guidelines.
No one shall conduct any type of research on Depression Forums Incorporated for the purpose of publication or to fulfill educational requirements for an educational institution. (For instance, a Master's thesis or college research paper). Personal research for ones own use is permitted.
We are a peer to peer Forums. A member may not give out particular medical advice that seems as if it is of a 'professional opinion', (Member's must seek out their own Physicians' Professional Medical Opinion), as the medical advice of a member on DF is not a substitute for a professional Physician and it shall be deleted and a warning will be issued.
You may not post to Depression Forums, copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, commercially exploit or otherwise transfer any material subject to any Rights, the burden of determining that any information, software, images or any other content on the DF that is not protected by rights rests with you.
You-Tube Videos are not permitted in posts or Blogs without permission from Administration.
You may not cross-post, (duplicate), any Topic/post to another Forum.
Also, by posting, you accept that all rights to the material you post will become the copyright of Depression Forums. If you do not agree, then do not post or blog here. This is required to allow the DF staff to edit posts in order to maintain our posting guidelines. Your use of this forum is confirmation that you agree to the transfer of copyright upon completing your post or blog. Please see "graphics" in our Guidelines.
When members post a Topic or post on Depression Forums, the content of the post may be edited for a period of 1 hour from the time that it was made by you. This is to allow you time to correct errors or omissions, beyond that time period, it is only possible to edit a post by contacting a staff member such as a moderator or an Administrator. While we will co-operate and edit out any personal information in posts previously made by your account beyond this period once only, we shall not delete or substantially alter the content of the posts.
MEMBERSHIP
Depression Forums does not delete memberships.
If you ask to delete your membership, your individual topics or posts would not be deleted.
Topics or posts from the boards are not removed unless there is a severe illegal violation of your account and it is absolutely necessary to do so and it would be a violation of the Forums Terms Of Service (TOS) /Guidelines.
Once an account is deleted, any posts or content you have submitted becomes the property of DF and your Topics or posts would remain as *Guest_your member name_ , which will look like this by your posts/topics, *Guest_your member name__ .
If there is a serious problem and a user needs to have their name changed, we would take this under consideration. Please contact Administration.
ADVERTISING
Any use by you of any other subscriber's information, personal or otherwise, for any commercial or non-commercial purpose or to obtain direct financial gain (e.g. mass marketing) is prohibited. Any such use shall be deemed to be a violation of these Terms of Service. Depression Forums.org is to be used by you for your personal use only.
This includes Blogs and Trackbacks. Any user who puts any advertising links in Trackbacks gets ONE formal warning and then is automatically dismissed if they continue to repeat the offense.
Links are not to be posted in these forums without the permission of the administration.
General or medical news items and/or articles are not to be posted unless a member is to paraphrase or quote parts of an article if it is of benefit to DF and it's members to make a point and they must quote the source and/or reference without linking. If a member has a complete article that would benefit all members, please submit it to our Portal links under your sign in, or to Forum Admin through messaging.
Commercial uses of Depression Forums.org are strictly prohibited unless prior written consent from the Administration has been granted.
You agree that you will not use Depression Forums.org to post chain letters, junk mail, 'spamming,' solicitations (commercial or non-commercial) or bulk communications of
any kind including but not limited to distribution lists to any person who has not given specific permission to be included in such a list.
You agree not to post any websites or copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by this Forum. You also agree not to post any websites in your posts or signature, unless given sole permission by the Forum Administration.
You agree not to post any Internet Pharmacies for the purpose of advertising them for profit or suggesting to obtain illegal or legal drugs without a prescription. You also agree to stay 'on topic' in posts, do not cross post or duplicate messages to other areas of the forums, create long subject lines, post commercial or non-commercial advertising, or post any other type of SPAM on these boards. Depressionforums is PG rated.
DEPRESSIONFORUMS.ORG relies on donations to maintain these forums on the Internet. We rely on your donations, which are very much appreciated, to help in supporting and improving your forums.
Helping DF
Depression Forums Incorporated Disclosure Policy
* The content of posts on these Forums are never influenced by advertisers or an affiliate partnership, nor are posts written for the sole purpose of promoting a product.
* If you click a link from one our articles or links and it delivers you to a website selling that product (e.g. Amazon.com, etc.), Depression Forums receives a small commission from that website should you buy.
* The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in these Forums. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements.
* These Forums do not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
These are good rules and practices in today's digital world. It's important for you as a consumer to understand the relationship between a person reviewing the product and the manufacturer or service provider. If you don't see a disclosure policy as part of a review of a product, that reviewer may be violating the law or at the very least the Code of Ethics.
Any member who continues to post, send PMs and actively use this free service understands that they do so under all the terms of service described above.
We are PG rated forums that comply with Health on the Net's HONcode.
About Links on Depression Forums : Inappropriate Content explained
This will always be first and foremost as we are a self help peer to peer support community.
That being said, it means if your message, post or PM, isn't about offering support to members or asking for support, it is not appropriate for DF and prohibited from our community.
1) Advertising of any sort is prohibited.
2) Advertisements of your website, a new resource, etc is also prohibited
3) Solicitation of another online community is restricted and will remove you from this community
4) You may not post any links until you have five quality supportive posts or more that contain
content pertaining to your depression or mental health.
Exceptions are links to other websites which may apply, especially if relevant to mental health/illness and depression.
Links in profiles are fine. Link to almost anything that you want to use in your profile page, as long as it doesn't violate any of our sexual, illegal activities, or profanity Guidelines.
Links on a post to anything online are permitted, as long as it's your personal site, photos, (PG), a research article that is relevant, an article or resource that you personally have found useful or helpful and relevant to DF, a helpful tip about mental health, etc.
We do not want to see people abusing this by saying, "Hey, I just updated my site" and posting about it every week. That is not useful by any means.
When you do post a link:
We would like to make members aware of a guideline that would refrain from posting links without accompanying text (e.g., a personally written description, summary or opinion about the link). We are first and foremost a discussion support forum and links posted without any accompanying text are not conducive to discussion or support.
This means that simply putting in the title of what the article you're linking to is about is not enough. Please also include a written description of what the link be taking you to.
For the sake of accuracy and the benefit of the other members of the Depressionforums.org website, we also ask that if you post any health or medical information outside of your own personal experience (something you have undergone yourself), that you please provide references with your post; Thank you!
Please refrain from posting links to other communities solely in order to solicit other members to that community.
Providing that this is not a community forum that would be in direct competition with Depression Forums (as in, it is not another depression or mental health community site or something of that nature), you're not being paid to advertise it (and you don't profit from it) nor do you work for the company that has said website ... Then we are comfortable with what links you do post and that you are okay and are not a spammer.
We do appreciate Reciprocal links, contact Forum Admin for more information.
Many people here have Blogs, even online journals, so it would be a great resource, providing you're not spamming it and mentioning it everywhere. 
Editorial Independence
Depression Forums maintains absolute editorial independence about all content that appears on the Depression Forums website. That means that DF makes decisions about the information on our site free from outside or commercial influence.That includes Political agendas.
And lastly, it should be clearly understood that the use of this private, free site, which is open to public registration, is done so as a privilege and not as guaranteed right. You are a guest here, free to come and go as you wish as long as some very simple rules, regulations and guidelines are adhered to.
*Freedom of Speech? Although the constitution of the US guarantees that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, this website is not Congress. Freedom of speech rights do not extend to this privately owned website. The TOS/Guidelines of this website governs the behaviors and activities of the members. If you choose not to follow the guidelines agreed to during registration and with our Terms of Service/Guidelines, the result is a disabling of your account.
The thing many people with depression struggle with on other internet forums is that they end up getting dragged into awful debates and get flamed for their opinions or views.
We do not permit such discussions on DF as our site is intended to be a safe haven where members can discuss their issues without having to get
involved in the general arguing that occurs on other forums. Even though we believe in "Freedom of Speech", there is a very fine line drawn.
After all, it is illegal to yell "fire" in a movie theater. This is a pro-life website as well.
Triggers
These are words and phrases that can be triggering to our more fragile and sensitive members.
There is to be no discussion of methods of suicide or suicide attempts. There will also be no discussions describing graphic details of how you self harm. We shall advise you that we do not permit you to reference to specific types of alcohol or illegal drugs. No numbers of weight loss or gain, self injury, you get the idea. These will be deleted by our moderators.
It is our pleasure to host this site and make it available 24/7 to those members who use it respectfully and graciously. That is why we are here and these are the members we are here for.
This site cannot run smoothly without some necessary regulations.
We also reserve the right to take action against anything we feel is not appropriate.
As user you are agreeing to read these guidelines regularly and check for updates!
Although we would be saddened to hear that some members may choose to leave under these terms of service, we do understand that they have every right to make such a decision.
Your sole recourse for dissatisfaction with The Depression Forums, is to discontinue membership at DepressionForums.org
Administration reserves the right to amend the TOS from time to time by updating this page. Your continued use of this site will indicate your acceptance of the revised TOS.
Please periodically review this page for updates, to ensure that you are familiar with the most current version of our TOS .
Please also refer to our DF Member's Guidelines/Posting Etiquette
as this is an extension of our Terms Of Service (TOS)
We appreciate you being here. Your contributions, whether seeking help or graciously offering support, have a far-reaching impact. Please be responsible.
