The ReachOut.com community rules

The ReachOut.com community is driven by you, so the way you drive it matters. Here are the rules of the road:

Act nice

• Respect what others think and believe.
• Be yourself. Sharing ideas and discussing issues is an important part of being a ReachOut.com community member, so say who you are and most importantly, don’t impersonate someone else.
• Don’t be strange or sneaky. You know what we mean.  

Be accurate

• Use accurate information to justify your arguments and opinions.
• Use sources or links to support your contributions.
• Don’t repost stuff again and again and again.

Stay legal

• Respect copyright. Don’t upload anything that isn’t yours or that you don’t have permission to use (this includes images, music, videos).
• Don’t steal someone else’s ideas or words. Give credit where credit’s due.
• No defamatory comments. Don’t post anything that could damage the reputation of an individual or organisation.
• Don’t encourage anyone to commit a crime.
• Don’t post content which is harassing, threatening, abusive, offensive, obscene or indecent.

Under-14s

• We encourage everyone to check out Reach Out but in the interests of child protection, people under the age of 14 aren’t allowed to become members.

No personal information (yours or anyone else’s)

• The commenting space is for exploring issues, it is NOT a place for you to get help for your problems.
• It is not the place for you if you are in immediate danger of wanting to end your life. If you are at immediate risk of ending your life, please check out the Help button at the top right of the website which has emergency and helpline information.

• Don’t post personal information. This includes your email address, Facebook, MySpace or other online social network name, mobile phone number, your place of work/school etc
• Do not use your full name or put up an identifying profile picture.

No recruiting for external surveys or assignments

• We want RO.com to be a place where you don't feel pressured to take part in external surveys etc. We just want you to feel part of a great community! 
• There may be times where we offer you the opportunity for you to be involved in a RO.com survey/study - but that will be thoroughly screened and will be optional as to whether you participate.

Posting advice

• Posting any medical or legal advice, including recommendations that people change or stop their medications, is illegal and you will be suspended if you do so.

Don’t sell or advertise inappropriate stuff

• It’s only ok to promote products and services that support charities and different issues (for example wrist bands, t-shirts etc).

Breaking the rules

• There are consequences to breaking the rules. These include getting your content deleted and your account suspended.
• Think a member has broken the rules? Go to the ‘Report' button next to each comment and let us know.  

Last thing

These community rules were written to compliment the ReachOut.com member terms. It’s really important that you are familiar with these - remember you signed them when you registered! To refresh your memory click here.

Hope you enjoy your time in our community – we’re looking forward to the conversations ahead.

The Reach Out crew


(PS Thanks to the ActNow crew from whom we borrowed much of this content!)