Terms

[SuzySunshine]

Every website terms you agree to when you join. Can someone point me to ours?

Thanks!

[Sheherezade]

Here's what you see when you register. Not sure if any new terms apply as you get acccess to higher level forums.

Forum Rules
Registration to this forum is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you agree to the terms, please check the 'I agree' checkbox and press the 'Complete Registration' button below. If you would like to cancel the registration, click here to return to the forums index.
Although the administrators and moderators of The international Medical Spouse Network will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this site, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of The international Medical Spouse Network, nor vBulletin Solutions, Inc. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.
By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.
The owners of The international Medical Spouse Network reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any content item for any reason.

[SuzySunshine]

Hmm, does anyone know if there are terms that relate to our PM's and whether or not they are truly private between the sender and receiver?

[PrincessFiona]

What are you suggesting, Cheri? Your private messages are private. No one is reading them.

[poky]

Hmm, does anyone know if there are terms that relate to our PM's and whether or not they are truly private between the sender and receiver?

From a technical standpoint, as an admin: nobody but the sender and receiver have access to the content of a PM. I would say that it's as private as a direct email is. I don't know for sure, but don't believe there are any specific site rules or terms laid out regarding PMs.

[SuzySunshine]

I'm not suggesting anything - I'm asking to see what the rules and regs are, all internet websites have pages upon pages of terms and conditions that you agree to when you sign up. Because I signed up over 8 years ago I'm making sure that I'm up to date with everything I'm agreeing to by using this site. I belong to other V Bulletin sites and they have much longer T&C's then what Angie posted. And those T&C's usually not only protect the user but the admins, as they should but they also put everyone on a level playing field to know what is expected.

I think given what has happened this week we should all be aware of our rights in all aspects of this site. If we are emotionally invested in something for a long period of time it becomes part of all of us even if its not physically ours.

[poky]

Here's the terms page linked to from the main forums page:
http://medicalspouse.com/index/?page_id=6

[PrincessFiona]

I agree Cheri. Actually, befote the upgrade here and on the index site we had a privacy policy and tos available. I have to check the faq. I thouggt there was something there as well.

[PrincessFiona]

Im on my phone. It won't let me. Maybe someone else can. I believe Rapunzel was the one to help come up with the F.A.Q.

When I get back from vacation, I'll login to a computer and see what I find. The other admins can as well.

The bottom line is that abuse of others won't be tolerated. Different opinions? Heated discussions? Go for it.

Through the years, I (and other admins) have received more complaints than I can count about the tone of a users posts, mean pm's, or posts gone rogue. There is a "do something or I'm leaving" urgency about many of the complaints coupled with "this site is no longer supportive; users are allowed to get away with being mean; things have changed and I can't be honest anymore" statements.

Admins tried the "you are adults, we are volunteers" method when our warnings or comments got us into hot water.

What I have heard everyone say through the years is Do Something....just don't close threads, send my friend or I warnings about our behavior, publicly admonish users about a thread, or ban someone I like .... but hey, you could ban user x because I find her hateful.

I'm not really kidding here. As admins and moderators, we can't win.

Abuse and bullying isn't acceptable here. If you have been warned in the past, had threads locked because of your nastiness, and then continue to attack others, you can expect action to be taken. If we had done nothing we would have lost users too. Lose:lose.

I wish some of the people who have pm'd me would chime in. It seems that people are afraid to say "this person was awful to me in the past ... thank you" out loud for fear of the repercussions right now. I hope at some point they will let their voices be heard.

Kris

[MissCrabette]

Kris, in the end it's your site, and what you say goes, but I see nothing about bullying or abuse in the TOS. How do you define abuse anyway? The terms listed in the TOS were "obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws." Now I suppose you could argue that the language was hateful, but that's pushing it, in my opinion. Moreover, you might want to add some language about banning users because, as it stands right now, the implication is that the content will be removed (it was not) and not the user.

[Sheherezade]

All I could find in the FAQ that didn't seem like general vBulletin "How To" was this:

Welcome to the iMSN. We have a large number of public forums available for new members to begin to get to know other members. After reaching a certain number of forum-dependent posts, access is granted to new members to enter a new, more private layer of membership. This has been implemented through the years in order to protect you, or member, from trolls or non-medical spouses who are simply curious. It is hard to be patient when you are eager to post about more personal issues, but we would like to ensure that once you do become a member of the private forums that your personal posts are protected from the general public!

[scrub-jay]

Should we move this to a private forum if this is where we're going to discuss "the incident"?

Just a suggestion: I know that I am not a moderator in this thread, but I think if we continue along that line of discussion, we should start a different thread. I think a thread about identifying TOS (or the "rules") is an important thread to leave open to all members. What do you think admins?

[PrincessFiona]

It must have been lost in the upgrade Angie.

I do define the behavior as hateful. The admins will work in reworking the faq and terms.

In 11+ years, no member has ever been banned before. I'm sorry members are afraid it could happen to them. My guess is that they aren't regularly bullying users though.

This is not my site. It is an nfp slowly eeking through how to figure it all out.

[SuzySunshine]

I would request that this be left here - I posted it here because I feel its something everyone should have access to.

I'm hearing a lot of "behind the scenes" in the last few days and to be honest that is what concerns me. Like I've said I've been on this site for 8 years and when a member, who is your friend (and I'm not just talking MIT) up and leaves or gets banned and the only comments/responses we get are basically you don't know everything that went down that concerns me. Maybe there should be some transparency but I see the terms don't allow for that and that is fine - like I said its a public site, I just want to know what my rights are and what I'm agreeing to by using it.

[Thirteen]

I like the idea of starting a more private thread.