The goal of the EX Community is to promote a safe environment for members to talk about quitting and to support others who are doing the same thing.
This is your site and we’ll generally stay out of the picture. All we ask is that everybody follow a few guidelines of conduct. Treat everybody with respect. Remember this is a public venue. If you’re a blogger, you already know the drill. But if you’re new to this stuff, well, most of the rules are things you learned in kindergarten (play nice, etc) but here they are again:
The Rules
Play nice (No bullies allowed): Treat fellow community members, guests and EX Admin with respect. We have zero-tolerance for bullying. Not everyone reacts well to Tough Love so please consider your approach when responding. If you don't have something nice to say, find a different blog. There is always someone you can say something nice to.
No hitting (i.e., personal attacks): Personal attacks and flames aren’t allowed. If you want to disagree, that’s okay. Give examples as to why you disagree, but personal attacks on a person are a no-no. Make your point and move on.
No Yelling:TYPING IN CAPS IS HARD TO READ and is considered yelling. Please use proper capitalization and punctuation so that others can understand your posts and comments. Excessive use of formatting (Bold, large text, color) is considered Graphical Shouting so please be mindful of that as well.
No naughty words or images: Foul, racist or sexist language and obscene images will not be tolerated. This is a family friendly site. If you wouldn't say it to Mom or your Grandma, it probably shouldn't be said here. Implied profanity is considered profanity so changing to acronyms or symbols is still considered offensive.
Sock Puppet accounts are not allowed. The definition of a sock puppet is an account made on an internet message board by a person who already has an account for the purpose of posting anonymously. We urge all users to use their own account to post personal opinions. When we discover posts from known sock puppets, our moderators will delete them. Both the puppet and account may be banned from the EX Community.
Spamming: We consider posting the same message to lots of different discussions or categories to be spam. Duplicate messages will be deleted or consolidated by our moderators.
Commercial postings and solicitations are not allowed. We define commercial content as a direct or indirect (either intentional or non-intentional) attempt to solicit customers through a post or profile. As we find these, they will be edited or deleted. Using your profile or postings a billboard for personal gains is strictly prohibited.
If you see that someone has posted copyrighted or illegal material, or if you think a particular post or topic on this board is inappropriate, please send a PM to EX Admin.
Odds and Ends
Let’s all try to stay on topic: Responses to a particular thread should be on-topic and pertain to the discussion. If you’ve got a new idea, by all means, start a new thread. Posts that are off topic may be moved or removed by EX Admin.
Private discussions: Sometimes a discussion strays off into basically a back-and-forth between just a few users. For these exchanges, please communicate via private message using the "Send a Message" feature. We’re trying to keep all public forum posts on matters of interest to the general community.
About EX Admin: Mark (EX Admin) has the ability to edit and delete posts/comments, to close or delete topics and moderate posts as he sees fit.
Disclaimer: Any messages you post will stay available to the public for as long as this community is online. All content posted to the site becomes property of the BecomeAnEX community. Please post carefully, once you have posted your message it is here to stay.
We require all participants to adhere to these guidelines of conduct. In general we will leave it to you to police yourselves. We want to foster an open, interactive discussion among participants and are not seeking to censor any messages or opinions. However, we reserve the right to edit or remove inappropriate messages, or to lock a discussion thread when appropriate. Examples of stuff we may edit or delete include posts containing profanity, spam, or private information revealed about another community member.
A Final Word
The EX Community is a special place. There are new members quitting for the first time, and longtime quitters who have years of being smokefree under their belt. Ongoing research within the site shows that people who use the Community – even simply reading what other people write – may increase their chances of quitting successfully. Check us out, and stay for a while!
Updated 2/3/2016
EX Community Admin Team
