Forum Rules and Regulations

[Chy]

Forums Policy

Welcome to Sober Teens Online. This is a place where teens can come to discuss, get support and seek out answers to problems teens have. We strive to make our forums a safe place where everyone feels welcome. In order for teens to feel safe in disclosing difficult aspects of yourself it is necessary to have a few rules that make this possible. When posting in our forums, please comply with the following rules:

Do's and Dont's
1.Sober Teens Online is a privately owned website and reserves the right to remove or restrict any user without notice. Additionally, persons with political or controversial agendas, and persons who use the forums to link to, or promote, other websites and/or products are not welcome.

2. All COPPA users (children under 13) must have a parent return the parent permission form to the address indicated or to the email address www.teensupport@sbcglobal.net within 7 days of account activation. Failure to do so will result in your account be removed. More information on our Privacy Policy may be found at:Privacy Policy

3. Advertisements of any type are not permitted without the prior approval of Sober-Teens.com. If you have a product or service that you would like to advertise, please contact the Administration for rates. ALL SPAMMERS will be immediatly banned and ads removed.

Registration
4. Users must provide a valid e-mail address during registration. E-mail addresses are blocked from view to protect your privacy, but are available to the administration. Those that do not provide a valid e-mail address cannot be approved. The software that we use is not able to e-mail your password without a valid address. Changing your password or e-mail address automatically forces our software to e-mail it/them to you for verification.

5. Only one registered account per person [exceptions apply with permission]. To prevent abuse, members are only allowed one registered account per person. In the case that you lose your password and cannot retrieve it automatically, you can contact us with your login details and we will reset your password for you, but DO NOT create a new account. Any duplicate accounts we discover may be merged together or may be deleted without warning.

Posting
6. Posts may not contain unnecessary profanity, be sexually explicit, or be in such poor taste as to offend even a truck driver. If you wouldn’t say it around your mother or other adult authority figure you respect, don’t say it here! Automatic censoring will pick up the most offensive swear words and replace them with asterisks (*). You, however, are not allowed to space out swear words, replace one character in a swear word with an asterisk, or use any alternative spelling to avoid the auto-censor.

7. No obscene/adult material. This is a teen site! This means you are not allowed to post links to such pictures, sounds, animations, etc. Do not post adult or sexually-oriented material or links to sites containing such material. Additionally, glorifying drug use and all that entails is not welcome here, this is a place to get help not a "how to use" forum. Sober Teens Online is a teen-oriented website and as such we make every effort that the content is suitable for everyone.

8. No attacks, insults, or flames - be it on someone's person, religious beliefs, race, national background, sexual orientation, recovery program or whatever. This is one of our most important rules. If you have a problem with somebody, do not flame them on our boards. Take it somewhere else. No flaming of ANY kind is welcome here. The quickest way to get banned from our boards is to break this rule.

9. Make sure you are posting on-topic. Posting something unrelated to the original post is called being off-topic. While this is permitted somewhat as long as it develops out of the original post and remains at least vaguely connected to the issue, starting to post about something completely unrelated to it is not allowed. In such a case you should open a new thread for it, if needed. If you feel the need to converse further about something unrelated with someone you can either PM or e-mail them. If your post belongs in another forum or on a new thread, put it there, please.

10. No cross-posting across different topics and/or forums. Do not post the same message in multiple threads or forums (called duplicating or duping posts). Make one post, either a reply or a new thread, in the proper forum, and no more. Once you get a reply to that, feel free to post more on that subject. But under no circumstances are you allowed to go opening multiple threads about the same thing, anywhere. Hijacking other people's posts to get answers to something unrelated to the original topic is not allowed either. If you feel that a general announcement needs to be made please request that the Forum Moderator do so.

11. Links to other sites with questionable content are not permitted and will be removed without notice.

Forum Moderators
12. Forum Moderators are responsible for maintaining their respective forums. They volunteer their time and deserve all the respect that you may offer. From time to time a Forum Moderator may need to edit, move, or delete a post or an entire thread. Forum Moderators function as an extension of the Administrators of this site and have policies that they must adhere to. Accordingly, Forum Moderators have the final say. If you feel that a decision has been made arbitrarily you may contact an Administrator privately for clarification. Publicly denouncing the actions of a Forum Moderator or Administrator is inappropriate and may result in your account being placed on suspension or even banned.

User Options
13. Users may not attempt to place Forum Moderators or Administrators on their ignore lists, or deny receiving e-mail messages from Administrators. Doing so is grounds for immediate suspension of posting privileges, or removal from this site.

14. Please do not post private/personal information about people you know without asking their permission first. This includes posting the contents of emails or Private Messages without getting permission from the sender.

15. Users may upload custom avatars. They must be in good taste as determined by the "Reasonable Man" definition. They may not contain images glorifying drug use or condoning drug or alcohol use. They may not be larger than 100x100 pixels, or larger than 13k in size. Sober-Teens.com reserves the right to alter or remove any avatar that does not meet these requirements. Do not hotlink your avatars or attachments. This is called bandwidth theft and the source you linked from may expire that avatar leaving you with a red "x" showing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see our rules are simple. We hope you enjoy your on-line experience at Sober Teens Online where our mission is to provide a safe environment for teens to discuss issues concerning their well-being.

Forums Team

[Chy]

Privacy Policy
In accordance with COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act) we have provided you with our privacy policy as follows.

When you register, we require you to provide certain demographic details. We keep that information in a secure database, and place a "cookie" on your computer's hard drive, so that we can recognize you whenever you come to the site. We use information to make your experience better - to tailor our service according to your likes and tastes. We will occasionally send you emails keeping you updated about changes and new features.

Our Promise
We will never share or sell your personal information with anyone else, unless we have your explicit permission to do so. And except for use in tailoring our site to your needs and interests, we will never use any information about you in any way except in aggregate (i.e., when we tell a potential business partner that "x percent of our audience is made up of teens"). We always give you an option of whether or not you want to receive any information about offers and promotions from us.

We at Sober Teens Online understand your privacy is important. Our forums are designed to ensure anonymity is maintained at all times and we will consistently adhere to all COPPA regulations.

For more information on what the COPPA regulations are please visit :Fedral Trade Commission

If you have any questions regarding our forums privacy policy feel free to contact the site administrator at admin@soberteensonline.com

[Chy]

Additionally, glorifying drug use and all that entails is not welcome here, this is a place to get help not a "how to use" forum.

[Velvet]

Well said.

[NoOneCanHearYou]

Oops I already posted off topic O_O


Shame on me.

[Chy]

If no one said anything then don't worry about it. We're flexible.

[Dreamz]