1/29/09 Important message, please read

[tiredmommy]

Dear Members,

One of the tasks that our moderators face daily is trying to keep this a safe place to land for our membership. While we do attempt to protect our membership from the more unsavory side of the internet, it is important for members to take a measure of personal responsibility in this area.

There have been instances over the years when our members (and consequently their children) were recognized by family members, court officers, school district personnel and medical/psychiatric professionals. This is especially worrisome because many of our children are minors, and most suffer from debilitating disorders that can then be used against them.



For your protection:

• Please contact our site owner (runawaybunny) immediately via PM if you are currently using a personally identifiable version of your real world name. She will help you change the user name on your account to something more anonymous.

• Please remove all family photo links from all posts and avatars. It is unfair to your child to be recognized on this site by outsiders. Information on this site is archived in cyberspace and may be visible to viewers years down the road. Take steps today to make sure your child won't be recognizable tomorrow.

• Names of schools, hospitals, specific doctors/therapists and specialized programs should not listed as it will help someone to identify your child.

• Please do not use your children's first names in your signature or list your hometown unless it is a large city. Many members just post their state/province/country or regional area (ex: SoCal, Northeast, Greater Chicago). The point is to not allow others in your real life easily locate you via search engine.

• It is also important that you be careful about information you give to individual members that you do not know. Trolls, stalkers and those with business interests (including spammers) may try to reach out to unwitting members by the personal messaging (PM) system.

• Please forward any inappropriate PM's to a moderator, myself, or runawaybunny. Inappropriate or offensive posts can be automatically reported to a moderator or you can PM the details to the forum moderator, runawaybunny or myself.

The safety and security of our members is very important to the entire moderating group. Please do your part to keep this a safe place to land for yourself and others by protecting your privacy and that of others.

Thank you.