Main List Guidelines
This List has been created by the Elves for the sole purpose of supporting, educating and allowing awareness of disorder and of how it impacts on people diagnosed as bipolar, whether stable or not and whether on meds or not.
We strongly recommend any bipolar to get to a pdoc on regular basis, but we accept any diagnosed person who decided not to.
We moderators share the responsibility for making this group work. Having benefited from the help of others, we recognize the need for offering our help to others in this group.
Therefore, the main ideal inspiring this list is support among bipolars. We firmly believe in support as a main path to all the self-awareness and education that facing bipolar disorder requires.
We also believe that bipolar disorder is not per se a reason for giving up on life and success, even tough they can be harder to obtain. On the contrary, we advocate the use of bipolar disorder as a resource in order to get where we want to get but following our own personal way.
RULES
#1. OPINIONS:
a. We encourage and welcome the expression of different ideas and ideals
about how to cope and deal with bipolar disorder, provided no post contains
abusive/manipulative overtones, flaming of present members or arguments.
b. No submission will be excluded because of any particular viewpoint,
provided it is compliant with all the rules.
#2. FOUL LANGUAGE:
For members who choose to use foul language, they should asterisk it,
writing only the first and the last letter, in order to be respectful
of members that are offended by it.
#3. PARTICULAR TAGS:
a. *spoiler* tag: posts regarding racial, religious, politic, sexual or
abuse matters are NOT allowed, save when they are closely related to bipolar
disorder (for example as stigma issues, triggers for an episode, ways
to cope with the illness, things to solve in your life or symptoms of
the disorder). In this settings, they will be allowed, provided that the
subject line contains a "***SPOILER***" tag with a mention of the topic
that post is about.
b. *illegal* tag: whenever a post is about an illegal behaviour (such
as fights, homicide, drugs, etc), the subject line has to contain the
"***ILLEGAL***" tag with a mention of the topic that post is about.
#4. PRIVACY: We ask you to protect the privacy of the
members, as well as we protect yours.
a. Thus, any post you receive from our group can *not* be forwarded to
a person who is not a member, save when you got the permission from the
author of that post.
b. We also welcome private contacts among members but not unsolicited
email.
c. If you are willing to receive private emails from a member, authorize
him/her thru a public post.
d. Similarly, ask for permission to contact a member thru a public post.
#5. SUICIDAL IDEATION: Suicidal ideation and discussion
is allowed, also are allowed posts about previous attempts by members
and history of friends/familiar suicides, in any case identified by a
"***SPOILER***" tag with the word "suicide" VISIBLE in the subject line.
#6. PERSONAL ATTACKS/FLAMES:
a. Disagreements are not avoidable for a list like this, on the contrary
they are welcome because they help exploring our minds. Be polite and
respectful in wording your experiences and ideas out.
b. Pay a special attention in not getting hurt by opinions different from
yours. We use differences as opportunities, challenges and means to grow.
c. Personal attacks to a member, also known as a “flame,” are prohibited.
However, the “flame” rule does not prohibit a posting from aiming the
full force of its argument against the subject-matter of another member’s
post.
d. There often is a subtle distinction between a prohibited personal attack
and a permissible criticism of the substance of another participant’s
posting. If in doubt, write to the mods at Bipolar_Dream-owner@yahoogroups.com
or use their private emails to seek prompt guidance.
e. Personal attacks to a mod are enough to give ground to be banned.
f. If the attack to the mod is about the rules, you will be banned.
#7. ARGUMENTS: If you have a personal issue with a member,
ask the mod you are more comfortable with for an advice. Do not take it
as being a "spy". In fact you are actively cooperating with us for the
safety of the group. The mod will only advise you and, if you want, s/he
will *moderate* things between you and the other member.
#8. BASHING, GENERALIZATIONS, STEREOTYPES:
a. NO bashing is allowed.
b. Whenever a member refers to something belonging to her/his personal
experience that can sound as vaguely bashing, it has to be clearly stated
that all that is being said comes from a personal experience.
c. Generalizations and stereotypes are stigmatized here.
#9. MENTAL HEALTH PETITIONS/ALERTS and PAPERS/ARTICLES:
a. Posting mental health petitions and political discussions/laws about
mental health issues IS allowed. Discussion on them is allowed when regarding
their possible (un)effectiveness or how to get a benefit from a law.
b. Papers and articles ARE allowed. Discussion is allowed when it comes
to doubting scientifical effectiveness and/or scientifical methods by
which a paper has been done. Doubting the purpose of scientists or suggesting
they have a hidden agenda is NOT allowed.
#10. OFF-TOPICS:
a. Don't post about topics that don't regard bipolar or your personal
lives. If you do, there will be a time frame of 24 hrs after which your
thread will expire and you will be asked to keep that conversation back
channel (that is, thru emails).
b. Chain letters and commercial letters are not allowed.
c. "housekeeping" posts: a housekeeping-type posting addresses the rules,
policies or procedures of the group. Only the mods are permitted to make
housekeeping-type postings, which will be clearly labeled as such.
#11. POSTS:
a. All messages must be in text format. Do not use HTML coding. If you
are emailing via a client that adds HTML equivalent of your ascii message,
set "Preferences" so that HTML code does not appear after the text message.
Only post in plain text with black letters and white background. Colours
could be an issue for many bp, therefore won't be allowed in any case.
b. Attachment are not allowed as well. They waste a lot of memory on servers.
c. For the same reason, one-liners are not allowed.
d. Also, you may not provide information in the signature that is overtly
commercial or promotional in nature.
e. No reply can be solicited. Remember that replies are a gift, not an
obligation. And also remember that anytime you solicit a reply you can
make depressed members feel guilty, and that's the reason for we don't
allow them.
#12. SUBJECT LINES:
a. Try to keep topics in thread or else change the subject line.
b. Also, anytime you reply to a member add "/name-of-that-member" to the
subject line. This makes easier a quick visualization of posts and allow
ppl to easily reply to posts for them.
#13. OVER-QUOTING: Most email programs have a feature
that permits the quotation of the original message. This gives rise to
frequent and unnecessary over-quoting.
a. It is impermissible to quote the text of a prior submission unless
it is integral to the response.
b. It is impermissible to quote the text advertisement or message that
the YahooGroups system adds to postings.
c. The mods reserve the right to remove quoting that is not integral to
a reply and to not approve a post from a member that goes on posting over-quoted
messages.
d. Please put the original question or statement first, and then your
answer under it.
#14. WEBSITE REFERRALS.
a. Commercial links are NOT allowed.
b. Links to personal pages or to charities are allowed.
c. In any case NO link supporting dangerous and/or not medically effective
proven therapies can be posted, as well as no harmful link (i.e. links
claiming how to cut or how to starve).
d. Links to alternative approaches to the illness can be posted provided
they don't define those approaches as "therapies" or "treatments".
e. Links to informations and educational sites are welcomed.
Be in any case cautious about which links you are posting, especially
when it comes to medical infos. Assess the reliability of the association
whose links you are posting. Remember that 1 site about mental illnesses
out of 10 has misleading informations.
#15. LINKS TO GROUPS:
a. Links to other groups are allowed if they are about illnesses not covered
by Bipolar Dream. If Bipolar Dream covers that aspect with info only,
use the form for requiring that specific kind of group.
b. If Bipolar Dream does not cover that illness, that link is allowed.
c. Links to charity groups (such for example food banks, homeless, etc)
are allowed.
d. Links to commercial groups are NOT allowed.
Copyright (C) 2003 Bipolar Dream
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