EX Community Guidelines
For over 15 years, the EX Community has been a special place for people who want to quit and stay quit. Every day, people from all walks of life come here to share the ups and downs of quitting, offer their experience and wisdom, and celebrate their successes. We are proud to have such a diverse group of members. These guidelines help the EX Community grow and thrive.
Do
- Be kind and supportive. Lift people up whenever possible. Everyone has come to the EX Community with generally the same goal.
- Be respectful. Some topics can be sensitive and lead to healthy debate. Some may create strong feelings. Differing opinions are welcome, but personal attacks are not tolerated in the EX Community.
- Be tolerant. Respect others’ beliefs (or non-beliefs). Faith is an important part of quitting for some people, but not for everyone. If you want to connect with other Christian EX Community members, please do so in the Christian Quitters Group.
- Welcome newcomers. We love it when another person joins the community and participates.
- Lead by example. Share your experiences that you think will be helpful to other members. Generally, posting about your own experiences and what’s helped you personally is best.
- Choose your username wisely. For your privacy, we suggest you do not use your real name as your EX Community username. Please contact us if you need to change your username.
- Report Inappropriate Content. Let us know about concerning content or member behavior. The link is found across the site in the three vertical dot menus. You can also send a private message to @CommunityAdmin.
Do not
- Post your personal contact info. This includes phone numbers, addresses and email addresses, or other private information such as social security numbers.
- Misrepresent yourself. Do not impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or misrepresent your relationship with a person or entity.
- Post private information about someone else. It’s not only your own privacy you need to protect, it’s also the privacy of others.
- Post in CAPS. Using all capital letters online is like shouting.
- Use hateful language. Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
- Advertise anything. Promoting commercial products, services (including paid cessation services), personal websites, research projects, etc. is not allowed.
- Take shortcuts. Do not link to content outside of exprogram.com or the EX Community as a shortcut for a more thoughtful response here. If you have a web presence elsewhere that you want people to know about, links are permitted in your profile and signature only.
- Exploit the EX Community. Content designed to gain followers from the EX Community won’t be tolerated.
- Post political content. The EX Community is a place to focus on quitting tobacco. There are plenty of other places online to share political views.
- Post copyrighted information. Copyrighted material, emails and other privileged information may not be posted without prior written permission from the author.
- Break the law. Do not use the EX Community for any unlawful purpose.
About moderation in the EX Community:
WHY: To keep the EX Community a welcoming, safe and inclusive place for people quitting smoking, vaping, or using other tobacco products and their supporters.
HOW: We use “reactive moderation” on the EX Community. That means that moderators watch for any harmful content that is posted and anyone breaking the conditions outlined in the Terms of Use and these Community Guidelines. We also rely on our members to tell us about any inappropriate content. Throughout the website you’ll see Report buttons for this purpose. Moderating in this way means we can keep the community running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that support is available whenever you need it.
At their discretion, Moderators may edit, move, or remove content or members that violate the Terms of Use and/or Community Guidelines. We reserve the right to review, modify, delete, reprint or redistribute all content users contribute to the system. If we do take action on your content, we will always inform the author and say why we’re making the change.
All community posts appear right away. We do not screen community content before it is posted. However, automated screeners run in the background to check for spam. Sometimes, these hide certain posts incorrectly.
Remember!
- Every time you use the EX Community, you agree to the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and these Community Guidelines. It is your responsibility to review these documents regularly.
- Views expressed in this community are solely the views of the members and do not represent professional recommendations, policy or advice of Truth Initiative.
Welcome to the EX Community - we’re glad you’re here!