Guidelines

Welcome to BariatricPal!

A warm welcome from the entire BariatricPal team! Forum registration is free. Our community includes members from all kinds of different backgrounds and regions of the world, but we all share the goal of leading healthier lives. To keep BariatricPal a friendly and helpful place for the entire community, we have developed the following rules and policies. We ask all member to follow these guidelines, and members who do not follow them may have their posts removed or accounts suspended or terminated. Your use of BariatricPal is your agreement that you accept all forum policies.

Forum Moderation and Community Standards

Full-time BariatricPal administrators moderate the forums. All posts must follow the posting guidelines outlined below. To maintain BariatricPal’s high standards, we reserve the right to remove, modify or move any post or thread at our discretion and without explanation. Please contact us if you do not understand any of the rules, guidelines or policies outlined below.

BariatricPal administrators and moderators attempt to prevent or remove all objectionable messages. To help us, please use the “Report Post” link to let us know when you see a post that violates the forum guidelines. A moderator will look into the matter. BariatricPal.com reserves the right to accept or dismiss user complaints at its sole discretion.

Disrespectful and Hurtful Posts are Forbidden

All posts must fit within BariatricPal’s guidelines for acceptable posts. Posts must be consistent with BariatricPal’s core beliefs.

• Weight loss surgery can be an effective tool to fight obesity.
• Our common goal is to fight obesity through a unified voice.
• No weight loss surgery is inherently better or worse than any other. Each has advantages, and each has disadvantages.

Some individuals are good candidates for one kind of surgery, and other individuals are better candidates for another kind of surgery.

• No individual is more or less deserving of weight loss and health because of a decision to get or not get weight loss surgery, or because of which type of weight loss surgery he or she chooses.
• BariatricPal serves as a place where anyone can ask questions about weight loss surgery without fear of ridicule.
• BariatricPal serves as a forum for open discussion and polite disagreement so that everyone can benefit.

Weight loss surgery “bashing” is absolutely prohibited. This include, but is not limited to, statements that a specific type of weight loss surgery is:

• Bad or wrong
• Easier than another type of weight loss surgery or “cheating” when someone is trying to lose weight
• Out of date or obsolete
• Doomed to failure

In addition, “bashing” of individuals is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, statements that a person is:

• Lazy for choosing one type of weight loss surgery over another
• Unprepared for or undeserving of weight loss surgery because of
• Deserving of complications or disappointing weight loss because of their choice of weight loss surgery

Violations of these rules and consequences will be determined at the sole discretion of BariatricPal and based on individual situations. They may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Editing or removal of the offensive post(s)
• Warning from BariatricPal staff or Forum Hosts to avoid such posts in the future
• Temporary suspension of membership
• Permanent removal of the member’s account

These guidelines do NOT forbid disagreement and candid discussions on BariatricPal. Members may discuss and defend their points of view in respectful manners. Please feel free to contact BariatricPal with any questions about these guidelines.

Remember that written communication is different from face-to-face communication. When you post a message on the discussion forum, send someone a text message, email, or private message, or meet in a chat room, a lot of the message is lost. When you are face-to-face with someone, you can use a tone of voice, gestures, and expressions to help get your point across. These aids are lost when you communicate online. Your message can accidentally come across as harsh or rude. A good way to reduce accidental misunderstandings is to read your own message before posting it to see if there is any way that a reader could mistake its meaning in a negative way.

Additional BariatricPal Posting Guidelines

1. Be polite. Rudeness is not tolerated and can lead to post removal or account suspension.
2. All members have the right to express their opinions and are encouraged to do so while maintaining a courteous tone.
3. No Flaming. This includes:
   • Any kind of personal insult, flame, or intimidation. Responding in kind to a flame message is viewed as equally unacceptable, regardless of who started it. If you believe you are being insulted or otherwise flamed by another poster, please REPORT the post or topic rather than responding.
   • This applies to both written text and image posting. There is no need to turn disagreements into heated arguments. Rather than letting these threads become flame wars please agree to disagree or the thread is likely to be locked.
4. No Trolling. This includes:
   • Creating threads for the sole purpose of causing unrest on the forums.
   • Causing disturbances in forum threads, such as picking fights, making off-topic posts that ruin the thread, insulting other posters.
   • Making posts designed to or likely to get inappropriate responses. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) for more information.
5. Posts that are forbidden include, but are not limited to, the following:
   • Rude posts
   • Obscenity, pornography, and profanity. The following are examples of unacceptable content in photos:
     • nudity
     • underwear, thongs, g-strings, or banana hammocks
     • excessive cleavage
     • close-up shots of cleavage, butt, breasts or crotch in any state of dress
     • hateful or violent imagery
     • images containing profanity.
   • Any abuse towards our staff and/or management in any form
   • Posts that contain derogatory references to sex, gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, or endorsement of violence against any person or group, even if couched in humor.
   • Don’t break the law
   • Don’t use others’ experiences as medical advice.
   • Do not use the forums to share private contact information, such as telephone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, instant messenger IDs, etc.
6. BariatricPal forbids commercial activity on the forums.
   • No advertising, self-promotion, fund-raising, direct marketing or selling on the forums.
   • You may not post any links or mentions of other services, websites, or businesses from which you or an associate might benefit financially or otherwise. You also may not solicit off-Forum contact from which you might benefit. Examples of forbidden activity include "Message me for more info" and "I can get you free samples."
   • Members may use their signatures to indicate a commercial affiliation by including a single link to a web site of their choice, with no more than one line of explanation in addition. This signature text is not to exceed the default font size of forum posts (size=2).
   • Requests or solicitations for donations are prohibited. This includes requesting contributions to "pooled fund" competitions, requests for votes in any venue (e.g., online contests) and requests for charitable contributions.
7. Recommendations or reviews of surgeons, hospitals, and other bariatric products and services are welcome only if based on the reviewer's personal experience. The reviewer must have no financial interest in the subject being reviewed. Violations will result in the posts being removed and a possible permanent ban of membership.
8. BariatricPal allows one account per member and one member per account. If you are unable to log in, please contact us.
9. Cross-posting is prohibited on BariatricPal. Cross-posting refers to posting new duplicate threads or posts, or the linking to threads or posts already started by the member with the intention of gaining exposure. Posting the same message to multiple boards or multiple groups is a form of spam.
   • Please note that this is NOT a guideline against inadvertently posting a question another member has asked before. We explicitly allow members to post questions that have been asked previously by other members. If you see a member post a topic that you think has been asked before by another member, please respond politely or simply move on. However, the same member cannot ask the same question or post the same topic more than once.