Forum Rules

[Admin]

To ensure that the Soul of Adoption forums are a safe, supportive and smooth-running facility for members, Soul of Adoption has created the following Forum Rules.

1. Soul of Adoption forums are a public forum and the content can be viewed by anyone visiting the Soul of Adoption website. To protect your identity and security, we therefore ask that you remain completely anonymous on the forumsand do not divulge any identifiable details about yourself, your family or any other third parties. We ask that you always use your anonymous online username (created at registration) and that you create additional online nicknames for family members, as required.

2. The Soul of Adoption for families of origin, adult adoptees, formerly fostered adults, adopters, prospective adopters, family and friends and those interested in adoption to communicate advice, support and knowledge and to respectfully express their opinions in discussions regardless of their level of adoption experience or time as forum members. All forum members must be respectful of other users' opinions and experiences. Soul of Adoption does not tolerate any form of verbal abuse, online bullying or deliberate attempts to initiate tension/arguments on the Soul of Adoption forums. Any user found to break this rule will receive a formal warning and/or, in extreme or persistent cases of this rule break, may be suspended/banned from the Soul of Adoption forums.

3. You must not include in your message board posts any swearing, offensive or taboo language. However, within reason, Soul of Adoption permits the use of part-asterisked (*) words only to describe extreme situations. Nonetheless, extensive asterisked swearing, or implied swearing at other message board users, is not permitted.

4. The Soul of Adoption forms must not be used to post or link to any material that is: illegal, defamatory, threatening, offensive, abusive, obscene, racially, sexually or otherwise discriminatory, knowingly or potentially inaccurate, libellous, anything that could encourage or constitute a criminal offence, anything that gives rise to civil liability or causes harm, loss or suffering, anything objectionable of any nature or anything else which disrupts the smooth running of the forums.

5. Information or opinions posted by members on the Soul of Adoption forums do not reflect the opinions of Soul of Adoption cannot be held responsible for any consequences that may arise from the content of members posts. We therefore ask that members also carefully consider the content which you post on the forums as members are fully responsible (and potentially legally liable) for any consequences that occur as a result of the content of their posts.

6. Even though anonymous usernames/nicknames are used on the Soul of Adoption forms, we also ask that members carefully consider the level of information that is shared about their children's histories and backgrounds. This is out of respect for the children as, in many cases, the information is their information to share if/when they choose to and, even where anonymised, it may not be appropriate or fair to a child for a parent to share details about their past on an online forum.

7. In accordance with copyright laws of Fair Dealing, you may post on the Soul of Adoption forums small quotes and excerpts of content (poems, songs, articles, extracts from books, journals and magazines, recipes, extracts from external websites, information specifically sourced from a training event) which is held under intellectual property rights by a third party. However, the author and source of the content must be clearly acknowledged and the content must be deemed appropriate and justified. If you are unsure of the source/owner of the content, please refrain from posting. If the content is your own, please clearly state this.

8. You may not use the Soul of Adoption forums to promote, link to or gain support for an external organisation or website that you either run yourself or work/volunteer for, whether the organisation or website is commercial or not-for-profit, without prior permission from Soul of Adoption. If you would like to publicise an organisation or website that you run yourself or work/volunteer for, on the Soul of Adoption forums, please contact the Online Team at admin@soulofadoption.org with this request. In cases where requests are granted, you can post details.

9. You may not use the Soul of Adoption forums to make media or research requests without prior permission from Adoption UK. Media and research requests should be made through Adoption UK by contacting the Online Team at admin@souladoption.org . This is to ensure all requests are genuine and appropriate for the forums.

10. Due to important issues surrounding safety and liability, you may not use the Soul of Adoption forums to promote non-Soul of Adoption events or organised activities without prior permission from Adoption UK. Requests should be made through Soul of Adoption by contacting the Online Team at admin@soulofadoption.org . Requests to promote events which are deemed by Soul of Adoption to be genuine, meet certain safety requirements will be granted. 

11. You must not impersonate other online users, individuals or any other third parties.

12. Trolling, in the sense of people/hoaxers with no relation/interest in adoption using the Soul of Adoption forums for the sole intention of causing trouble/seeking attention, is not tolerated by Soul of Adoption. Where any suspicious users are noticed Soul of Adoption will investigate and reserves the right to permanently ban from the Soul of Adoption forums anyone found to be 'trolling'.

13. If members suspect that another user is a 'troll', they should report their suspicions to the online community moderators on the forums. It is not acceptable to (directly or indirectly) publicly suggest that another user is a 'troll'. Where any users do publicly suggest this, their post(s) will be removed and they will receive a formal warning in accordance with rule two of these Forum Rules.

14. We ask that you adhere to the specific topic areas of the Soul of Adoption forums. Please keep 'off topic' posts (such as discussions on popular culture, the weather, children's toys, recipes etc) to the General Discussion board.

15. By submitting content to the Soul of Adoption forums, users are granting Soul of Adoption the right to republish or link to forum posts, without seeking prior permission from the original poster, in other areas of the Soul of Adoption website,  Any posts that may be chosen for this purpose will have been deemed to provide useful information or positive experiences that the wider Soul of Adoption community could benefit from. In the vast majority of cases, only the title of the thread will be used, with an accompanying link to the specific are of the public forum in which it is located. Where posts are republished in full in other Soul of Adoption materials, they will always remain in their original format so that their forum origin is clear. Please be assured that any decisions to republish posts will be taken with the utmost regard to the sensitivity and appropriateness of the material in the post. This is in line with Soul of Adoption Privacy Policy and content will never be passed to any other third parties for reproduction.

16. You must not partake in any activity which involves spamming, hacking, altering or adding to message board coding, exploiting code bugs or applying automatic scripts.

Forum Moderation

Every post on the message boards is read by Soul of Adoption online community moderators, and moderated where necessary, within 24 hours of it being posted. Soul of Adoption online community moderators reserve the right, without prior notice, to remove, edit or move any posts which are deemed to break any of the Forum Rules.

Soul of Adoption online community moderators will, in most cases but not necessarily all, private message users involved to advise why posts have been removed/edited.

In instances of serious/persistent breaches of the Forum Rules Soul of Adoption will issue a formal warning and operates on a 'three strikes' policy. Soul of Adoption reserves the right to temporarily suspend an online user's profile or permanently ban users from posting on the forums.

The Soul of Adoption online community moderators' and Soul of Adoption's decisions are final.

Soul of Adoption does not tolerate any level of verbal abuse directed at either Soul of Adoption online community moderators, based on them individually or on their moderating decisions, or towards Soul of Adoption as an organisation. Any users who do verbally abuse either the online community moderators or Soul of Adoption as an organisation will receive a formal warning and/or, in extreme cases, may be suspended/banned from the forums.

If you do wish to complain about either Soul of Adoption online community moderators' responses/decisions or responses/decisions made on the forums by Soul of Adoption directly, then please send a private nessage to a moderator. Any threads discussing previous moderating decisions or Soul of Adoption decisions/responses may be closed by moderators. The Soul of Adoption forums are available for online users' personal use and, where possible (excluding necessary moderating duties), users are left to discuss topics at their leisure. However, where the Soul of Adoption moderators become aware of an extreme situation which requires additional/external support (such as a parent/child being in severe distress, a child or vulnerable adult protection issue or any other illegal activity), Soul of Adoption reserves the right to contact the user directly (via the details given at online registration). In addition to this, where details of a situation imply a significant threat to a person or persons Soul of Adoption reserves the right to contact the necessary authorities/agencies/third parties (irrespective of whether or not the user has been informed what action is being taken). This is in line with Soul of Adoption's existing Privacy Policy and will only be applied in very extreme circumstances.

Reporting forum content If you are concerned about the content of a forum post, either by another user or yourself, please use the 'report this post' link. This reported post system is anonymous. Soul of Adoption will only respond directly to a report if the reporter has included their online username and/or if a reply is deemed necessary by the online community moderators and/or Soul of Adoption. Deliberate misuse of the reported topic facility is not permitted.

If you have any further queries regarding these  Foum Rules of Use, please contact the Soul of Adoption Online Team at admin@soulofadoption.org

Soul of Adoption reserves the right to change, edit or update these Rules of Use at any given date and without prior notice.