UOAA Discussion Board Terms and Conditions

[Bob Webtech]

Note: In addition to the terms below, please read our Discussion Board Code of Conduct which should be regarded as an extension to these rules.

This message board is provided by, maintained and managed by the United Ostomy Associations of America, Inc. It is intended for discussion relevant to UOAA and intestinal or urinary diversionary surgery. Messages should be informative, educational, supportive and respectful.

UOAA reserves the right to remove messages, block users after a warning and update policy without notice. The following posts and/or replies are subject to removal and the responsible user(s) being blocked from the discussion board: inflammatory; derogatory; controversial; religious; political; off-topic; profanity; posting another user's e-mail address (without that person's permission); questions/debate about board policy/management; personal attacks/harassment; boycott campaigns.

Commercial posting is strictly prohibited. This means that messages promoting a product or service must not be posted by, or on behalf of, anyone with any sort of financial interest in that product or service. Opportunities for paid advertising are, however, available on this discussion board; contact the Phoenix Magazine publisher, who manages advertising in both the Phoenix magazine and this board.

Solicitations to participate in market research by commercial enterprises are likewise prohibited. Solicitations to participate in research studies by non-profit entities must be cleared by the UOAA Management Board of Directors before being posted on this board.

Copyrighted material must not be included in postings, but you may provide a link to the original source. In fact, whether or not it's copyrighted, if an article is already present on the web, you should post only a link instead of copying its full text, to avoid needlessly using up disk space on our server.

Some additional points:

1. This is a family board. Any language or pictures that would not be suitable for a family audience are prohibited. You are not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented material, or anything that may violate any applicable rules. This includes the posting of material that may be generally offensive to, or "flaming" of, users or management of the board. Doing so may lead to your being permanently banned.

2. The webmaster, administrators and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should they see fit, and without asking the permission of the original poster, neither do they have to give a reason for editing or closing the post/thread/topic in question.

3. There is to be no open forum flaming of another member. Noone will post demeaning comments to one another on the open forum or they will be removed.

4. The decisions of a post either staying, being deleted, or edited are those of the moderators/administrators.

5. This board is here to serve a purpose, namely, support. Support is a broad word and sometimes crosses some of the specific rules stated. Determinations whether posts that appear to skirt some of the rules may stay on the board are those of the moderators/administrators. If you feel something is inappropriate, please contact the appropriate people instead of posting your objections on open forum.

6. Topics started by one person should be kept on track; if you have something that deviates from the main topic, please start another topic.

7. The use of large pictures, cyber 'dolls' and third-party animated emoticons are not allowed. Such animated images may actually cause health problems for some users of our board. If you question this policy and wish to post pictures, please take it up with a moderator/administrator. The smileys provided at the side of posting windows are allowed, but do keep them under control. Posts are to be words, not a bunch of pictures. Pictures aren't allowed at all in signatures.

Please respect these rules while posting on the board. Let us strive to maintain an environment which is always welcoming and open to all users of this board.

Best wishes for health and happiness,

UOAA Administrators and Moderators

Disclaimer: UOAA, its affiliated support groups and the operators of this board are not responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any form of damages whatsoever resulting from the use (or misuse) of information contained in or implied by any postings on this site. This board should not be relied on as a source of medical advice. What works for one individual may not work for anyone else. Always check with your medical care team for specific medical questions.