Membership

Membership is free. Some special features are available for a fee. You are permitted only one registration and one identity. Due to free email accounts prone to filtering out and bouncing our automated email notifications, we ask that you apply with an ISP-based email address. Members who register with free email accounts that bounce emails from our system may lose their email notification privilege.

1. Do not post in a disrespectful, defamatory, adversarial, baiting, harassing, offensive, insultingly sarcastic or otherwise improper manner, toward a member or other individual, including casting of suspicion upon a person, invasion of privacy, humiliation, demeaning criticism, name-calling, personal attack, or in any way which violates the law.
2. Do not post profane or sexually explicit text. Discussions of a sexual nature should be within the realm of topics inherent to Mothering discussions such as sex after delivery, sex and the family bed, etc.
3. Do not post copyrighted material without permission. See copyright guidelines.
4. Do not post to advertise your product or business. Acceptable advertising is available on the boards. Information may be obtained by contacting advertising@mothering.com for banner ads. Advertising in signatures and in discussion board threads is strictly prohibited with the exception of those members who have paid the fee for the Signature Advertising Package. MDC sales and fundraising information may be posted by administrators, moderators, and designated members. Members may not use their business or product names as a username.
5. Do not use a Private Message (PM) or email to deliver advertisements or business/product information and offers to our members without first having been asked for such information by them. This would be regarded as spam and may result in suspension or being banned.
6. Do not post to invite MDC members to other boards for adversarial purposes or post inflammatory information about MDC discussions at other boards, or about communities and discussions elsewhere, regardless of whether or not you link to that discussion or community. This is to maintain and respect the integrity of our own and other communities.
7. Do not post to debate or challenge the MDC User Agreement, the moderators, administrators, or their actions. Constructive criticism and questions for purposes of clarification are best addressed directly to the moderator or administrator by private message or personal e-mail. If this is not successful, see Recourse.
   
8. Do not start a thread to discuss member behavior or statements of members made in other threads or to criticize another discussion on the boards. Do not post to a thread to take direct issue with a member. If you feel a member has posted or behaved inappropriately in a discussion, communicate directly with the member, moderator or administrator privately and refrain from potentially defaming discussion in a thread.
9. Follow the rules and guidelines specific to individual forums. These will be posted at the top of the forum.
10. Posts are an integral part of the discussion threads of mothering.com and you may not delete your posts. Though you are free to edit your posts, we do not allow members to delete large numbers of their posts.
11. Mothering reserves the right to change this User Agreement as necessary to meet any future needs that may arise. It is our customary procedure to submit revised rules and guidelines to the membership for a 30-day comment period prior to adoption.
12. Given these guidelines, we encourage friendly debate, socializing, and good humor. Thank you for becoming part of our online community.

Violations of Discussion Guidelines and Rules 

• Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email or private message. We will make every effort to remove objectionable messages within a reasonable time frame, if we determine removal is necessary. If you feel another member is behaving in a manner that is in violation of these rules, do not take matters into your own hands. Let us try to resolve the situation. Simply alert the moderator of the forum or the Board Administrator.
  
• Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email or private message. We will make every effort to remove objectionable messages within a reasonable time frame, if we determine removal is necessary. If you feel another member is behaving in a manner that is in violation of these rules, do not take matters into your own hands. Let us try to resolve the situation. Simply alert the moderator of the forum or the Board Administrator.
• Upon finding a post in violation of the Discussion Guidelines and Rules, a moderator will lock the thread as a preventative measure, or remove it from the public forum, posting a note of temporary closure - "This thread has been temporarily locked/removed due to a user agreement violation. The thread will be reviewed and if possible the violations will be addressed and the thread returned for discussion.
• The moderator will then alert the member who violated the Discussion Guidelines and Rules by PM and will ask the member to reword the post
• Should the violation be a severe one or the member be unwilling to reword the post, the moderator may elect to remove the contents of the post and issue an Alert.
• Once a violation in a thread has been addressed and returned for discussion, the moderator will warn the thread that further violations within the thread could result in closure and /or removal.
• In the event of another violation, the moderator will PM the member(s), notify the thread of closure and close the thread.
• The moderator will inform the administrator of the incident.
• Alerts are issued by a moderator. Warnings are issued by an administrator. Three alerts equal a warning. Three warnings result in a suspension for one month. Suspension may be from a specific forum or all of MDC. Two suspensions may result in removal of membership. Based on the severity of the violation or the number of previous violations by a member, the Administrator may issue a warning, suspension or ban.
• We reserve the right to delete any message or to remove the registration and membership of any individual at any time.

Recourse

If you object to a board policy, an alert, warning, ban or suspension:

• Email or discuss the situation with the moderator.
• Email or discuss the situation with the board administrator.
• Submit a request for review to The Kitchen Table. The Kitchen Table is an advisory board comprised of a rotating membership of two moderators and three board members, usually the top board posters; members are appointed by the publisher. The Kitchen Table provides a place to bring complaints and resolve conflicts. It also offers advice to the publisher and board administration.
• If you do not receive a prompt reply from The Kitchen Table email the Web Editor or Publisher.

Disclaimer 

Considering the real time nature of the board, it is impossible for us to review all messages or confirm the validity of information posted. Please remember that we do not actively monitor the contents of all posted messages and are not responsible for any messages posted. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of MotheringDotCommune or any entity associated with this bulletin board.

As a member you remain solely responsible for the content of your messages and behavior, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Mothering Magazine, Inc., MotheringDotCommune, vBulletin, Inc. and their agents with respect to any claim based upon messages. Please be cautious in posting information of a personal nature or anything that might create legal concerns for you or others.