This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion
Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.
These are not hard and fast rules, merely aids to the human judgment of our community. Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.
Improve the Discussion
Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.
The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.
One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Please spend some time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.
Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree
You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:
- Name-calling.
- Ad hominem attacks.
- Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
- Knee-jerk contradiction.
Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.
Your Participation Counts
The conversations we have here set the tone for everyone. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.
Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: favorites, bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.
Let’s try to leave our park better than we found it.
If You See a Problem, Flag It
Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.
When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.
In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts in any way; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.
You can our @moderators directly by sending a group message.
Always Be Civil
Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:
- Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
- Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
- Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
- Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.
These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of the New York Times.
This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.
Keep It Tidy
Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:
- Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
- Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
- Don’t post no-content replies.
- Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
- Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.
Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.
Post Only Your Own Stuff
You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.
Detailed content guidelines
Talking Sober is a community where we talk about staying or getting sober. We as a community aim to help ourselves and others by participating here. Think about your post before you publish it. We are all here seeking help or offering help to others. If your post does not do that, please don’t post it.
Be mindful that this is a space for people experiencing a range of addictions, including alcoholism, drug addiction (including opiates, prescription narcotics, benzodiazepines, cocaine, methamphetamine, cannabis and others), gambling, porn and masturbation, sex and love, and others - this list is not exclusive. What one person may find appropriate may negatively impact another’s sobriety.
Here are the rules and guidelines for Talking Sober:
- Above all, be civil. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree. Do not attack, name call, bully, belittle, gang up on, badger or harass other community members.
- Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech. Racism, misogyny, homophobia and the like will not be tolerated.
- Respect confidentiality. Do not expose people’s private information without their consent.
- Do not post while you are under the influence. These posts can negatively impact other members’ sobriety. There is a special opt in category (Seeking Help ) for those posting whilst under the influence.
- Rather than posting about using, try to keep your focus on how you want to stop using. This is a sobriety focused site - promoting moderation can negatively impact members’ sobriety.
- Do not post sexually explicit material (no visible nipples and/or genitalia).
Visible coverage tops/shirts and bottoms are required in all selfies, memes and photos, regardless of gender. Please do not post photos in swimwear regardless of gender. - This is not a dating site - refrain from asking about dates or hookups in public or private message.
- This is not a marketplace, self-promotion, or fundraising platform. Do not list or attempt to sell services or raise money. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.
- Stick to the language that the topic was originally created in. All languages are welcome, but please do so in separate topics.
- Respect the conversation. Stay on topic in a thread and do not derail the discussion.
- Do not promote illegal activities.
- You need to be 18+ to create a user account . You’ll receive a confirmation box when registering it. Being dishonest will lead to a permanent account suspension.
- Please refrain from posting about politics . Political discussions will be removed by moderators without bias.
- Multiple accounts for the same person are not allowed.
Personal and sensitive subjects are often shared. Post with the best intentions and assume other members are doing the same. If a post is troubling or distressing, consider taking a step back and reading it again later from the perspective of good intent.
Attacks of any kind, direct or indirect, will not be tolerated. If you believe a post to be genuinely troubling or in violation of these guidelines, please contact a member of the moderator team. Refrain from responding to the member in public discussion with additional hostility.
Please also see our FAQ Frequently Asked Questions for further guidelines (see below where to find FAQ).
Posts that break these guidelines will be addressed by the moderator team. Moderators reserve the right to edit or delete content, and/or close topics. Repeated offenses will lead to official warnings and account suspension. If someone disagrees with a decision taken by a moderator they should private message @moderators and the issue will be reviewed by another moderator.
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This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.
Terms of Service
Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.