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Posting Rules

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:25 am
by Admin
POSTING RULES

The following are PROHIBITED at Dharma Wheel:

PERSONAL ATTACKS – abusive remarks directed at a person, including personal attacks as substitutes for evidence in debates or arguments (ad hominem).

DEFAMING INDIVIDUALS – damaging the reputation of private individuals including users, especially with false or unsubstantiated claims.

HATE SPEECH - speech attacking or denigrating a person or group on the basis of attributes such as sex, gender, ethnic or national origin, religion, race, political views, disability, or sexual orientation. This provision will be applied expansively by the moderators to preclude speech evincing denigrating attitudes.

INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT – inappropriate or offensive information including language, images, audio or video.

AI GENERATED CONTENT - for example ChatGPT and Google Bard (not limited to these examples).

ADVERTISING – posting messages containing or links to advertising for commercial goods and services, including links in personal signatures.

SOLICITING - asking for or trying to obtain money or services from someone.

PROSELYTIZING – attempting to convert someone from one religion, sect, belief, or opinion to one's own. This is not meant to chill discussion as one purpose of this board is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and mutual edification between individuals of different backgrounds. However, moderators will exercise discretion when the line is crossed and the mutual discussion ceases and the exchange devolves into a one way exchange of proselytizing.

DEFAMING TRADITIONS OR TEACHERS – damaging or disparaging the reputation oftraditions or teachers, especially with false or unsubstantiated claims. Criticism of traditions or teachers may be discussed in the forums for those traditions in which the criticism is a teaching. Alternatively, inter-school debate is permitted in Open Dharma, and discussions of authenticity and interpretation of texts and teachings are permitted in the Academic Forum.

PLAGIARISM - taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. If quoting a source in your post, provide reasonable citations

META-DISCUSSION – Discussing the discussion. For instance, complaining about the tone of the discussion, the personalities of other contributors as supposedly revealed in the conversation, the inability to stick to the topic at hand, or comparisons of the discussion to conversations elsewhere on the Internet.

DOUBLE POSTING – posting the same or substantially the same post in two or more different discussion threads.

NECROPOST - Reviving, updating or bumping old topics, i.e. topics with last post dates over 6 months old (1 month for topics in the 'Introductions' forum), is not permitted. Exceptions include all topics in the pinned 'Announcement' section of each forum for example:- 'The Great Vegetarian Debate', The Great Abortion Debate' and any 'Resource' topic. Rather than digging up old topics, start a new one with a link to the original topic. When starting a new topic do not use the same 'Subject' as this interferes with the search function. Failure to comply will result in topics/posts being removed without further notice.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS – reproducing privately communicated information without the sender’s express consent.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION – disclosing the private or personal information including names, contact information, or any other identifying information of another without their express consent.

TROLLING – posting or sending deliberately offensive or provocative messages with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them. Do not post more than one music song or video in one post. Excessive posts in the music thread may be deleted or not approved.

SPAMMING – posting or sending unsolicited messages, particularly advertising.

SHUGDEN/DOLGYAL – Dharma Wheel stands firmly against the promotion and propagation of Shugden/Dolgyal. As such ALL discussion of anything related to Shugden/Dolgyal, including practices and related material, as well as criticism, are strictly prohibited on Dharma Wheel. The discussion of or linking to material from groups and individuals that promote them, such as Geshe Kelsang Gyato's New Kadampa Tradition or Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's (deceased) Kechara will be removed. This zero tolerance policy against all discussion is premised on the principle that any bandwidth given to the subject, even criticism, is too much. Dharma Wheel follows the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on this subject, and all the heads of the Tibetan traditions condemn such practices due to their extremely divisive nature and the negative effects to a person's well-being. The common advice is to ignore them instead of nursing the bad energy by attention. Further information can be found here: http://dalailama.com/messages/dolgyal-shugden or http://shugdeninfo.com.

POSTS CANNOT BE EDITED EXCEPT AS PROVIDED

Time limit for editing posts is set at one hour. Posts cannot be edited or deleted after one hour from posting as it disrupts the conversation, especially when whole posts are deleted.

POSTERS DO NOT OWN THEIR POSTS

By posting information at DW, the Member is granting DW a perpetual, non-exclusive right to publish the information. We do not delete accounts nor delete posts as it disrupts the conversation. Each poster is responsible for carefully crafting their posts and one should avoid making statements that will be regretted. This is a voluntary forum with no membership fees. Except as provided in furtherance of moderation, DW will not alter information posted nor use the information for commercial purposes. DW shall have no responsibility to protect information posted on DW.

PRIVACY POLICY

Dharma Wheel will not use or release any Member's personal information such as names, email addresses or other contact information provided during Registration and which is not published in a post, without prior written consent. Notwithstanding, Member acknowledges that they understand that information posted publicly on the site is accessible publicly and Dharma Wheel is not responsible for such public access or use of any publicly posted information by third parties.

BE NICE

Be polite. We cannot emphasize this point enough. Rudeness in any form will not be tolerated. As a Buddhist forum, we expect members to do their best to uphold the conduct of "Right Speech" as taught by the Buddha. Please read Right Speech and Enlightened Discussion for further information. Any member who is not attempting to abide by this conduct and is intentionally unpleasant to other members in public discussion on Dharma Wheel will initially be suspended to give the moderating team time to discuss if there is to be further action. Furthermore, any member who abuses any member of the moderating team via PM or email, especially in relation to a moderation decision, will similarly be suspended pending consideration of further action. Please think before you hit "Submit"!

Do not be disruptive. Dharma Wheel is an environment for the discussion of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. All are welcome but are required to abide by the Terms of Service (ToS). The staff team reserve the right to edit/remove inappropriate content, and to remove or transfer any posts or threads that are not relevant to the sub-forum in which they are posted. Any subject matter that may be off-topic or is intended only to cause disruption or harm to others may be removed without notice.

BE MINDFUL OF SUBFORA SUBJECT MATTER

Please take notice of the various sub-fora on the front page and further sub-fora within sub-fora. As a general matter, discussions in sub-fora should relate to their designated subjects. For instance, Tibetan Buddhism should be discussed in the Tibetan Buddhism sub-forum, and East Asian Buddhism should be discussed in the East Asian Buddhism sub-forum. Similarly, in further specialized sub-fora, discussions should be limited to the relevant subject.

Please take further notice that it is not appropriate to question or critique teachings and practices of traditions in sub-forums dedicated to those particular traditions. For example, do not challenge the core Dharma concepts and principles of Pure Land Buddhism in the Pure Land sub-fora.

Questioning and debating the teachings and traditional interpretations of general or specific Buddhist traditions is permitted in the Open Dharma sub-forum only. However, such discourse must be conducted sensitively and reasonably argued and grounded. Unfounded or arbitrary critiques will be subject to moderation.

CLAIMS OF ATTAINMENT

It is strongly recommended that Members not make claims of higher attainments for themselves as it tends to cause disruption. If anyone feels that they have such attainments, they should use that wisdom to help guide the discourse rather than draw attention to oneself.

COMPARATIVE RELIGION

This is not a "comparative religion site". It is a site to learn about and discuss the Buddha's teachings without animosity. While some comparative discussions may be permitted at the discretion of the Moderation Team, it will be allowed only to the extent that such reference serves to illuminate a point about Buddha Dharma.

~ Badmouthing of other spiritual paths is prohibited.
~ Proselyting/evangelizing other paths which includes for example arguing a non-Buddhist path is superior to the Buddhist path is prohibited.

QUOTING AND REFERENCING SOURCES

When quoting a source, please provide a citation and if possible, a link. Do not copy and paste full articles or long passages. Instead, select and copy a few sentences or, at most, paragraphs, that are relevant to the discussion and paste them with proper citation.

Please respect the wishes of teachers/authors. It is policy here not to permit quotes (or the publishing of) tracts from restricted texts or the reproduction of restricted images, audio/video including web/podcasts.

Any text or images which are considered Fair Use or not copyrighted may be used including articles which are freely given, providing they are used here for non-commercial purposes as this is an ad-free non-commercial website.

MEDICAL ADVICE AND MENTAL HEALTH

Medical advice may not be given at Dharma Wheel to anyone regardless of the qualifications of the person giving the advice, and medical advice should not be solicited by Members.

Members who are suffering serious medical conditions including mental illness should seek diagnosis and treatment from a qualified medical professional in person.

Those who are suffering from an acute phase of a mental illness, including ideation of self-harm and/or are suicide are urged to seek immediate professional assistance. http://www.befrienders.org/index.asp

~ Members are asked not to use Dharma Wheel as a platform to express intentions of self-harm or suicide, the experience of hearing voices or other hallucinations, or other symptoms of acute mental illness.
~ When encountering a member who appears to be suffering an acute episode of a mental illness, we should treat that member with compassion and refer that member to medical/emergency services within that person's community. Members are asked to immediately report such posts to the Moderation Team with the “Report this Post” function activated by clicking on the exclamation point (!) icon in the top right corner of the message box.

Dharma Wheel does not condone the use of psychoactive drugs in connection with spiritual practice and most experienced Buddhist teachers and practitioners advise against them because their potential benefits are limited in relation to their risks. Additionally, of course, many psychoactive drugs are illegal in many jurisdictions. Psychoactive drugs may only be discussed in the Open Dharma forum at the discretion of the Moderation Team.